Decorations

The weekend that we put up decorations around our house is almost here! Usually, the first week of December we venture under our house and dig out all our Christmas decorations to put out including the dreaded lights!

This year, we are also in the midst of renovating a couple of our rooms in order to make room for the baby that's due in February so things are a little more hectic than usual. Of course, this also puts me in the mood to renovate many things ... or at least one or two smaller things in each of the rooms.

This year, in addition to making the third bedroom into an entertainment type room and putting in the nursery, I'd LOVE to be able to do something with our living room. Namely, the floors (I want to remove the carpet and put in hardwood) and the horrible little mini blinds the previous owners put up. Not only do I hate these blinds, but because we have a wood stove, and because I don't think they were ever cleaned after being put up, they're horribly dirty!

I don't know about you guys, but these look pretty nice to me. I wonder if I could convince my husband that these are the way to go? After all, they WILL make the house look a lot nicer than the cheap blinds that are there. You can get a free quote off the main page. And something I will definitely need - a page dedicated to how to measure for blinds! I think my favourite blinds are these here. They'll look great with the red accent walls, the hardwood floor and the wood burning stove that's backed with a rock accent, don't you think??!!

Griswolding

There is nothing more interesting than a new word that pops up into the dictionary. Okay, well it's not THAT interesting, but when the word is Grizzwalding everything is funny.

One of my favourite modern holiday movies is National Lampoons Vacation. You could leave that sentence as is and everyone knows what you're talking about. It's funny. Chevy Chase is funny.

The all time favourite part of this movie is, of course, the Christmas lights. Who doesn't feel Clarks pain? Doesn't everyone try to outdo your neighbour to show that you have the most Christmas spirit.

Aunt Bethany: Is your house on fire Clark?
Clark: No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights.

And really, could anyone have a greater glass for the eggnog? MOOSE CUPS!

Want a great recipe for homemade eggnog?

8 eggs

1 cup of sugar divided in half

1 cup white rum

3 cups milk - whole or 2%

3 cups whiskey

2 cups heavy or whipping cream divided in half

ground nutmeg

Separate the eggs - yolks in one bowl, the whites in another.

Beat the egg yolks with 1/2 of the sugar and set aside.

Beat egg whites until stiff, then add the other half of your sugar.

Pour the yolk mixture slowly into the egg white mixture.

Slowly stir in the rum. Then the milk, followed by the whiskey.

Add 1/2 of the cream. In a separate bowl, whip up the other half of the cream. Fold this in slowly to your eggnog mixture.

Sprinkle with nutmeg and serve in moose cups! Makes 16 servings.

So make yourself some eggnog and check out the following:

So this morning I was listening to the local radio station and the topic of the hour was all about toys at Christmas. Tomorrow, the big seller of the day is the new Playstation 3 and apparently here in Windsor, there are line ups already in the hopes of getting their hands on the coveted game console.





These beauties have a retail value of $499.99 USD. Mind you they do have top notch blu ray optical technology in there as well as a built in hard drive, but seriously, can you imagine paying to put one of these under the tree this year for your kid?

People called in all morning informing us why they would, or wouldn't, pay for this item. There are even people who are heading out to try to purchase several of these units in the hopes of selling them on eBay for a high profit. A word to the wise for anyone looking to sell these on eBay. Read the following excerpt from Ebay.com before deciding to plunk down large amounts of cash for several units:

Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii Pre-Sales.

These highly-anticipated video game consoles will be in extremely short
supply during their initial launch. During the launch of the similarly-released Microsoft Xbox 360, we saw a high number of well-intentioned sellers unable to meet their pre-sale obligations to buyers due to restricted supply, as well as an increase in fraudulent listings for these items. To prevent similar problems with these latest releases, the following restrictions have been placed on pre-sales for the PS3 and the Wii:

1. Only one of each console can be listed per eBay account prior to the launch
   of the console.
2. The seller must only accept payment through PayPal, and have at least 50
   feedback with a 98% or greater positive rating so that they qualify for
   PayPal Buyer Protection.
3. The pre-sale item must be listed in the 3, 5, 7 or 10-day formats, and
   cannot use Buy It Now.
4. The listing must include a photo of your pre-order receipt in the
   description.

And if my husband is reading this ... FORGET IT! The PS3 will not be under our tree this year!

It's what?

Before Hallowe'en is even over, the stores start pouring on the Christmas spirit. With so much to get done before the holiday, we really need to work on getting into the spirit of the holiday. But that's not nearly as easy as it sounds.
It's really best to start small. When you're in a store follow these two easy steps:

1. Smile at the stranger walking down the aisle or at the salesperson.

2. Wish them a Merry Christmas. If this is too much, start small - wish them a Happy Holiday. The "holidays" seem to take on a large section of the winter months whereas "Christmas" is really only one day. Small baby steps!

Once you've got the holiday greeting down, try moving onto something a little larger. Do something nice for someone! Bake some cookies (and if you're up to it, make them in the shapes of something to do with Christmas), or offer to babysit for someone that needs to get some holiday shopping or decorating done.

By now you should start feeling that deep down warm feeling that everyone associates with the holiday. Now, take a look under the house, in the cubby hole or wherever you store your Christmas decorations. Grab out the boxes and start going through everything. I suggest leaving the lights until the end. Nothing will dampen your newly built, yet still fragile, holiday spirit more than trying to detangle the lights that you dumped in the box last year!

If you're really feeling good about yourself, put on a Christmas CD and grab some eggnog and rum to liven things up!

Please drink responsibly! Nothing kills the holiday spirit more than a drunk, carolling holiday elf trying to get those darn lights apart!

Other ideas to help you out:

1. Put on a great Christmas classic.
2. Put out some scented pinecones (available at most department or craft stores)
3. Put out your Christmas tree (get a prelit one to save yourself the hassle of detangling those lights). You'd be surprised how much just looking at the lights in the dark brings a holiday mood to your heart!