Bells A-Ringin'

Last night Derek and I went Christmas shopping. Yes, I actually went Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving! The snow must be getting me in the spirit. It was very festive - snow, winter coats, Christmas music . . .

Anyway, we went to the dollar store, just to see what was there. You can't beat a dollar, you know.

We found several cute things, but I wanted to show you all this little Christmas door hanger that we got while we were there.





Isn't it just so cute? Then whenever we open the door there will be bells ringing too. And it was only one dollar!

I love the dollar store.

Must Be Santa Monday: Little tea set

Little girls like little girl toys.

I, on the other hand, would prefer to buy little boy toys. Boys have MUCH cooler toys.

But I managed to find this at Fred Meyer for $2.
So for Kidlet, I bought it.

Because she's a girl that likes girl things.

It's one of those little glass/porcelain/whatever it is tea sets. She'll love it, I promise.

To join in on Must Be Santa Monday, click here for more details, post on your blog, and then come back to this post and share your link in the comments!

wrapping paper

I love picking out wrapping paper.

It's one of my favorite things to buy; it's so much fun to look through the different patterns and imagine which one will look best under our Christmas tree! It's a big responsibility; whatever you choose is going to adorn the gifts of your friends and family, and you don't want to present them with ugly presents!

Aaaand this is why I passed up the Nascar wrapping paper ;)

This year I picked these:

Left to right:
$1.50 at Target
$1.00 at Walmart
$1.00 at Walmart


I have two more rolls, but I'll show you those later--they're extra special, all the way from the North Pole!

mess of Christmas purchases

I came home with this mess the other night:

This "mess" consists of various gifts and holiday surprises I purchased the other day.

I spent the whole day hitting most of the bigger stores in town, looking for gifts for various people.
Unfortunately I've still got a way to go before I've got everyone taken care of, but I made some progress.

I got some picture frames, which I'll use for various people's gifts when I get it all sorted out.
I got some gifts for Kidlet and for Hubby.

And I got pretty much all of the supplies I'm going to need--wrapping paper, greeting cards, bows, that kind of stuff. I usually don't buy a new bag of bows every year, but last year I learned an important lesson:
When Kidlet wraps presents, she likes to use lots of bows.

Every gift gets a bow, in fact.

Usually when I wrap presents I don't put a bow on every single one, since there's usually quite a bit of wrapping to do with lots of presents.

But since Kidlet is... well, a kid... bows are an essential part of Christmas wrapping!
So now that I know better, I buy them every year.

Give me a few more days and I'll show you some of what I bought!

getting kids in the spirit

It doesn't take a lot to get kids interested in Christmas.

Simply mention the word and they're ecstatic--impatiently so.

I made mention to Kidlet--in passing, mind you--of something Christmas related sometime last week and she immediately started getting excited. She made her Christmas list (I'll show it to you sometime!), made lists of things she wanted to get or make for various people, and kept talking about how excited she was to wrap presents.

Kids are strange creatures, so sometimes they don't act the way you expected to. Sometimes they're not so excited.
So just in case things don't work out the way they're looking like they will, I picked up these:

Kidlet's going to get to wear them to family houses for Christmas celebrations, and if we go to any parades, bazaars, or parties, she'll get to wear them there, too.


They're at Target for $1.
Hint hint :)

Christmas Shopping Style

Greetings Christmas enthusiasts! Recently Amy posted on her other blog, I Then Shall Live, asking if anyone would be interested in contributing to the Christmas blog this year - and well, I just couldn't pass that up. My name is Callie, and I'll be contributing to Be Jolly By Golly this Christmas season! Yep, that lovely picture is me wearing the tree skirt last year. I'm really excited, because I've never done anything like this before, and it sounds like so much fun.

I think Amy has some great Christmas ideas that she posts on this blog, and it blows me away how organized she is when it comes to Christmas. Maybe it impresses me so much because I am not so organized. Have you seen her posts on that Christmas planner? It's craziness, I tell you.

To be honest, my sister usually gets in the Christmas spirit before I do. She listens to Christmas music in July. But she must be rubbing off on me, because I caught the Christmas bug early this year. Well, early for me. The end of October is early.

But I am ready to go, I can tell you! Even though I have no shopping done (except for my sister and sister-in-law, but that's only because I had to take advantage of a great deal), and no plan to get it done.

My Christmas shopping style is pretty laid back. I may start mulling over ideas for Christmas as early as the end of October, but it's just a vague shadow of an idea at that point.

If it's about the middle of November and I'm doing my own grocery or leisure shopping, and I see something that might work for a Christmas gift, then I'll buy it.

As Christmas approaches I begin to realize that I better go out there and actually find some stuff to buy. At that point I track down my sister or mother or husband and get them to go shopping with me (even though my sister usually has hers done already, my mom is pretty far along in her shopping as well, and my husband just isn't a fan of shopping at all).

But I get all the shopping done before Christmas, and that's what's important, right?

Now, Amy, she is much more organized than that, as I am sure that you can tell if you've read this blog previously at all. She reminds me of my sister alot.

It should be interesting having two such dissimilar Christmas styles in one blog this year, don't you think?

So what's your Christmas shopping style?

Must Be Santa Monday: [cue the Imperial March]

I've found something that I'm going to try to get for Hubby for Christmas.

We're planning on getting each other Nintendo DS Lites for Christmas, though we might get them sooner--early Christmas presents, ya know?
So accessories have been on my mind.

I was looking at a Toys R Us ad and saw these:

I'm seriously considering getting them for him.

We're both Star Wars fans, so how stinking perfect?!

They're available on Amazon, too!

To join in on Must Be Santa Monday, click here for more details, post on your blog, and then come back to this post and share your link in the comments!

FlyLady: Cruising Through the Holidays

On one of my posts about my Christmas planner, I was recently asked by Wendy if I'd heard of Flylady's Holiday Control Journal, so I thought I'd address it in a post!

Wendy said,

I was wondering if you knew about FlyLady's "Holiday Control Journal", and "Cruising through the Holidays." http://flylady.net/pages/holidaycruising1.asp

It is a lot like what you do, but I just thought I would pass it on. In my opinion you can never have too many ideas/tips when it comes to saving time and money, especially at Christmas. ;-) I'm looking forward to seeing the inside of your journal. ;-)

My answer?
Yes! I've heard of FlyLady's Holiday stuff and I've used it for a little bit of inspiration, among the many other holiday planner options out there--'cause there really are a lot of them! But as for FlyLady as a whole, she and I just don't get along. Okay, I'm sure we would get along if we had ever met, but I don't get along with her routines.

A lot of what works about FlyLady's stuff is routine. It's all about routine. She presents before bed routines, morning routines, afternoon routines--routines, routines, routines! And routines just don't work around here. Nothing is ever the same on a day-to-day basis in my house. For example, some routines that work one week don't work the next depending on whether or not my stepdaughter is here--'cause when she's here, my daily schedule is drastically different. Factor in my husband's ever-changing schedule and you've got the enemy of routine! Not only is every day different, every month and every year is different. That just doesn't jive with FlyLady.

I love her routines, though. They're fantastic--if they fit with your life. I incorporate a lot of her suggestions into my life and work with what I can. I use Flylady as a model, but not as a whole.
That's why I challenge my readers to look for what works best for them in a holiday planner!



Flylady's Holiday Control Journal can be found here! Check it out!

And while you're at it, you might as well "Cruise Through the Holidays" with FlyLady!

kmart 2009

Psssssst

Have you checked it out yet?

Kmart's Black Friday ad is out.

Check it out here.

Christmas Planner Remix: Part 3

Yesterday I showed you the outside of my planner:

And I promised you a look at the inside, so here it is!

The front, where I'm keeping blank note cards for future use:

My calendar section as an example:

My cards section--another example:
I added a few more sections that my planner had before, like this one for shopping receipts:

The sections of my planner are as follows:

Calendars
Cards
Crafts
Decorating
Food
Gift Inventory
Wish Lists
Traditions
Receipts
Holiday Flyers
Archives 2008
Archives 2009


Since this is a DVD case, each section has a slot for the label (on the left of each section) and in the DVD slot I'm keeping index cards in most sections and flyers, receipts, etc in the other sections. I also keep a pen in the extra space between the section dividers and the zipper.

I'm pretty excited! I'm loving my planner this year!
It's much better than last year's.

Which just goes to show that when you make a Christmas planner, don't expect to be content right away! It takes plenty of trial and error to find what works!

Christmas Planner Remix: Part 2

Yesterday I showed you my new Christmas planner--pre-decorated.
It was pretty boring to look at and not very festive, so of course I took care of that.

I got some scrapbooking stickers and decorated the outside:

The front:

The back:

Come back tomorrow to see the inside organization!

Christmas Planner Remix: Part 1

A few months ago I started redesigning my Christmas planner.

But I don't like what I came up with. The binder system I was working on isn't really to my liking.

And I definitely didn't want to go back to my old Christmas planner; it wasn't festive enough. Orange isn't really much of a Christmas color.


So I set out to redesign it completely and find something that works for me, and this is what I found:

It's a DVD organizer. I've had it for a few years now and it just sits there, 'cause we really don't use it anymore.

But it's perfect for my Christmas planner.

Inside, it looks like this:



Come back tomorrow and I'll show you what the outside looks like transformed!

Must Be Santa: Outdoorsy stickers

As part of the "in a box" themes I'm doing for a few of my giftees, I'm collecting outdoorsy stuff for my sister-in-law. She and her boyfriend spend a good portion of their time outside hunting, fishing, camping, whatever they feel like doing. She even owns a pink .22, if that tells you anything.

I'm looking to get a variety of outdoorsy things, like pink binoculars, a pink water bottle, bbq sunflower seeds (her favorite flavor), a pink ball cap, some hand warmers, maybe a pink camo blanket if I can find one or make one. But to get a head start on the gift--and commit myself to this theme, I picked these up as a filler item:

I thought they were neat!

To join in on Must Be Santa Monday, click here for more details, post on your blog, and then come back to this post and share your link in the comments!

Santa's sack of gifts

I came up with a new way to inject a little more magic and creativity into Christmas morning, and I'm pretty stinking excited about it!

I wanted to get a Santa sack; you know the one. It's the one he loads up with toys and carries 'em into the houses with to put the presents under the tree for Christmas morning.

My thinking is that I'll fill the bag up with gifts for everyone in the house: Kidlet, Hubby, and myself. I'll wrap them in Santa wrapping paper (which will mean that I can't wrap anything else in Santa paper, but that's fine with me). I'll fill in the extra spaces with candy, trinkets, and snacks for Christmas day.
[and yeah, that'll mean that I'll be buying a few of my own Christmas presents--but that's fine by me!]

And then, in the wee small hours of Christmas morning, while Hubby and Kidlet (if she's here) are sleeping soundly, I'll sneak out and put the sack of Santa gifts under the tree.

Then when we wake up, Hubby and Kidlet will discover the sack of gifts and it'll be magical!
[I'm not telling Hubby about this plan of mine; it'll be a surprise for him, too!]


Except that I haven't been able to find a Santa sack in town. I don't want to buy one online. I've thought about making one, but I'm not good at the drawstring thing.

Instead, for this year at least, I got one of these from the Dollar Tree:

My new plan is to fill the giant stocking up instead, and then once Christmas is over I'll find a Santa sack on clearance. Then next year I'll be able to use a Santa sack instead and use the giant stocking for... decoration or something...

I was waiting in town the other day for Hubby to get a lunch break, so I went across the street to Ross.

Gosh I love Ross.

I found this:

I bought it and I have every intention of giving it to MIL for Christmas.
Sort of a "from us" gift...
She's always very difficult to give gifts to. I can never think of anything that'll... well, satisfy her.

When I saw this I figured it'd be at least a start!

Kidlet, MIL's only grandchild, calls her Nana.
It fits ;)

To join in on Must Be Santa Monday, click here for more details, post on your blog, and then come back to this post and share your link in the comments!