Merry Christmas!

I wanted to take this time to thank each and every one of you for clicking on my blog and giving it a good read throughout this year and all the years that I have had it up and running. It means a great deal to me to have you here with me each day. I love to hear your feedback and love that I am able to give back just a little by offering some giveaways now and again. I am super excited about the giveaways I will be offering in the near future too! Just you wait and see! Here is a hint….one of the giveaways will help you with all those Christmas memories!

I hope that you and your family have all the wonderful things that make you happy this Christmas, like God, family and good food and good times! I know that each and every Christmas I spend with my very wonderful family makes me thank God for how blessed I am.

One of the one things that I do for Christmas is to buy or make gifts for just about everyone I can. I left a wonderful family in Maine when we moved and I try each year to get them all a very thoughtful gift. In order to save some green while doing so I try to make what I can or buy all year long for them. One trick I learned is to buy two presents throughout the year.

When I am buying Granny’s present July I get her two and store one away for Christmas. Then if I notice a great deal on something like slippers, or jewelry I get that too. I can always find someone on my list that will love the item I pre-purchased on a wicked good sale!

After Christmas sales are right around the corner and all those slippers and gift sets will be marked down drastically! They make your resolution to not wait for the last minute to buy gifts ever again much easier to keep. Then in February when you have to get your sister something for her birthday get her two well thought out presents (using sales and coupons of course!) Then when December rolls around again you will be all set!

Here is another great idea that I love:

Flat rate boxes are available at the Post Office and you can get them for FREE! Use your left over or 90% off marked down after Christmas paper to wrap your sister’s gift this February and put it in a flat rate box, then toss in the amount of money you will need to ship it! (That is a home-made layaway program for shipping!) Tada!

Toss all those Christmas cards you received in a box and use them all year as craft projects to make new Christmas Cards or even Birthday and Valentines Cards for your family and loved ones. This is a project you can get the whole family involved in and then when Grandma gets her card handmade by her favorite grandson she will treasure and adore it for years and years to come!
You don’t have to fight the day after Christmas crowd either. The best part about this plan is that all those markdowns are much deeper and better if you wait about a week after Christmas and when all of the crowds have went home! I hate shopping in a madhouse crowd!

The next few days you might see me miss a few posts because I am enjoying the greatest gift of all my wonderful family! I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and that the next year brings you a wonderful amount of great joy.

Last year when my son who was three years old came running out of his bedroom Christmas morning he wiped his eyes in disbelief, let out a huge sigh and said “Oh! I WAS a good boy!” LOL Poor little guy must have been worried all night!

Merry Christmas Everyone!