Holiday return address labels

This year I'm well ahead of schedule by ordering my holiday return address labels today.

Yep, that's right - its not even Halloween yet and I ordered my Christmas card labels today.  I love to write and send Christmas/Holiday cards to friends near and far and although I hand-write their names and mailing address for that personal touch, I do use return address labels.

But not just any old return address labels.  I order special ones for the holidays.  This year I ordered them from Personalization Mall.  Its a great resource for all things personalized, not just holiday stuff.  Here are my holiday 2012 selections:

They come in quantities of 64 so I ordered 1 quantity of each design above.  I think they're super cute!!  You may notice there aren't any Santa Claus or reindeer.  I tend not to favor those 'folksy' images of Christmas.  Instead I prefer themes that center more on ornaments, snowflakes and such.

Click here to read about my Christmas card writing/addressing ritual.

Friday fragments

Welcome to Friday fragments, my weekly recap of topics too big to forget, yet too small to be their own blog post.

My friend Jared is responsible for this hilarious photo.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving with Spouse's mom, sister, brother-in-law, niece, 2 nephews, and my aunt Mary. Spouse made the beautiful turkey and dressing.His sister brought the mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, corn casserole, macaroni and cheese, and brownies. Aunt Mary brought sweet potato casserole and hummingbird cake (my all-time favorite cake). Spouse's sister-in-law dropped off pumpkin pies.

Everything tasted wonderful and we all overate hedonistically.

This morning we removed the leaves from the dining table and finished cleaning up, then relaxed as Spouse's mom watched back-to-back episodes of her favorite sitcom: Seinfeld. I sort of 1/2 watched with 1 eye as I read my book "Mary Ann in Autumn". Then we met up with our good friends Kerry & Hugh and Kerry's father George and sister Kelly for a late lunch. It was nice to reconnect with them since we haven't seen them as much this year as usual, and since so much has transpired in their lives and ours. Afterward we tidied up our room, loaded the car and headed home, arriving at 7:00. We'll unpack, relax, watch TV, and check our email until bedtime.

Tomorrow is our tree trimming party! Spouse is in charge of the food while I'm in charge of assembling and lighting the tree.

I just realized I haven't ordered my Christmas return address labels for the holidays cards. Hopefully I can order them tomorrow and they'll arrive before Christmas. I always enjoy having special holiday return address labels on my cards.

Spouse is eagerly awaiting the changes to Weight Watchers. He's done so well (down 70 lbs since July) so he's anxious to find out how the program will change.

Weekend highlights

I was really looking forward to this weekend because it was the 1st weekend since the end of Aug that we were not out of town, hosting weekend house guests, or otherwise committed. Yes, finally a 'free' weekend after 10 weeks.

On Sat Spouse went for his personal trainer appointment and I caught up on emails and ordered my holiday return address labels. As I've mentioned before, I love to send holiday cards - I have a routine for writing/addressing them - so I like to use special holiday return address labels. Similar to last year, I ordered two types. I ordered this beachy Christmas one again, since I liked it so much last year.
Its just a subtle reminder to folks that it sometimes snows at the beach. I also ordered this snowflake design for 'holiday' cards going out to my non-Christian friends.

Its 'wintry' instead of 'Christmasy'.

After Spouse returned we ran a few errands, had lunch, and did a little shopping. Spouse took a nap while I spoke with Ray, our yard guy, about moving some plants in preparation for the pouring of the replacement driveway, then checked out an antique/collectibles store. I found a great storage piece that I believe will be perfect for our new bathroom. Then Spouse & I met up with our friends for dinner followed by 'movie night' at George & Steve's house.

I had several more things on my to-do list for Sun including breakfast with Steven & Thad, but my body had a different idea of how it was going to spend Sun. I awoke to find myself with a recurrence of vagus nerve overstimulation, which forced me to lie vertical the entire day and night due to the extreme dizziness and nausea. Fortunately I didn't vomit this time. Down the drain went my plans for a fun and productive day. I laid in bed until 11am, then relocated to the sofa to watch TV for the rest of the day/evening. Spouse brought me toast and crackers, which I could eat lying down. Today I'm feeling much better, but not quite 100% back to normal just yet.

On the positive side, I finally watched the DVD of "Doubt" from Netflix yesterday afternoon, which we've had since May.

Crush du Jour: Adoni Maropis

Holiday cards

We have had the craziest weather lately!
Mon: very windy and cold, high temperature was only in the 20s
Tues: breezy and mild, high temperature in the 50s
Wed: no wind and very warm, high temperature in the 70s
Thurs: rain, high temperature expected to be in the 50s
Fri: (forecast) rain, high temperature expected to be in the 40s
70-some degrees in mid-Dec? And just 2 days after temps in the 20s? That's nuts!

Spouse and I are going to finish decorating our Christmas tree tonight, and then I'm going to start my holiday cars. I'm off work tomorrow and plan to do little else besides write and address cards all day.
I know I've said this before, but I love sending holiday cards. I have my ritual of listening to Christmas music and drinking eggnog as I write them. Its fun and relaxing to me. I usually get cards with glitter on them and the foil lined envelopes. They can't be bright or sparkly enough for me!

The only negative part about it is removing names from my list. Since I add new people to the list every year, I also have to delete some every year or else my list would get too long. I try to keep the list at around 125-130. Otherwise, I'd have to start my holiday cards in July and take out a 2nd mortgage to afford the cards and stamps. (I always buy cards the day after Christmas when they're 1/2 off and save them for the next year.)

This year I ordered holiday-themed return address labels. Here's the 1st style; I'll use these mostly for my Jewish, atheist, and non-Christian friends.
Here's the 2nd style. I picked these because I live near the ocean and a lighthouse, so I thought these really had that 'seaside Christmas' flavor.

I ordered them online and was happy with the reasonable prices and discount for ordering online.

So tonight I will organize my cards, card list, address book print-outs, and return address labels and start singing along! I'm hoping to have them all finished and dropped off at the post office tomorrow, since I'll be doing little else.

Crush du Jour: Carlos Tomaiolo