Day 19: Three Family Members to Go!

Like!

Can I just say that I really love shopping at amazon.com? I mean, they have everything in the world. I spent maybe 30 minutes this evening shopping there and crossed one more family member off of my list and found four items for our military care package. It was so easy! And the shipping was free as well. Like!

TALLY:
Friends & Family: 15 of 18, CHECK!
10 Neighbors: CHECK!
45 Piano Students: CHECK!
Charitable Gifts: 4 out of 6 CHECK! (with progress made on the 5th)
Stockings: CHECK!
Handmade Project: No progress today. Boo.

Day 18: The Beauty of Shopping for Adult Children

Hey, I may occasionally get sad when I think about how my boys are too old for Legos, Hot Wheels garages, and Star Wars action figures, but I got over it really quickly this morning when I was able to finish shopping for my younger son in 10 minutes. The beauty of having 20-somethings in your house for Christmas is that they can do pretty much all of the leg work for poor old mom and dad. We give our boys a budget and ask them to provide us with a wish list that fits it. Our younger one gave me a meticulously specific list AND included links to the shopping sites that offered the best prices. This made Mrs. Claus's job way freakin' easy. He had a good time presenting the list as well, I'm sure!

So, here is my tip for shopping for older kids: If they do not have their precious little hearts set on being surprised, let them tell you exactly what they hope to receive, and make them responsible for fitting their wishes into your prescribed budget. My younger boy gets an A+ for doing his part this year.

Our older boy is not so easy to be done with, if I may speak frankly. He wants these hard-to-find vintage comics that take hours to find ebay. Do you think I should make him do the shopping? :)

Handmade Project Update

I worked on the handmade gift for an hour this morning and will continue with another hour this afternoon while waiting for the dryer to buzz. Multi-tasking.

Christmas Cards

I've done nothing at all in this department so far, but I do have an idea. What if instead of making all 60 or so cards by hand (which, when attempted last year, failed miserably),  I make one fabulous image, copy it 60 times, and stick the copies to the front of 60 blank cards? I still have LOTS of blank cards in my stash since I only finished a measly five of them last year. May I speak freely? I think I have a bit of a psychological issue with Christmas cards. See, my brother and sister-in-law always make an amazing card. Last year's was so over-the-top perfect that it may have been the cause of my demise. Intimidation, you know. I need to stop competing with my brother. I'm far better at most things than he is, so in the name of charity, I should just let him win the Christmas card competition every year.

TALLY:

Family & Friends: 14 out of 18 CHECK!

10 Neighbors: CHECK!

45 Piano Students: CHECK! (should assemble 6 more of these tonight)

Charitable Gifts: 4 out of 6 CHECK!

Handmade Gift: 2 hours' work on it today

Stockings: GOOD!

Christmas Cards: On the radar

Day 17: Assembly Line and Afghanistan

First things first. I promised yesterday that I would provide evidence of my having worked for an hour on my handmade Christmas project last night. I can't reveal the work in progress, but I will tell you that it is housed in this adorable pink and green bag which will ultimately serve as the wrapping for the gift when it is complete. I worked for an hour on the big deal last night as well as two hours this morning. Sounds impressive, but I am sensing that I will have to spend even more time on it each day if I am to finish by August 31.

Assembly Line

All of the elements of my piano student gifts have been delivered now, so I have started to put them together. I need to do 45 of these, and there are 12 done as of this evening. 

It's a good thing I started assembling these early, because it made me realize that I don't have nearly enough musical ribbon. I'm kinda glad I didn't make this discovery the day before our Christmas recital! No need to panic; I can buy more tomorrow. But speaking of ribbon, look at the pretty spools of it I found today:

Afghanistan

FYI, I think these are British soldiers, but I like the picture.

I learned of a terrific idea today on Facebook. A friend posted a message indicating that she had knowledge of five young men serving in the U.S. Military in Afghanistan who rarely receive care packages from home. I'm sure there are many more than five for whom this is the case, but this information was provided by the son of my friend's friend who is serving there. He feels sorry for a few of his buddies who don't receive things from family back home as he does. The Facebook post provided a list of suggested items to include in the care package:

I couldn't take a bigger screen shot than this, but the next sentence indicated that things like whoopee cushions are big hits. This really got to me. I have two boys who are of the same age as many of these young men, and I can just see them enjoying a box of silly as well as useful stuff. So THIS is my next project! I'm going to put a care package together for one of the young men and get his box out ASAP! Not waiting until Christmas for this one.

One final thought: I can see my dining room table now! Things were getting very crazy, but I found storage places for the gifts that are already wrapped, got rid of the bubble wrap and cardboard boxes that I was saving for gift shipments (changed my mind! can't stand the clutter!), dusted, and ran the vacuum. Whew! I feel better now. Apparently, the cat does, too.

TALLY

13 Friends and Family: CHECK!

10 Neighbors: CHECK!

45 Piano Students: CHECK! (12 of 45 gifts assembled)

5 Charitable Gifts: CHECK!

Stockings: GOOD!

Handmade Project: 3 hours spent since yesterday

Care Package for Soldier in Afghanistan: MY NEXT PROJECT!

Day 16: "Difficult" People

I don't know these people, but I like them.

Remember how I lamented the difficulty of choosing gifts for certain men in my family on Day 8? Well, I dealt with one of these gentlemen today, and I would like to offer a few words of support to anyone else who struggles with what to do for those sorts of people. You know, the ones who either already have everything or who never seem happy with any gifts.

• You do not have to make a person's dreams come true with your Christmas gift.
• If you have someone in your life who literally never seems thrilled with any gift whatsoever, it may simply be a case of that person enjoying the act of giving more than receiving. Or perhaps he is uncomfortable receiving gifts for some personal reason that you don't understand. Accept it and move on.
• If you feel that you absolutely must give a Christmas gift to a person who is hard to shop for, do the best you can to ascertain the sorts of things he or she likes, get the gift, and don't expect a big "wow" when it is opened. It's okay.
• Ask someone close to the recipient for tips. I did that and learned that my difficult person (you know what I mean) likes clothes. He doesn't flip out over clothes, but he does like clothes, so I found out his size and went shopping online at his favorite store...from which I had a discount coupon!
• If your difficult person is your parent, he might not like it when you spend your hard-earned money on him. Ever see that episode of Seinfeld in which Jerry tries so hard to give his dad a new wallet with money hidden inside? What did Mr. Seinfeld do when Jerry wasn't looking? He tossed the wallet in the trash without ever looking inside because it closed with Velcro, and his dad hated Velcro! Parents are parents, and it's not our job to make them decide to enjoy receiving gifts. Just don't hide money inside your present!
• Think of some little things that please your recipient. Mine gets a kick out lottery tickets and tiny bottles of booze. I'm way too uppity to ever purchase a lottery ticket or enter an ABC store, so I make my husband take care of this.  :)
• It might be nice to give a donation to the person's favorite charity for Christmas. 
• Does the person love anybody? Sure he does! How about giving him pictures of the people or pets he loves? You could put them in frames, on magnets, in books, or in a new wallet!
• Gift certificates are generally appreciated.
• Bottom line: Put a little thought into it, but don't make yourself crazy trying to please. It's wasted energy and doesn't improve your gift's impact. 
• Give a gift with love in your heart and don't worry about the recipient's reaction.

Here is what my calendar and master list look like as of this afternoon:

Report on the Handmade Gift

I do hereby promise that I will spend 60 minutes on my big handmade Christmas project as soon as I finish this blog entry. If Day 17 doesn't provide evidence of this effort, I will punish myself with no Starbucks that day. So there.

Clothes for a Child In Need

Before I write this paragraph, let me say that I don't discuss my charitable giving here in order to praise myself or to elicit commendations. I'm blogging about it to include the concept of giving outside of one's own circle of friends in the challenge I have undertaken this month. It is in that spirit that I share my plans to buy clothes for a child in need next month. I can't do it during Christmas in August, because the child's wish list will not be available until September. The best I can do now is to set aside funds and let the group I plan to work with, The Needlework Guild, know I am interested in participating in their annual new clothing drive. Members of NGA collect information about what is needed and wanted among children at our local elementary and middle schools and assign each child to a participating donor (or personal shopper as I like to think of it). Our chapter president promised me a middle school girl this year, and as the mother of boys, I can tell you that I am happy whenever I get to shop for girly things! 

TALLY:

13 Family & Friends: CHECK

10 Neighbors: CHECK

45 Piano Students: CHECK

Charitable Gifts:  4 DOWN (1 more in September)

Stockings: GOOD!

Handmade Project: Working on it now.

Day 15: Pausing to Give Thanks

I am exhausted! Not because of Christmas in August, but because of a marathon day of teaching today. Don't get me wrong...I love teaching piano (especially to the group of kids I get to work with), but 10:00 am - 5:30 pm is a long haul even for the most eager pedagogue. I confess I haven't done a single thing to advance the Christmas in August cause since yesterday. Except if you count opening the mail and finding something I ordered on Day 10.

But that's okay.

Today is the halfway point in my month-long challenge. I believe it's high time I stopped to give thanks. I am so very grateful to have loved ones for whom to shop. I'm thankful that there is money in my pocket that allows me to buy little things for people who mean the world to me. I'm grateful for a home where I can store treasures for later and a gift list that's getting checked off bit by bit. I'm so very thankful for the dream of spending this Christmas season relaxing, giving, singing, reflecting, and sharing. I thank God for sending his son Jesus and giving us a reason to celebrate on December 25 (which is probably not at all the correct date, but who cares?). I'm thankful to be halfway through this challenge!

Thank you, God, for your many blessings in my life. I am so completely humbled that you would see fit to love someone like me, and I am forever your servant. May our worldly celebrations, such as they are, bring some small measure of honor to you. Amen.

Day 14: Gift Tags (How-To) & Progress!

I don't mean to brag, but look at this! We're making progress here, and as the mid-way point in my challenge approaches, I'm feeling a combination of: this is fantastic(!), and uh-oh, things are starting to pile up. I realized today that my planned stow-away place for all of this Christmas goodness is not temperature-controlled, and it might be wise to come up with an alternative. I have a few empty cupboards and nooks around the house that will do the trick for some of it, so I'll give that a try and report back later.

Spiffy and Shiny Gift Tags (How-To)

My sister came up with this idea last year: printing gift tags on glossy photo paper. It sounds weird, but it really looks nice. She even printed pictures of her family on her tags last year. I'm not doing that...yet...but I'll show you what I am doing. It's very simple.

First, take a look at the example of what I'm going to show you how to make:

1. Open up your word-processing program and start a new text document. I use Open Office.

2. Create a text box (or "frame" in my case).

3. Edit the border to be the thickness and color you want.

4. Edit the background with a fill color if you like. I'm using a pale blue-gray.

5. Type your text using the font and color you like. The font I'm using is called KG Eyes Wide Open, and I'm using plain red for the font color.

6. Print on glossy photo paper, and voila!

Of course, you could do something much more elaborate than this, or you could use plain paper or card stock if you preferred. 

Gift List Headway

I knocked a biggie off the list today by ordering three of an item my husband likes but rarely buys for himself. I also picked up a key ingredient of the homemade thingy I'm making for ______ and got all of my supplies for the project in order. Tomorrow I really, really need to make serious progress on this item. It will not be easy, because I'm teaching summer piano lessons all day, but I'll see if I can make something happen. :)

TALLY:

12 Friends & Family: CHECK! (notice the bumped up number?)

10 Neighbors: CHECK!

45 Piano Students: CHECK!

4 Charitable Gifts: CHECK!
Homemade Item: Supplies in order. Ready to start.

Stockings: Lookin' good. (The geeky stuff was delivered, and it's nifty.)

Day 13: Handmade Gifts for Christmas

Just as I plan to do this year, I made an awesome ____________ for __________ last year, but I didn't finish it until after midnight on Christmas Eve! I can't let that happen again, so I'm trying to get on the ball now. I need specific supplies to make the awesome thingy, so yesterday, I hopped in the car with my son, stopped by Starbucks (goes without saying), and headed to the local store that carries the doohickies I need to make the certain something.

I brought a teacher's coupon along with me for 20% off of my total purchase, including sale and clearance items (YES!) and was stunned to find EXACTLY what I needed marked down drastically. Take a look:

Are you kidding me? This is nothing but a perfect storm of bargain stupendousness. While I was at the _______ store, I also found gift bags for my neighbor gifts in a 13-pack (Why not a 12-pack so you get the same number of each of the two colors? I don't know, and I'm not asking.) for $5.99.

After I presented my 20% off coupon at check-out, the bottom line on this purchase was so ridiculously low that I half-expected the police to show up. How do I feel about making a score of this magnitude? Allow me express it with the help of the geeky goodie I bought for myself on Day 7 (which arrived yesterday!):

Now that I have everything I need to make that awesome ___________ for _________, I must get going on ACTUALLY MAKING THE ITEM so that I can finish it by August 31 instead of December 24. I will definitely need to focus up for this...

TALLY:

11 Friends & Family: CHECK

10 Neighbors: CHECK

45 Piano Students: CHECK

4 Charitable Gifts: CHECK

Homemade item for ___: SUPPLIES SECURED!

Stockings: Just enough room saved for Santa