Sunday, November 17, 2013

Check out Holiday Gift Ideas and Deals

I am super psyched about the holidays this year. First, it's our first Christmas in our new house. I don't think we'll get to decorate the outside as much as we would like, but I did have room to set up a little table for my Christmas village. Because we are traveling for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, I told my daughter we would set up our indoor Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving. That leaves us one of the only two weekends between traveling for the two to get our tree and do our Christmas tree decorating. We are going to attempt for the second time to get a real Christmas tree from a local farm. We usually get ours at Lowes and we tried this once before. The search for the family Christmas tree ended up a Griswold Christmas family adventure. I'd share the story here but it's been accepted for publication in the Mused Literary Review for their Dec 21 Issue so just in time for the holidays.


The other reason I am so excited for Christmas is because we're going home for Christmas! Ever since we've been married we have rotated Christmas with our families; however, due to my sister's January wedding last year we spent two years in a row with my husbands' family (and I love our holidays with them too) but because of that we have only had one Christmas with my family since our first daughter was born almost five years ago. We will get to spend Christmas Eve with my extended family with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. There's about 50 of us when we all make it. I LOVE the huge family gathering.

My family of five that I grew up with (my parents and us three girls) are now a family of 12 and this will be our first Christmas as a family of 12. We spend the whole Christmas day together.  My mom puts her big, beautiful tree in our basement because with 12 of us now the presents would overtake her whole living room. We will eat a big homemade family breakfast hopefully before opening presents but with four little kids who knows how that plan will go. My mom then makes her annual homemade lasagna dinner Christmas night.

I am as excited about spending Christmas with my family as a little kid is about Santa Claus delivering a bunch of presents.

Aside from starting to decorate for Christmas I've also begun my Christmas shopping. I am a photo gift giving queen. I love personalized gifts. I've come across a wide variety of things on Shutterfly and Tiny Prints. We've done personalized calendars in the past, but there are mugs, blankets, frames, shirts, and many more photo gift ideas on the website. I also create my Christmas cards through Shutterfly.

I am affiliated with Shutterfly and Tiny Prints so I do make a commission off of any purchases (doesn't have to be any of the particular deals advertised) you make so if you're thinking of using them, I hope you can click on the links here on my website to place your orders.  You can click on the links in my side bar to the right or click on them below.

Tiny Prints Photo Gifts

Shutterfly Gift Deals

Holiday Cards


Here's a sneak peak at our family holiday card this year. We wish you all a Merry Holiday Season!

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