melleon wrote:I apologize for my technical incompetence but I can't figure out how to be a SECRET santa and post with a sneaky name. With that said, I hope you are enjoying your Christmas season so far and that shopping, decorating, baking, cleaning , wrapping , etc. are fun for you and not too stressful...
I hope you have received some special snail mail.
YOUr Elfster SS, Melanie
WOW! Thank you very much for the shipment! We received it earlier this week, and I told my daughter we were NOT to open it until the big day. Funny because in my mind I still think that Kay is living in the state that she doesn't live in, so with the return address, I thought SHE was my SS ! LOL
That was really sweet of you to mail something, I can't wait to open it.
We are doing a different sort of Christmas at our house this year. It started because I was shocked at the commercialism that is going on now. We haven't been away from the US for that long (3 years), but prior to that we were in AK for 8 years. I guess Christmas just wasn't as pushed up there or something. I dunno..... All I can say is that even though I like shopping at Wal-Mart, I was disgusted when I went in there and saw aisle after aisle of 'stuff' Before I sound too holier-than-thou, we do buy things throughout the year, probably more so than a lot of people because we do have only one child at home right now.
ANYWAY I talked with DD and DH about possibly doing something really basic this year for Christmas. My DD said, "Can I be in charge of this and make us a budget" Yeah, I was shocked too. But, I like budgets! She's like me, and likes being bossy, so I'm not surprised she wanted to be the boss.
She came up with a very small budget for us, as well as some other guidelines:
1) We could spend $5 on each person. Since there are 3 of us, I would spend $5 for my husband and $5 on her....etc.
2) We could combine our money in giving for the other person. For example, my DH and I combined our $5 to make $10 to get her gift. Well, technically her gift was $13, but we're going to say that the animals contributed some change. hahahaha
3) The next part was similar to the first part, but it involved making gifts. Again, we had a $5 max to spend on each person. BUT, we could also use the 29038490238423084 things from around the house to make things too. So, if we were making a new china cabinet and had all the stuff except the nails, and the nails only cost $5, then we were good to go. Also, there was a minimum of 1 gift, but there isn't a maximum for each person.
4) None of this applied to our extended family in what we gave them. (or to the person for whom I'm playing secret Santa....lol)
We've had so much fun with this. I've also been extremely unstressed this year. I don't recall being stressed in the past, but I guess I'm just really relaxed this year. It has been wonderful.
So, your gift truly means a lot to me Melanie. Thank you very much for sending it. I do hope you have a Merry Christmas too!
Hugs,
Cindy