unsigned podcast » Holidays

Welcome to Twenty Ten

podcaster — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 17:10:50 +0000

This is the start of a new year and also a new decade. The year Twenty Ten has great promise for us all, as our President gets settled into office and is able to use his influence to create the great changes that he has promised to bring us. There have been some economic stimulus plans, such as “cash for clunkers,” that were a huge success. Now we need to see some serious, lasting jobs created and help for Americans to keep or buy homes, and a new approach to our health care.

Christmas at Home

podcaster — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 03:15:07 +0000

Looks like I’m the only one who won’t be gathering with the family at the homeplace this year. Everyone in my family lives within an hour or two of my mom’s house except for me. It is a 14 hour drive to get to mom’s house, door to door, which is a long hard day of driving, and to be honest, I’m not up for that long of a drive in one day. I would need to stay overnight at a roadside motel to get some rest and not take the chance of an accident due to driver fatigue.

The cost of gas has risen so that just paying for gas up and back is cost prohibitive. It costs $70 to fill the tank and I estimate it would take 3 tanks to get there, one tank to visit locally and then 3 tanks back. That is a lot of money for gas that could be better spent benefiting my family instead of some Arab sheik.

So we are staying home this year and I guess we will get everyone on the video cam sometime around noon to exchange Christmas wishes among the family.

Merry Christmas to all!

Turkey Day

podcaster — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:21:36 +0000

Last week I bought a huge frozen Butterball turkey to enjoy on Thanksgiving. We took it out of the freezer and put it into the refrigerator to defrost 3 days ago. It is still as hard as a rock and I guess we will have to soak it in the kitchen sink or figure out how to use the microwave to finish thawing it out before we pop it in the oven today. I think the turkey is too big to even fit into the microwave. This will be an interesting problem to solve, with physics and logistic coming into play.

Looks like dinner will be in the evening rather than late afternoon as originally planned. LOL

Boo!

podcaster — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:25:52 +0000

Last year we had a lot of kids come to the door for trick or treating. I was concerned that we night run out of candy before the night was through, but we managed to squeak by with just a few pieces left over at 9:00 pm, and we turned off the porch light at 9. I don’t think that kids should be roaming the neighborhoods after 9:00 pm, and it appears that most of my neighbors believe the same thing.

This year we bought an extra bag of assorted candies from Sam’s Club. If we have any left over by the end of the evening, at least this is candy that we like and can enjoy eating ourselves over the next couple of months.

Here it is 5:00 pm and we already have kids coming to the door! They are very young kids with their parents, and I’m sure they will tucker out quickly. It is fun to see the imaginative costumes that are being worn this year.

Happy Holidays

podcaster — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 03:44:31 +0000

This time of year is for holidays and family things, no matter what your religion or lack of. It’s the season to be merry. It’s the time to be generous and grateful. This is when you realize that family means everything and friends are to be treasured.

So Merry Christmas to my friends and family. If you celebrate other holidays during this time of year, I hope that your choice of celebration is wonderful for you, too.

Happy Halloween

podcaster — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 06:34:30 +0000

Don’t let the Boogey Man get you. Or the ghosts, the witches or those cute little princesses. Be safe out there. Have fun. And give me some of your candy! Chocolate – I want chocolate.

Sugar and spice

podcaster — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:17:32 +0000

Hasving spent the day with my sister and her kids, I knew that I could be the most help to my sister while she dealt with the funeral home and all the calls from family and friends if I took her daughters out for lunch and got them out of the house for a bit. Even though it was a very sad day for everyone, we managed to enjoy the time together. I took them to a Ruby Tuesday to eat, and we sat in a booth, in the back by the restrooms, and sat around for a couple hours just talking.

I decided that some of the things I could to do to help my sister get through this would be very practical and I wanted to take care of a lot of details that she might not have the time or energy to deal with. I took the girls shopping after lunch to get new dresses and shoes for the funeral home stuff, and I went ahead and bought a couple other more fun outfits for them so they would have something nice and feel a little special.

Last night I even asked the youngest niece what she wanted to do about Halloween. I wasn’t even sure that kids who are 12 and 13 years old even do anything about Halloween, but she assured me that yes she still like to party on Halloween and she takes some of the younger kids in the neighborhood trick or treating, so she wants to dress up this year again.

We got onto the internet at her house and found great Halloween costume stores web sites. There was one site that had a while section of costumes just for teens, which was great. We not only liked the costumes but we knew they would come in the right sizes for teens. My niece sat at the computer with me and looked through the Teen Halloween Costumes with me. She picked out this great costume, one of the officially licensed “Pirates of the Carribean” costumes, so I went ahead and ordered it for her:

Gift Exchange

podcaster — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:56:32 +0000

Coming from a large family, exchanging birthday and Christmas with every family member quickly got to be too expensive for most of us, so my sister proposed a gift exchange plan that we’re giving a try this year. She has put household names into a hat and drawn a match for each household. The gift giver has the option of buying a small gift for each person in that drawn household or buying one larger gift for the entire household to share and enjoy. she sent out an email this morning asking all of us to confirm our desire to participate in the gift exchange or we have the option of declaring amnesty and opting out. If we opt out then we won’t be receiving gifts from anyone in the family but we won’t have to buy any, either. But I decided we would participate so I confirmed with her and started thinking about ways to save money on the gifts.

It seems strange to be thinking about Christmas in August, but my sister wanted the different family members to have plenty of time to shop for bargains or possible craft or construct the gifts, so she will be drawing the names this weekend and letting us know our lot.

We have always enjoyed getting up early on Black Friday to start our Christmas shopping and we make a day of guerilla shopping. I’m sure you know that Black Friday is what they call the day after Thanksgiving. It’s big doings at all the malls and retail stores, as they viciously compete for your Christmas shopping money with special sales and secret specials on that day.

One thing I learned that will help us this year is the web site that lets us know what all the secret specials and black friday sales will be in advance of everyone else who has to wait for the Thanksgiving Day newspaper to find out. by finding out ahead of time we can plan our shopping day’s itinerary and give each family member their shopping mission before we head out of the door at 4:30 am on Black Friday. This site also sends out email alerts when sales are announced, so I’ve signed up and I’m gearing up for the world’s busiest shopping day already!

Family Photos

podcaster — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:40:52 +0000

The kids came home from their first day of school full of chatter and excitement about their new classes, their new teachers, and all the friends they haven’t seen over the summer. They brought a pile of paperwork that needs to be filled out and signed and sent back in, often with a check attached. One of the things I wanted to see right away was the school calendar with all the holidays and vacation dates. Sorry to say, here it is August and I’m already thinking about December and Christmas vacation.

This year we won’t be seeing much of the family as we are going to go to the Bahamas for Christmas. Usually we all get together at my mother’s home for a dinner and gift exchange, and I’m sure they will all be disappointed that we aren’t coming, but I have a great deal on the Bahamas trips and that’s what my kids want to do, so that’s the plan. I just needed to know the dates of their school holidays so they don’t miss any school when I book the trip.

Since we won’t be seeing all the family this Christmas, I thought it would be nice to see out Christmas Photo Cards to everyone. That at least puts our face in front of them over the holidays, even though we won’t be there in person. Found a great web site to order the cards and they have two options for the types of cards you can order. One option is a designed frame and they print your photo right on the card frame. The other option is a photo holder where they printed the inside of the card and you insert your own photos right into the frame using double sided stickers or sliding the photo into the cut corners of the frame.

I have some snapshots of the family from our company picnic and our trip to the amusement park to look through for using on the photo cards, and if none of those work out well for a photo Christmas card, I can take some more with my digital camera until I get the right pose and the right shot. The web site has a link with tips on taking photographs using digital cameras and even cell phones. It’s always good to read through photo card taking tips – you never know when you’ll learn something new and useful.

Internationally Yours

podcaster — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:47:17 +0000

When you work for an international company you must develop an increased awareness for the holidays and celebrations in other countries. As American’s we are used to the banking-type holidays, when the banks, the post office, government buildings and sometimes school will all be closed for the day. Then there are the cultural holidays, like Mother’s Day, Flag Day, even Thanksgiving, that are celebrated in America on certain dates but perhaps not observed in other countries on the same dates, if at all.

A good example is Father’s Day. In America, Canada, and the U.K. we all honor our fathers by celebrating Father’s Day on the third Sunday in June, every year. However, in Australia, Fathers Day is celebrated on the first Sunday in September.

With Father’s Day just a little over a month away, our friends in Australia are already shopping for gifts and planning their celebrations. A great site to shop for Fathers Day Gifts is DadShop.com.au and it’s not bad for ideas for Christmas gifts, either. Check it out. I can be Australian for the day if the urge to buy me something overcomes you!