Christmas Tree Bags

Last year, the day after Christmas, I made one of the best investments ever - Christmas Tree bags! Year after year, on the day after Christmas, I struggled to shove my artificial Christmas trees back into their original boxes. What a pain! Even after the tree was back in the box, the task often involved two people - one to hold the box tightly together, while the other taped the box closed, praying the oversized tree wouldn't burst through the box. Last year, as I was perusing the day-after-Christmas sales, I found these bags for 75% off. Perfect! They are large bags with zippers, handles, and even wheels on the bottom. What a great invention! I bought three bags - two for my large tree (who ever said a tree needs to be stored with all its parts together?) and one for my smaller tree. I have to tell you, cleaning up my Christmas decorations is a lot easier now!

More Traditions

Over the last month or so, I have talked several times about traditions surrounding the holidays. I thought I'd post one last time about Christmas traditions in my family.

• We each open one present on Christmas Eve. Last night my present was a new Office calendar. I love that show!
• We get up and ready for the day before opening presents. That means showering, brushing teeth, getting dressed, etc. I think it stems from the fact that my mom didn't like the messy pictures of us Christmas morning having just rolled out of bed :-)
• We take a "stair picture" before heading downstairs to open stockings and presents. We used to do this so that we would all gather before going to see what Santa brought... but the tradition carries on! Here's our 2008 stair picture.
• After opening presents, we have creamed egg on toast (a white sauce with boiled egg pieces, served over toast). It's tradition in my mom's family - something my grandma would make on holidays, birthdays, and other special occasions.

Today was really nice. I enjoyed spending the day with my family - opening presents, playing games, talking, lounging, eating... I was super excited to get Season 4 of The Office and Season 1 of Chuck :-) I was also stoked about my new 19.2 volt Craftsman cordless drill. Wahoo! I've been needing one of those! I got lots of other great things from my family and friends - thanks everyone! I also lucked out from a present my mom got... Because she got a new Bosch for Christmas, I got her 6 quart KitchenAid Mixer :-) Time to start baking!

Smelly Shoes

Remember this post? Where I talked about how I hate WalMart, but went shopping there anyway? Well, I thought about doing this follow-up post, and after hearing the story, my family convinced me to blog about it. So here ya go.

After braving all the holiday shoppers and lines two weeks before Christmas, I went to work the following Monday excited to show my office what we had purchased for the families we were sponsoring. I took over our conference room, proudly displaying the clothing, books, toys, gift cards, etc. on the conference room table so that everyone could see what they had contributed money toward. As I was setting everything out, one of my coworkers came in to admire all the gifts. She noticed the shoe boxes and wanted to see the shoes we had purchased. I immediately told her how we had tried to find shoes that would be considered "cool" for a 13 and 14 year old and opened one of the boxes of shoes. I was astonished to see that the shoes inside the box were not the ones advertised on the outside of the box, but were dirty, holey, SMELLY, used shoes. I almost vomited from the smell. Just my luck. I've never purchased a pair of shoes without trying them on, let alone not opening the box, but WalMart only had like one or two options in size 10 1/2, so I just put the box in my cart. I know, I know, it wasn't exactly WalMart's fault that I bought used shoes (they were the ones that got ripped off by another customer), but they didn't open the box either! Needless to say, I had to go back to WalMart to exchange the shoes. I sure am glad my co-worker wanted to see what the shoes looked like - can you imagine if we had just wrapped the box and sent it off to be opened on Christmas morning??? Just one more reason why I hate WalMart!

A Little Laugh

I saw this on YouTube last week and laughed my head off. Thought I would share!

Winter Gardens Aglow

Every December, the Idaho Botanical Gardens are decorated to the max with Christmas lights. The gardens are so pretty during the spring and summer, but I just LOVE the lights at Christmastime. Tonight Jen, Jami, Andrea, and I walked around the gardens (in the freezing cold!) admiring the lights. We topped off the night with a stop at Starbucks, where I enjoyed a white peppermint hot chocolate. Mmmmmm.... It's like drinking melted peppermint ice cream. Gotta love those Christmas drinks!

22 Degrees and Smiling

This morning was the annual Christmas Run. This is my third year of doing this race. It is definitely one of the most fun races of the year because people dress up in the coolest costumes... Santa, reindeer, presents, Christmas trees, the abominable snowman, Charlie Brown, etc. This year there was even someone who dressed up as Jesus!

So I was kind of dreading how cold it was going to be for the race this year. We've had some unbearably cold weather lately, and the forecast called for the temperature to be between 2 and 9 degrees this morning. Can I just tell you how happy I was when it ended up being in the low 20's instead!?! I actually got kind of hot during the run and wished I had put on one less layer! Anyway, it turned out to be a good run, and I was happy with my finish (even though I walked a little when I got a side ache). Here's a picture of me, Beki, and her friend Bryce at the end of the race.

Kettle Corn

A few weeks ago, Val and I were talking about what gifts to give to neighbors, coworkers, etc. for Christmas. She mentioned that she was making homemade kettle corn for her neighbors this year. Perfect! I decided to try my hand at making kettle corn (using Val's recipe). So last night, Camille and I made up 8 batches of kettle corn and I was so happy with how it turned out. Of course, we had to try some of each batch to make sure it tasted good (all the while watching the Biggest Loser finale)! I even bought gourmet popcorn kernels from a local popcorn shop, and special popcorn bags :-) Here's the recipe if you want to give it a try:

vegetable oil
1/4-1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup popcorn kernels

Cover the bottom of a large, heavy pot with oil. Put three kernels in the oil, cover with a lid, and then heat over medium-high heat. Once the kernels pop, you know the oil is hot enough. Then, pour in the sugar, mix it around to melt it a little bit, pour in the rest of the popcorn, and then cover the pot again with the lid (I used a pot with a glass lid so I could see the kernels pop). Shake the pot constantly over the heat until the popping slows to every 2-3 seconds. Pour the popcorn into a large bowl and sprinkle with popcorn salt (popcorn salt is finer than regular table salt). Mix and enjoy!