The Family

I have wanted to color for a while but couldn’t till I got my thumb fixed.  Now that it is fixed, I am coloring and enjoying it so much that for this Christmas Eve, everybody gets a color book!  And, you must give the book with one page carefully beautifully colored.  And, just in case you color the best page in the book, scan the page you color before you color it so if the recipient really wants that page, they can print it.  Actually, you could bring your scan here and I could print it on cardstock.

So, the theme is coloring books.

Welcome to the drawing Aleah!

Rather than make a new post or tack on a comment, I am revising the main list.

I just drew for Aleah, thinking if it worked out right she could trade names with whoever she drew.  It worked out.

Luke has Chris

Nelia has Joseph

Joseph has Christina

Ramona has Aleah

Chris has Luke

Christina has Ramona

Aleah has Nelia

And for the regular Christmas gift,

Luke has Christina

Nelia has Ramona

Joseph has Chris

Ramona has Luke

Chris has Nelia

Christina has Joseph

OK with everyone?

Ramona and I talked and agree that it would be best to have Christmas here this year since Luke probably won’t yet be completely mobile.  We are good with any day.  Is it better to do it before or after the day?  Of course, it’s early days yet so we don’t have to decide the date right now.

OK with everyone?

An afterthought…  Chris and Christina, would you like to include Donavan and Aleah in Christmas Eve?  I can redraw names.

This Christmas was wonderful, particularly my real Christmas,  Saturday, when I spent the day with Chris’s family.

I did have one problem, though…  not a big problem, but one I though I would bring up.  Was anyone else a little bummed out by just shopping for one?  Or was it better for you to be able to concentrate your efforts on one?

I would like to try buying for all, just getting smaller gifts. We don’t have to decide now, of course.  I just wanted to bring the topic up for discussion while this Christmas is fresh in our minds. I am still happy either way.  There are always birthdays if one wants to get a gift for all.

I did have the thought that I, or we, as parents could take ourselves out of the drawing and buy for all our kids, but that would leave the rest with such a limited number to draw and…   it just doesn’t feel right.  Maybe if i had 10 kids…   but then i might want to be in the drawing.  🙂

I also thought that we could give as couples to individuals…  cutting each family’s gift giving down to 4.

As for how much we spend….   I was thinking.  If one’s budget is $10 -$20 and another’s is $50 – $60, as long as the gift is selected with thought, what difference does it make?  If it does make a difference to most (equality) I am willing to stipulate a price range, of course.

Your thoughts?

At least so far as the normal Christmas Eve gifts are concerned.  

From talking to everyone, most folks are having a bit of trouble finding their intended items and getting them mailed off this year.  This is partially (ok, mostly) due to me not getting The Theme set at Thanksgiving.  For some reason I wasn’t able to think about the Eve gift around then; small children demanding attention or somesuch.  

Anyway, I believe if everyone is able to get things aquired/mailed by Friday we should be good to go for New Years Eve as our gift period this year.

OK, we are going to call this Christmas Eve “Tool Time” and mix up the rules a little. No drawing names, guys give to guys and girls give to girls.

We all use tools and we all have favorite tools that are, perhaps, a little unusual. It might be a tool made for something you like to do, but find you use for more than what it is intended for. It might be something that has proven handy for jobs you know the other 2 do also. (You have to give the same tool to both.)

Now a tool does not have to come from a hardware store. There are mechanic tools, cooking tools, sewing tools, sports tools, hobby tools; this can be any kind of tool.

So think about the small tools you use that you think the other 2 would like but do not have, and give one of them to both.

The one drawback to this plan is that it does not include Aleah, but she is a little young to use tools yet, unless you count a rattle or a music box.  She can be part of the girls exchange, but probably it’s best that she do that as partners with her mom.

I was skittering about this week, trying to figure out where the recipes for all the traditional favorites made off to. Some are in this book, that book, an e-mail from someone, a printout, one’s written on the back of an envelope.

Got an e-mail from mom indicating she was having a similar experience, thinking they were all together and then -surprise- one is missing.

So. I was thinking, and tell me if this is an idea with enough merit to actually do it ….

I was thinking that it would be lovely to compile all the “traditional” recipes for both Thanksgiving and Christmas on a website. I could put it together on my geocities page; Chris could take the code and post it anywhere else, if that were more convenient.

I was thinking that not only would this get all of them in one place for my benefit, at least, but if the other two of you got into it maybe we could even sort of explore what “traditional” has come to mean for the three households.

So …. tell me what you think. I even got carried away with myself, and thought it could be expanded to talk about the other traditions that we have going for the two holidays .. but starting with the food, what do you think?

I just had an idea for Christmas Eve. It’s early, yes, but tell me what you think of the idea.

I’m thinking that we randomly draw names, and then randomly match them to other holidays. (I have this system in mind for how to involve all three households in the random selection of all this). I have six of the other big holidays in mind – and for Christmas Eve, we have to give the person something for that other holiday.

What do you think? I think it would be challenging; you’d almost have to make something for some of them.

The six holidays I came up with (major holidays) are Valentines, Easter, St Patricks, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving.

I was also thinking that instead (or in addition, hehe) we could do more obscure holidays that don’t have traditional gifts associated with them – Presidents day, Election Day, Columbus Day, or we could even do the really obscure ones (plenty of those).

Any opinions?