With one of the busiest holiday seasons quickly approaching, now is the time to prepare and make sure you have everything you need to get through your visits to different family members and friends homes.
Whenever we are visiting someone else’s home during the holidays, there are a few items I always bring with me. If you are planning on heading to a friend’s or family member’s house this holiday season, be sure to check out these tips to make sure you have everything you need.
Hostess Gifts – If you are visiting someone’s home, make sure you bring them a small gift, like a bottle of wine, chocolates, or flowers, as a way to say thank you for opening your home to us.
A Dish to Pass – Help out your hostess with the holiday meal by bringing a dish to pass.
Extra presents – For gift exchanges, I like to wrap up a few extra presents that could be given to anyone just in case someone forgets something or an unexpected guest arrives.
Phone chargers – When we are on the go, I make sure I have a mobile charger with me to keep my battery fully charged so I don’t have to worry about it dying.
Camera – As much as I love my iPhone, it doesn’t always get me the best pictures so I like to bring a backup camera with me so I can capture every important moment.
Just by packing up these few items and tossing them in the car with you while you are out visiting this holiday season, you will be prepared!
Christmas is upon us and I am itching to put up our Christmas tree. One thing I have always enjoyed about Christmas is decorating our tree with homemade ornaments that the kids have crafted over the years as well as some I made when I was a kid. We have a few ornaments that we received as gifts as well, along with the ones that are personalized.
Every year, we spend time making ornaments and paper chains for our tree as well as ornaments and some cards to give to family members, friends, and other members of our community.
One of the new ornaments we made last year are popsicle stick snowmen and they might just be my new favorite ornaments.
Making these ornaments is really easy to do. To make yours, you will need:
To get started, lay our 8 popsicle sticks and line them up like a fence.
Next, using your hot glue gun, put some glue on the back of another popsicle stick starting about 1/2 an inch from one end and leaving half an inch on the other end.
Once you have the glue on your popsicle stick, lay it across your fence of popsicle sticks to form the brim of your snowman’s hat and to secure the ‘fence’ as seen below.
Repeat the previous step and add the popsicle stick to the back side so it lines up with the front to add extra support to your snow man.
After your snowman is glued together and try, it is time to paint.
First you paint the area below the hat white for his face and then the rest black for his hat.
When you are done painting, set aside and let the paint try. After the paint has dried, it is time to glue on your eyes, pipe cleaner nose and a pipe cleaner on the brim of the hat. After everything is glued on you can draw your snowman’s face on with your black marker.
Once your craft is all dry, flip it over, add a dot of glue and and stick some fishing line into it to add a hanger for your ornament. When it is all done, add it to your tree and you have a beautiful new ornmanent.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
I know it is only October but Christmas will be here before we know it. Of course, I’m trying to get some shopping done and like every year, I’m lost on what to get my husband for Christmas and maybe you are too!
Need a little inspiration in your life? You’ve landed on the right page? Here I have lots of suggestions on what you can get your husband for Christmas. He’s bound to love the majority of these gifts!
A Magazine Subscription
You know your husband’s likes and dislikes better than anybody, so you should be able to pick a magazine subscription that he’ll love. He’ll get one through the door every month, which is a bit like an exciting gift in itself.
A New Watch
A new, shiny watch will always be appreciated, providing you’ve taken his personal style into account. Try to pick something that he’ll like rather than something you like. Make sure you fill a gap in his collection if he already has watches too. Do you want to get him a casual watch or a special occasion watch?
A Good Wallet
A good wallet is so important. If your husband doesn’t have one, this is what you should get him! I know all too many men who have had their wallets fall apart on them, and they’ve lost cash and important cards as a result. A good wallet will only get better with age and keep valuables safe.
An Adventure Day
If your husband is the hedonistic type, get him an adventure day as a gift. You could take him to drive the sports car of his dreams, up in a hot air balloon, or exploring somewhere he’s never been before. Your options are endless.
Nice Aftershave
A nice aftershave might be a bit of a cliche gift, but men always need these. There are so many on the market, you could treat your husband to a really nice luxury aftershave to help him smell amazing over the festive period.
A Grooming Kit
More and more men are finding grooming acceptable lately. They’re not thinking anything of cleansing and moisturizing, and even filing their nails. Why not purchase a grooming kit for your husband to get in on the act? This could be a subtle hint that he needs to up his game.
Tickets
Tickets to what? Tickets to anything! If there’s a band he loves, try to find gig tickets for him. If he’s into sports, take him to see an exciting sports game. There are so many places you can take him and so many things you can do. Make a brainstorm of things he might like and go from there. You’re bound to come up with something suitable if you do this!
Something for His Car
If your husband has a car that he loves, why not buy him a detail package from the dealership? A series of oil changes or tune ups? My husband loves practical gifts like these as well, especially since he bought his Chrysler 200S.
I hope these ideas have helped you to come up with something great for your husband this Christmas. What will you be buying him?
If you’re hosting a big family gathering this coming Christmas, you may already be worried about how much you’ve taken on. The holiday season brings plenty of extra chores to do. With the kids out of school, it can be one of the most chaotic times of the year. All the excitement of the festive period can completely wear us out. We’re often ready for our beds before we can serve up the Christmas dinner! Plan ahead this year by starting early, and reading these top tips for a sane Christmas.
One of the biggest worries about a big family gathering is how you’re going to feed everyone! The freezer and oven aren’t huge, so you may not fit all the food in. It’s essential to buy all your food in early enough but being able to store it is not easy. This year, why not ask the neighbours who go away for the holidays if you could borrow their fridge space for a couple of days. Alternatively, look into buying or hiring a basement freezer to store the extra food.
Cooking up a big feast can be easier than you think when you plan ahead. Use a spreadsheet app to note all the cooking times for each dish. You can then coordinate the use of the hobs and oven so everything can be ready in time. Choose recipes that are simple rather than going for the gourmet things. Tried and tested is more likely to guarantee good results. If there are some new dishes you would like to try, practice them a couple of times before the big day.
Cooking a Christmas dinner can involve lots of vegetables and meats. Wine is an important ingredient too, so be sure to order good wines for the food as well as for the table. Web-based stores like SerenataFlowers.com deliver plenty of choices for Christmas wines. Buy online, so you can peruse at your pleasure without getting stuck at the mall. You may also want to think about ordering a bottle of champagne to celebrate the whole family being together.
Preparing your table for Christmas can be a headache if some guests who are prone to disagreements. The seating plan needn’t be too tricky if you take the time to think ahead. Choose a good quality table cloth, and add a Christmas theme cover over the top. Napkins could be placed in themed rings, and you can add paper napkins with little Santas or reindeers on. If you have small children at the table, consider keeping them at one end away from the serving dishes.
Candles are a lovely touch for the dining table. You can buy them in red and gold colours to keep in with the theme of the day. You might be using a special table runner or mats. Themed confetti can look lovely and add a touch of sparkle to the table. You may also want to place some small pots of fresh flowers in the centre to bring other colours to your meal. Don’t forget to leave space for the plates!
Present shopping can be enormously stressful. Not only is it expensive, but it can be tricky to figure out what to buy for everyone. While children are often very vocal with their request list, older relatives tend not to drop hints about what they would like. Start early in the year. Talk to your relatives and try to get ideas from the things that crop up in conversation. You can also take advantage of sales at the end of the Summer and into Autumn and Fall if you plan ahead.
Seasons greetings cards are always fun to write until you start getting into double and then triple figures. You might choose to send your own homemade cards, or even save on the writing (and the paper!) altogether and send out Christmas eCards. Or have some printed by a local printer, bearing your family’s photograph. Some people start writing them in January as they are popping the cards from Christmas into the recycling box. This way, they can make sure they are sending a card to everyone who wrote to them last year!
The Christmas tree is one of the best parts of the season, especially for the children. Getting it into the house and upright in the room is perhaps not quite as fun. Lay out a large decorator’s sheet on the floor to collect all the needles and leaves that may drop off. You can then just fold it up and shake it all outside, saving you an hour of vacuuming later on. It also preserves your carpets and floors from muddy or snowy boot from the delivery team!
Once the tree is in, have fun with the children decorating it. This is one of those quality times that kids remember with their parents. Turn off the phone and laptop, and get stuck into an afternoon of hanging decorations on the branches. You can sit down with the arts and crafts box, and each make a new decoration to hang for this year. Stars, angels, bells and robin birds are popular shapes. You can make them out of air drying clay or even some old card. Have fun with glue sticks, paints and glitter together to make memories for life.
Once all the family start to arrive, your house will be in disarray for at least several hours. You may prefer to run around cleaning and tidying up after everyone, but this day is about relaxing and having fun with the family. Cooking and preparing food will take up much of your time, but invite the family to come into the kitchen and share in the process with you. Enjoy a glass of wine together and chat to catch up. Just because you’re playing hostess, it doesn’t mean you can’t rope in some happy helpers.
Hopefully, your big Christmas gathering will run smoothly, but the truth is most have their hiccups. Things get spilt, and other things get broken. Kids cry, and grown-ups argue. At the end of the day, you are all together, and you’re the one who made it happen. Be proud of your accomplishments, and happy in the knowledge Christmas comes but once a year! Merry Christmas.
Looking for some cute labels for the kids gifts or some cards for them to exchange? Check out these free downloadable fun and festive gift labels and cards from DreamWorks.
