Gifts From the Heart

Mustang and I put a $25 limit on Christmas spending on each other.  The main reason being because we continue to participate in Advent Conspiracy through our church.  Advent Conspiracy (http://ac.wcrossing.org/default.aspx?page=3684) challenges people to...Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All...confused?  It boils down to re-thinking the way you do Christmas in order to focus on worshipping Jesus, prioritizing spending time and making memories over spending money on gifts and releasing extra dollars to others in the world who are in need.  One of AC's purposes...to solve the water crisis our world is in...from the website: "more people die each year from drinking dirty water than from the world’s hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, and earthquakes combined".  Ultimately, a small single paragraph trying to explain all that is Advent Conspiracy can not do the job nor is it the intention of this post...but our participating in Advent Conspiracy means less dollars available to spend on gifts for each other...and the purpose of this post is to talk about what Mustang and I did with the $25 we had to spend.

Let's start with me...because ladies first, right?  As in...let's start with what I 'purchased' for Mustang.

I fretted and I hummed and I hawed...what, WHAT do I get him???  After hemming and hawing and fretting, I decided on a multi-dimensional approach.  Mustang had four things to open last night when we exchanged gifts.

• While casually shopping frantically searching at Target for something fun and inexpensive I ran across a golf score counter thingy.  It helps you keep track of you strokes and putts...but not mother dogs.

• The second gift was a coupon for a date night for January totally planned by ME...stay tuned in January to learn the details. 

• The third gift...well the third gift speaks for itself:

•  The fourth gift was a framed picture collage from 2011 for Mustang to add to his desk collection at work.

And what did I get for Christmas...well a picture says a thousand words, right?

Do you know? 

Can you guess? 

Stumped?

Inside this very unassuming box was 52 cards...that's right 52 pre-written cards from Mustang to ME.  There was an additional card on top of the box (sorry I did not capture my pictures correctly)...so in total 53 cards...for me...ME.  One for our Christmas gift exchange night and the rest...one card for each week of the next year.  Some weeks I get to pick which day I want to open the card...other weeks I have specific days that I must open the card...January 1st is a specified day week...I'm guessing February 6th and/or 14th might be specified day weeks, as well as July 18th...but I have not checked to see how many are specified days.

I, also, was the lucky recipient of 2 additional beads for my charm bracelet.  Hallmark $7 each...gotta love a steal.



Don't worry folks...Buttercup was there and having a blast eating the wrapping paper that her own gifts were wrapped in.  She didn't quite get the whole unwrapping thing but loved her gifts once they were OUT.

Merry Christmas!

~The Woman With 4 First Names

Fa La La La La...

We decked our halls! 

Okay...2 posts in one day I know after such a long dry spell...crazy!  But as I'm sitting here trying to keep the house quiet to allow Buttercup some good rest (she's been a bit 'off' this last week) I just can't help myself!

So...we decked our halls!!  Christmas decorating is going to be a time of good cheer and grand memories in our house I just know it.  Mustang and I LOVE IT.  It's 'slap-your-momma' fun!  (Sorry insider joke for those that get Mustang's southern humor). 

It starts by pulling out our fake Christmas tree.  It took awhile to convince me to go fake, but ultimately I have no sense of smell so why deal with the additional mess that a real tree makes when I can't smell it? 

The fluffing begins...

It's all about your light strategy people...you have to layer the lights in.

Buttercup was VERY interested in the whole process.

Leave it to Mustang to pull out the Baby Bjorn so Buttercup could be in on the action...

Mustang...your head is shinning...

My most favorite thing about decorating for Christmas is putting out the Nativity Set.  It was my favorite thing to do growing up and it remains at the top of the list now as an adult.  I can't wait for Buttercup to be old enough to help but just being able to point out baby Jesus to her and have a tid-bit of how it might be in years to come made my heart sing (off-key probably but still it SANG!).

And no sooner had it begun and we were done.  The tree was up and decorated and beautiful and the Nativity Set was placed in its home for this Christmas season. 

Merry Christmas!!
~ The Woman With 4 First Names