Reinholt1

Finally got mine and mom's Secret Santa questions updated. We are in! Let the shopping begin! I am already seeing some good sales.

Hello all! I'll get the info to Bopeep later this weekend. But count me and mom in again this year! Thank you BoPeep for coordinating this once again!!

Heee.....heee...heee. I am glad that both you and your youngest daughter liked the "male polish". It is more "manly" than what she was using on you and I am glad that it will help encourage more father/daughter time! I hope by now that you have received some kind of confirmation from Joyful Noiseletter for the subscription. If not, let me know and I will double check on it. (Carl, the editor, is usually on top of these things though.) I didn't realize, until I received your package, that you were using your business address. Oh well. The newsletter will make you the hit of the office though! Nothing like a little holy humor to draw folks in! (By the way, it's bi-monthly. Sorry about that. It used to be 10x per year but they cut back to save costs.)

Sorry I am late in posting too! I work at a hospital so mom and I did not open gifts until two days ago. JesusLuvU was my secret santa. Thank you so much! Everything was more than I expected!! JesusLuvU and I both gave each other a bag of Reese's Christmas Trees (We both have good tastes obviously!) I also received a dvd - Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. (A movie I wanted to see when it came out last year but never got to the theater. Can't wait for New Year's Day....Gonna snuggle up with my cat on the recliner an watch a new movie! I just hope I don't fall asleep.......;D ) I also received a Hogwarts magnet (already on my refrigerator) a crystal votive candle holder, some holiday footies and a little snowman ornament that sings "we wish you a merry Christmas". I will try to get a picture uploaded next week (I get 4 nights off.. FINALLY!) Thank you so much JesusLuvU! I appreciate your thoughtfulness! I hope you like what I chose for you too!

CHECK IN TIME!! I got home late last night -- after spending the day with mom and then taking her out to look at holiday lights (At least until our bladders could not stand it any more and we had to head home! ) And low and behold! There in my mailbox was the package locked box key! And there was my secret santa package! And then began laughing out loud! (Not good on a full bladder you know!) Thank you very much JesusLuvU!! I am sure that whatever it is will be very thoughtful and great! Like you, I am going to hold off until Christmas to open it. I hope you like what I got you this year too. :: shaking head at Bopeep:: Bopeep.....Bopeep...Bopeep! You must have been giggling all month ---- knowing that the two of us pulled each others names. I don't know whether to hug you or send Chester the clumsy reindeer (from The Santa Clause 3) to come visit you!!! JesusLuvU -- I am sorry you have had so much trouble just trying to get that package to me. Thank you so much for you efforts! Don't sweat it. Your effort speaks volumes to me and I appreciate it even more than the gift. May you and your family enjoy a wonderful Christmas and may God bless you all in this coming year!

RE: new questions. Over the weekend I watched a piece on the news on gift giving. And it was talking about how many gifts are returned, and how people feel obliged to gift something but the receiver is often exchanging or returning it because the gift missed the mark. Of course the stores have to deal with all the returns etc. The bottom line of the news piece was to simply ask people directly want they want. So maybe a question like: (Since I think we all have a Target nearby) "If you can't think of gift, if I were to spend $10 on one item for myself at Target, I would buy myself _________."

Gotta finish the wrapping. (It's the ribboning that takes so long -- and that is what I am avoiding! ;D ) What I really need to do this week is clean the house and make mom her Christmas lasagna (from scratch of course!) Not really doing any baking this year. Mom found some of last year's Christmas cookies in the freezer. I told her I am not making a bunch of cookies until she eats that ones she has. I'll probably make her her peacon pie bars and her Christmas "crack" for around New Year's. I have a few days off then anyway. (I have to work Christmas Eve and Christmas). Best wishes to all as they catch up on their "to do" list! (Don't forget to take some quiet time with self and with family too!) Poor Wittenlover! I hope you feel better soon! Do you want some Chicken soup?

Don't need any helper elves? That's great news! On the other hand.......Hey Chief Elf.....since you may not need any helper elves this year, I just saw these really cool swipe light sketchers sneakers ....do you mind if I borrow one of Santa's reindeer and go get me a pair???

Bopeep said: "Wittenlover and Reinholt1, I'll see what I can do, LOL. (Now, if you do end up with each other, it's going to look like I rigged it )" How about if we INCLUDE you in our little "track number free Christmas party" Bopeep?!?!?

I am happy to remind Bopeep and the other 4 that if you have a Meijer's in your neighborhood they have postal substations at their customer service desks. 8 am is when the desk opens. I am always in and out in just a few minutes. WAA-----AAY better then that line at the post office or even at UPS. My favorite "secret" place to send out packages this time of year. This helper elf is also on standby, should you need it Bopeep. (We should find out where each other lives Wittenlover. (With luck we could be just a couple of blocks from each other.) We could shop together and send out the packages on the same reindeer!) Actually....HEY BOPEEP! Can Wittenlover and I have dibs on each other for secret santa next year??? We could just skip the whole shipping and tracking number thingee and use the money to meet each other for lunch and have us our own Christmas party. You don't need all those tracking numbers anyway do you Bopeep?

Costco is advertising the Xbox One X for $484.99 for it's members......That's $14 less then other places. (How's that for a sale price??)

I live in SE Michigan too and I have not seen any golf carts. Maybe UPS is onto something....the carjackers would be too embarrassed to swipe a golf cart! LOL I have always seen the regular trucks wide open and unattended while the driver makes deliveries. I suspect that UPS is still counting on most folks being honest. I did have UPS drop off 2 boxes today. Usually they ring the doorbell as the scamper off the porch. But today no one rang my door bell. I wish they would at least get the seasonal guys to knock or ring the doorbell to give people a fighting chance to rescue their packages before the porch pirates take them.

What a great idea budgetsRsexy! I hope, when the kids do start to arrive, that you all just continue this tradition! Kids should see stage plays and they can be made to feel that they "helped" the family out of an escape room etc. Go tobogganing, rent a large winter cabin somewhere and take board games or try ice fishing etc. You all will be laughing together for years to come!

Well... a new knee would be very nice. (I am having more "bad days" than "good days" with this knee lately.) ::sigh:: But I think I need to go through my doctor for that one. Other than that, I really do have everything I could want or need. I always ask for cat litter. I always need cat litter. (Dumb cats -- they can't seem to leave the clean litter alone!!! They are always making it dirty.) I really look forward to my secret santa gift. I love to try a local food item from my secret santa that is new to me. And sometimes my secret santa picks up in that. My secret santa 2 years ago introduced me to Louie's Italian beef seasoning au jous. Great stuff! I use it as my base for beef barely soup now. I always give a list of DVD's for movies I missed during the year to mom. Movies and cat litter. What more could a gal want from Santa??

Ooooooo! What about some blooming tea instead of plain herbal tea. Many people haven't experienced them and they make for a novel experience. It will add some bling to their "girl time". Some of them taste pretty good too. (And some taste bland although they look pretty. Kind of like whenever you by a flavored or an herbal tea, some varieties are going to have a more appealing flavor than others.) Target carries some. Amazon of course has a nice variety to choose from as do specialty tea shops. (Hmmm...now that I am talking about blooming teas, I am wondering if I shouldn't get some for my secret santa person....LOL)

COAL!! And plenty of it! (Especially if they are teenagers!)

There were 33 grandkids on my mom's side of the family and we were on the way to eventually having 72 great-grands. There were no "real" gifts when we got together. There would be a gift from each family to grandma and grandpa. And all the children 18 and under received a crisp new dollar bill and a new pair of underwear from the grandparents. We all were taught from day one that it was about being family together and that grandma and grandpa loved us but that there were just too many of us for them to shop for all of us. If we said anything, we were reminded that we had plenty of gifts at home already. We all visited grandma & grandpa in "shifts" because the house could not hold everyone. I have great memories of good food and playing with my cousins. And Grandma always made me my own pumpkin pie and hid it away until we arrived in case it was all eaten up before we got there. And while I am sure Grandma did something like this for my cousins, I always felt special because Grandma always made sure I got a piece of her pumpkin pie on Christmas in the midst of 50 - 100 family members. The moral of this story? Don't be afraid of the downsizing. The kids may grumble at first, but they will not truly learn the importance of being family together until you live it. Doing a homemade gift exchange, or drawing just one name and limiting the cost of the gift, or a white elephant exchange etc. can be a fun part of the get together, but focusing on other activities like watching old family movies/videos, playing games etc. where you spend time together is much more enjoyable.

If she's like my mom (who is 87) she probably feels she has enough knick knacks, blankets/throws etc. Stevierocks is right on the money when he suggests giving your time. My mom loves to go out to eat and, fortunately for me, she likes to try new places so a gift card to a restaurant that is new or different or expensive is always a winner. And better yet, you can take her and eat off the gift card too. (heh heh heh) My mom always loves homemade cookies/sweets, homemade soups or lasagna so receiving something fresh and homemade is always a winner. And mom loves her ice cream. Fortunately I have a couple local area dairy farms that are a little out of the way but very doable where I can get "real" homemade ice cream. That is always a welcome treat. Fortunately for me, my mom *loves* new clothes, and while she tells me constantly that she has enough clothes, she never turns down a new top if one appears in a wrapped box. If your MIL can work a DVD player, my mothers loves those Turner Classic Movies 4 packs where they bundle 4 movies by an artist or a genre on 2 discs. Musicals or Fred Astaire is always a good place to start if you are not sure what to get. Mom watches those over and over. I admit, my mom has told me several times how much she would really love it if I would set her hair 1x a week. (And reminds me of how she and her sister did this for her mother.) And I keep reminding her that I am the last person on the face of this earth that she would want touching her hair. (And I say this while pointing to the doggie clippers.) Best wishes!

This is a favorite at our house too. You can do this in a crock pot too. It takes 2 1/2 hours on high or 3 1/2 hours on low to bake in my crock pot. (Give a little more or less time for your crock pot.) Another variation on this (A favorite of mom's) is to take frozen fruit (Mom puts up peaches in summer for this but you can get a bag of frozen fruit from the grocery store. Add a little water to the store bought bag to make some juice. About 1/2 to 3/4 cup.) Dump the frozen fruit in the crock pot. Add some brown sugar and cinnamon and a dash of vanilla extract on top of the fruit. (To taste. Come on! It's a dump cake. Who measures??). Then dump a whole box of a moist or pudding yellow cake mix on top and then pour 1 stick of melted butter on that. It takes 2 1/2 hours on high or 3 1/2 hours on low in my crock pot. It's just ooey gooey sweet warm comfort food. Serve warm with ice cream or whipping cream.

Yeah...I admit it. I was one of the hold outs getting Mom and I signed up this year. But we're here!!! And we are ready to shop! Now all we need are the good sales!!! Happy shopping everyone!! By the way Bopeep....It's Reinholt1sMom (there is a1 in there) I don't know who ReinholtsMom is, But I definitely don't need two 87 year old mom's. One is enough of a handful for me!!!! ::looking exhausted::

I am putting up Mom's tree on Thanksgiving. Because I work every weekend. Mom asked me today if I could put it up "NOW". She finally got her 2 bedroom apartment a year ago but the catch was we had to move her on January 15th. So she had no tree last year. She said she is looking forward to having it up this year because she missed it and she doesn't care if it is Halloween, she's ready for it to go up NOW. (Of course she tried the "I could be dead by then so you had better put it up now" line on me once again. It didn't work.)

Hello everyone! Checking in for both mom and I! Good to see everyone again! Looking forward to another fun Secret Santa!

Thanks for leaving the Secret Santa thread open for a little while longer Brad. Since we don't learn who our Secret Santa's were until Dec 25th it takes us a few days to catch up with all out thank you's!

Yes! A big thanks to BoPeep for all her hard work! JesusLuvU -- You are very welcome! Glad you are enjoying the book! It is a good one! WillandMel -- Thank you once again! Mom loved everything! The candy was all gone by Christmas morning. (Yes she ate all that almond rocha and the linder.) And she has been wearing that fuzzy bread santa pin practically every day. She has worn her new holiday shirt to 2 events now too. Ytmomof4 -- Thank you once again as well! I put the oven mitt to good use making cookies last week! A friend of mine stopped my with her 14 year old autistic daughter. She immediately was drawn to the penguin ornament and the bubble bath ornament. So what could I say? LOL They have a new home and are making a special needs child very happy. Which makes me happy.

As promised...here is a picture of my Secret Santa gifts....including the frozen bubble bath (which I had a lot of fun with until it was melted.) Thank you again to my secret santa! Everything is wonderful! I will be using my new oven mitt today as today is CHRISTMAS COOKIE day! http://i1347.photobucket.com/albums/p703/Reinholt1/000_0040_zpski6vai4s.jpg