e-stella

I get a group of crazy people like myself and organize teams consisting of 3-4 people. We have a quarterback, runningbacks, and a linebacker... ok, the linebacker only waits in line and isn't like the actual football term, but it's a fun word... moving on... The quarterback acts as captain, the runningbacks are the crazies going all over the store that has been scoped out a week before to find out where the certain items will be. The linebacker is usually an older/frail or moody person who doesn't want to participate, but wants the bf deals (in our teams, you have to participate in order to reap the benefits of BF). We're all pretty much set on a plan of attack a week before Thanksgiving, every team has a notebook with pictures/printouts of items, each team is sent off to a different store to buy what the other teams want and vice versa. The seasoned members will go to rough places like wal-mart or best buy, while the polite ones hit up toys-r-us and targets. Thanksgiving is usually over by 8pm... All the husbands/boyfriends/grinches stick around the house where Thanksgiving dinner was held and watch all the children. The BF teams stay at the nearest location to the store they've been assigned... a couple hours of rest, and BAM, it's go time. I'm usually in line at wal-mart by 3:30 am, which I'm finding to be too late to get a good deal, by that time I'm a good 150 people out. It's a 24/7 wal-mart, but they close their doors at midnight until 5am on BF. Which is sooooo not fair. This year I'm tempted to assign a team to do internet shopping, does it really start at 1AM Eastern?

Really really badly. Sometimes I swear there's more tape than wrapping paper on my gifts. Wrapping has never been a skill of mine, but luckily my cousin can wrap well so she'll wrap my gifts for me to spare me the humiliation :)

Just as quickly as the tree goes up, it comes down. It's rare if the tree/decorations are still up by the new year.

It depends on the theme, but I'll say white because I usually always have a strand of white in all my trees.

That's exactly what I tell myself "who cares?" It's all good clean fun. If you don't like it, don't come over. HA!

A cookie/ornament party sounds like lots of fun! When do you have them? On Christmas day, a week before? I'd like to do this with my friends and family.

HAHAHAHA... I almost put mine up yesterday! ALMOST. I have a lovely fake tree that can go up and down at a moments notice. I'm big on themes and details so I need time to get it right, make a list of what I need to shop for to complete my decorations. Truth be told, I'll probably put it up this week since it's been on my mind ever since the stores had theirs up. Everything has to be perfect for party time December 24th!

I start shopping in September and try to stay in a budget less than $1000.00 (excluding my mom and dad's gifts). I have a huge huge family of 13 aunts and uncles, not including their children and grandchildren. Which sends my list of people well into the 50's and that's only my mom's side Needless to say, I don't buy everyone a present and not everyone shows up to the parties. So I buy a bunch of discounted gifts every black friday and keep them wrapped in my trunk just in case. If need be, I take a breather from the party fill out a name tag, rip off the post-it description of what the gift is, and slip a present under the tree for the loved but forgotten partier