Sunday, December 23, 2007

Short break from blogging for Christmas

Yesterday's cookie baking with Rich & Aaron was a lot of fun! While they made muffins and peanut butter blossoms, Spouse & I made a batch of chocolate chip pecan cookies and a batch of oatmeal cranberry walnut cookies. Then we walked 2 blocks into town and had lunch. Rich & Aaron went home, Spouse took a nap, and I made 2 more batches of oatmeal cranberry walnut cookies and 2 more batch of chocolate chip pecan.

After cleaning up the mess I packaged up the cookies into decorated bags and placed them in Christmas baskets with ornaments, candy canes and decorations for the neighbors.

Then we went to Rick & Nick's to watch "Transformers" on their huge screen home theatre. It was kind of cool.

This morning our friends Stephan & Wayne and Rick & Nick came over for Christmas brunch. We had cheesy eggs with sausage, apple cinnamon pan cakes, bacon, fruit salad, juice, and coffee. It was nice to share some time with them over breakfast.

After cleaning up Spouse helped be bring the gift wrap down the from attic so I could wrap the gifts. Spouse is terrible at gift wrapping, while I am great at it and enjoy doing it, so every year I wrap all the gifts for our friends and family. It took me almost 5 hours, which is less time than usual because I used 6 gift bags, instead of wrapping every gift, and did not use any ribbon or bows.

The gift bags were a necessity because several of the nieces and nephews got parka-style coats which would never fit into a box. I decided against the ribbon and bows this year for practical purposes, since all the gifts have to be stacked in the car.

We got Spouse's mom a new bed-in-a-bag set for her king size bed. I was wondering how we could possibly wrap such a large gift. Then the proverbial light bulb went off inside my head! Step 1: slide the king size bed-in-a-bag set into a large black trash bag and tie it up. This completely hides the gift. Step 2: tape all of my left-over scraps of gift wrap onto the bag. It almost looks like a patch work quilt, which is kind of funny since there is a comforter set inside.
After finishing the gift wrapping I delivered the cookie baskets and holiday cards to my neighbors, while Spouse loaded all the wrapped presents into the car.

We just finished packing our bag so we're heading back to VA now. We're meeting Kerry & Hugh and Kerry's father George tomorrow for brunch. We'll celebrate Spouse's mom's birthday that night, as well as open gifts with the family members we won't see on Christmas day. On Christmas we'll have time during the day to relax and perhaps catch up with a friend or 2, then get back together with the family for Christmas dinner and opening gifts. We'll return home on Wed, probably by noon. I'll be without computer access during that time, hence the break from blogging.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas!

Drag Queen name of the day: Ella Mentry

2 comments:

Gregory said...

Happy Holiday Sweetheart! See you soon,

Java said...

Sounds like a busy and fun time you and the spouse had. I wrapped all the family gifts today and it took me about 4-5 hours. I was very pleased to get it done during the day today, because so often I leave it until late at night on the 24th, thus leaving precious little time for SLEEP before the kidlets roust us out of bed to begin the Christmas mayhem.
I love your wrapping idea for the bed-in-a-bag! Are you always so clever?