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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Nov 15, 2021 17:10:12 GMT
Okay, I have:
Cards for those I send them to.
Some/most stocking candy (bought at Walgreens this morning)
Started a list of T-day food to buy/make.
Yeah, still a lot to do.
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Post by maryland on Nov 15, 2021 17:11:31 GMT
I would love the holidays so much more if they didn't involve gifts! Haha, I am a terrible gift giver. I never come up with ideas that my family likes. So I prefer one expensive gift (new phones this year) and gift cards for the stores they like and Starbucks. We get gift cards for our parents and my niece and nephew. Our dog is having serious medical issues and her therapy is very costly. So I will remind our family that the dogs expenses come first. So less shopping for me this year. We get to host Thanksgiving (just my inlaws and sil and bil) so we are starting to buy food. We can't buy much refrigerated food as we only have one refrigerator and freezer. But I love hosting, it's so much easier than all the traveling we used to do.
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Post by catck on Nov 15, 2021 17:15:07 GMT
We're not doing gifts this year as there is only myself and DH and neither wants/needs anything. Have sent my friend in England her gift from Amazon.co.uk as I don' trust USPS to deliver anything! My 2yo granddaughter in England has also received her stuff from Amazon.co.uk. Got her an advent calendar with 24 books as she loves books just like me! So I'm done
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Post by huskermom98 on Nov 15, 2021 18:00:42 GMT
Ugh...that sums it up pretty good.
It doesn't help when I can't get any ideas from my boys. I do have a few things for DS13, but technically DS16 doesn't need much since he's getting a 18-weeks of off-season baseball training and anything else he might need for his school trip to Germany/Austria/Switzerland in March...hard to wrap some of that for under the tree...
I don't think I've gotten anything for stocking so I need to work on that.
Otherwise we need to finalize Thanksgiving plans & then what food we'll be taking. We might miss one gathering because they decided to hold it the Saturday before Thanksgiving to make life easier over the holiday weekend for everyone...only it makes life harder for us since we are not local. Dual trips is doable, but not preferable. Then we'll need to finalize Christmas travel plans...always fun...
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Post by dewryce on Nov 15, 2021 18:07:17 GMT
Not much. The Thanksgiving turkey is purchased and I'm making my plan on how to get everything done. Oh and I ordered the HoneyBaked Ham yesterday. I have started putting my shopping/idea list together. I've purchased one gift for dd and one stocking stuffer. I will be hosting Christmas for my side for the first time as it's just getting to be too much for my parents. Though mom isn't wild about it I don't think, but their house is tiny, our still small group has grown and all the hectic activity stresses my dad out. So it will be here. I'd kind of like to switch it to a Christmas brunch instead of dinner (esp because we always have the same meal as Thanksgiving a month earlier) but people are already freaking out about CHANGE. So we'll see. We'll give the house a good cleaning this weekend (I mean it's clean but we like to wash and polish the cabinets and counters, clean the trim etc), chop some veggies for the stuffing, dry my bread etc. We'll decorate for Christmas over Thanksgiving weekend. I’m sorry, I know this is hard for everyone involved. When it switched over to my Mom’s house instead of Granma’s, Mom switched to a new cranberry recipe from our long standing menu, but Granma wasn’t in a position to notice. Besides the emotional aspect of the necessity of the change, it seemed a fairly seamless transition. When it switched from Mom’s to our house, we switched the sweet potato casserole recipe (to Ruth’s Chris…so good!) It ended up really bothering my mom, though she wouldn’t directly come out and say it. And she had wanted to bring most of the food herself, and make suggestions as to how and when we did things. (Adding for clarity: but we wanted to take away the burden and hard work of the holiday for her so we accepted minimal help and direction and just essentially told her to relax and enjoy and let us take care of it now since she had for so long. It made her feel out of control and unneeded and gave her hurt feelings.) In other words, not nearly so seamless as the transition from Granma to her. It didn’t occur to me until too late, though I suppose it should have, that she was having a hard time with the fact that she wasn’t able to host and prepare the meal on her own anymore. She wasn’t doing great mentally last year so DH and I made two small meals and dropped one off for her and my brother. But this year I suggested we get together and plan Thanksgiving. I had a list of the easier dishes to prepare that I was hoping she’d agree to. But I made sure to include the all important family pumpkin pie and the cranberry sauce, which I asked her to make however sounded good to her this year. I made sure to ask her for advice on a few things, including questions about our family’s recipes. And for her to come early to help with the stuffing (her recipe) because we couldn’t get it right previously. tl;dr So far it has made my mom feel a lot better to be involved and help with the meal than to be invited as the honored guest with nothing expected of her. I hope your changing of the guard goes smoothly!
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Post by dewryce on Nov 15, 2021 18:17:21 GMT
DH has everything he needs and he's not into hobbies or "things", not sure what to do for him. What about an experience gift? Tickets to the theater/a game/a concert and a night or two in a nice hotel in the area. Or cooking classes together. Private dance lessons has been one of the best gifts DH has ever gotten me. We turned lesson nights into date nights and went to dinner after each one. Some race tracks allow you to drive a race car. Sky diving, hot air balloons.
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Post by Zee on Nov 15, 2021 18:28:46 GMT
DH has everything he needs and he's not into hobbies or "things", not sure what to do for him. What about an experience gift? Tickets to the theater/a game/a concert and a night or two in a nice hotel in the area. Or cooking classes together. Private dance lessons has been one of the best gifts DH has ever gotten me. We turned lesson nights into date nights and went to dinner after each one. Some race tracks allow you to drive a race car. Sky diving, hot air balloons. The problem is finding someone who wants to do those things with him 🤣🤣 I like the hot air balloon idea though, I will look into that. Thanks!
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bethany102399
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,619
Oct 11, 2014 3:17:29 GMT
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Post by bethany102399 on Nov 15, 2021 18:39:45 GMT
dewryce how lovely of you to make an effort to include your mom for Thanksgiving. I wish I had been that aware when we were transitioning over holidays from my moms house to mine. I just kind of bull in a china shopped it and of course this did not go over well. I'm just about done shopping, between needing to ship gifts and concerns about availability of "things" this year I got it done early and didn't look for the best deal which I typically do. The problem now is I'm still shopping and have no one to shop for! Stockings on the other hand are slim, which is not a bad thing. I typically go overboard on stockings and really challenged myself this year to hold back. Food has been purchased for the Thanksgiving meal, all but what needs to be bought fresh. We ordered a small smoked turkey and ham this year which makes it easier on me on the day so I don't have to cook as much. I've posted here before about the fact that DH isn't much of a gfter. Vera Bradley put their backpacks on sale this past weekend, I sent my MIL a link along with a request to send it to DH, but did not follow up. Old dogs continuing to learn and maintain new tricks.
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Post by tc on Nov 15, 2021 18:46:38 GMT
Thanksgiving is up in the air until we know if my 8YO DS has covid or not (I'm guessing not but he was exposed to multiple cases at school). Waiting for test to come back. We usually go to my sister's house. I offered this year to bring some sides since they only do keto and 6 of the 8 of us who gather do not eat keto. She didn't respond. Not a surprise.
We haven't even contacted DH's family about that Thanksgiving. Wonder if they're skipping it this year or just not including us.
I can't get into the Christmas spirit. I started buying, but I'm only about 15% through the list, realized my christmas budget got eaten up by other things (mostly medical) this year, and now I only have two more paychecks before Christmas. I'm sort of depressed about it and not sure how I want to proceed. I keep telling myself next year I won't be in this position. The following year rolls around and here I am again.
I did start addressing my 2peas holiday cards yesterday. I'm almost 50% done (signed, sealed, stamped) on those. So that's progress.
The comment about etsy upthread - my sewing machine is buried behind a bunch of my husband's stuff that he promises over and over that he's going to clean up. So I just ordered multiples of what I had planned to make for my sisters, SIL, and our mothers this year off etsy. That arrived today. Very, very slow progress. But at least I won't be frantically sewing on Dec 23rd or something.
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Post by dewryce on Nov 15, 2021 18:51:00 GMT
dewryce how lovely of you to make an effort to include your mom for Thanksgiving. I wish I had been that aware when we were transitioning over holidays from my moms house to mine. I just kind of bull in a china shopped it and of course this did not go over well. I just reread what I wrote and see it wasn’t very clear. I actually did exactly what you did the first time! In my drive to take all of the ‘burden’ and hard work off of her and just let her enjoy the holiday it caused her stress and hurt feelings. Exactly the opposite of what I was aiming for. I should have anticipated it; she and Granma switched because Granma’s Alzheimer’s progressed too far so of course that transition was different than this one. Last year was different because of COVID and her depression, so she really appreciated the delivered meal. This year is the year I hope I got it right, so far so good!
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Post by papersilly on Nov 15, 2021 19:15:36 GMT
it's coming along horribly. i hate gift shopping. i don't have a thanksgiving menu planned either.
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Nanner
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,987
Jun 25, 2014 23:13:23 GMT
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Post by Nanner on Nov 15, 2021 19:50:17 GMT
I decorated the house on the weekend. Most of my shopping is done. I'm not baking this year. So I'm good - no stress this year.
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Anita
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,702
Location: Kansas City -ish
Jun 27, 2014 2:38:58 GMT
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Post by Anita on Nov 15, 2021 20:00:57 GMT
We did something insane this year. We are buying a house and just sold ours. So other than what I've already got in my closet, Christmas is going to be moving to the new place. We aren't even decorating. We weren't even going to start looking for a house in earnest until after the holidays, but when the right house hit the market, we just couldn't wait. Fortunately, both my kids are grown, so they understand.
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Post by krcrafts on Nov 15, 2021 20:02:24 GMT
I have a couple of gifts for our granddaughter, but nothing else. My dad died 3 weeks ago, but he did Christmas shopping early so most everyone in the family has gifts from him. Honestly, I would love to skip it, but my dd said she would help me shop and wrap. Very thankful for her!
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Post by myboysnme on Nov 15, 2021 23:56:09 GMT
My son is coming home for Christmas and asked for an XBox X or S. I CANNOT find one. I had it in my cart on 2 sites and clicked place order and it says out of stock.
I have signed up for Walmart plus membership to get early access to their deals next week and I will work hard to get one. If I can't find one I will break down and overpay from a scalper on ebay.
I have picked up quite a few small gifts for stockings and such. My big gifts have not been purchased. I'm not even sure what I need to buy other than that XBox.
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Post by melly on Nov 16, 2021 1:20:52 GMT
I’m not as far along as I’d like to be, but at least I’ve done something! I have shopped for 4 of 9 younger nieces and nephews, I have my holiday cards and am addressing those, I’ve finished shopping for my older son’s December birthday, and I have a couple gifts for my husband and 2 sons for Christmas. Plus a couple for my other son, who’s birthday is in December as well! We will decorate the weekend after thanksgiving, and I’m hoping to finish shopping within the next 3 weeks, tops. I’d like to finish before thanksgiving but I don’t think that will happen!
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Post by waffles on Nov 16, 2021 6:08:26 GMT
Gifts are super easy this year as we no longer associate with half of our family from last Christmas. I’m waiting on some sales to start for a few things. Mostly we are looking forward to a nice relaxing day playing games and watching a Christmas story.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Sept 28, 2024 13:34:52 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2021 9:45:22 GMT
I decided a couple of years ago to stop buying into all the pressure of Christmas, I no longer buy physical gifts so no wrapping is required. We don't send cards and have asked people not to send us cards or gifts. We're already overwhelmed with stuff and we don't need more.
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iluvpink
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,370
Location: Michigan
Jul 13, 2014 12:40:31 GMT
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Post by iluvpink on Nov 16, 2021 18:39:25 GMT
Not much. The Thanksgiving turkey is purchased and I'm making my plan on how to get everything done. Oh and I ordered the HoneyBaked Ham yesterday. I have started putting my shopping/idea list together. I've purchased one gift for dd and one stocking stuffer. I will be hosting Christmas for my side for the first time as it's just getting to be too much for my parents. Though mom isn't wild about it I don't think, but their house is tiny, our still small group has grown and all the hectic activity stresses my dad out. So it will be here. I'd kind of like to switch it to a Christmas brunch instead of dinner (esp because we always have the same meal as Thanksgiving a month earlier) but people are already freaking out about CHANGE. So we'll see. We'll give the house a good cleaning this weekend (I mean it's clean but we like to wash and polish the cabinets and counters, clean the trim etc), chop some veggies for the stuffing, dry my bread etc. We'll decorate for Christmas over Thanksgiving weekend. I’m sorry, I know this is hard for everyone involved. When it switched over to my Mom’s house instead of Granma’s, Mom switched to a new cranberry recipe from our long standing menu, but Granma wasn’t in a position to notice. Besides the emotional aspect of the necessity of the change, it seemed a fairly seamless transition. When it switched from Mom’s to our house, we switched the sweet potato casserole recipe (to Ruth’s Chris…so good!) It ended up really bothering my mom, though she wouldn’t directly come out and say it. And she had wanted to bring most of the food herself, and make suggestions as to how and when we did things. (Adding for clarity: but we wanted to take away the burden and hard work of the holiday for her so we accepted minimal help and direction and just essentially told her to relax and enjoy and let us take care of it now since she had for so long. It made her feel out of control and unneeded and gave her hurt feelings.) In other words, not nearly so seamless as the transition from Granma to her. It didn’t occur to me until too late, though I suppose it should have, that she was having a hard time with the fact that she wasn’t able to host and prepare the meal on her own anymore. She wasn’t doing great mentally last year so DH and I made two small meals and dropped one off for her and my brother. But this year I suggested we get together and plan Thanksgiving. I had a list of the easier dishes to prepare that I was hoping she’d agree to. But I made sure to include the all important family pumpkin pie and the cranberry sauce, which I asked her to make however sounded good to her this year. I made sure to ask her for advice on a few things, including questions about our family’s recipes. And for her to come early to help with the stuffing (her recipe) because we couldn’t get it right previously. tl;dr So far it has made my mom feel a lot better to be involved and help with the meal than to be invited as the honored guest with nothing expected of her. I hope your changing of the guard goes smoothly! Yes, so far we've done Thanksgiving here a few years and my mom brings a few dishes. She's known for her pies, so she brings those, cranberry sauce and baked butternut squash. Whether we do brunch or dinner, I will definitely have her bring things too. And the first year or two I did Thanksgiving, I was always texting/calling for her input!
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Post by fredfreddy44 on Nov 16, 2021 18:51:03 GMT
Very well. I've come up with quite a few original ideas and so far have only bought from small shops, Etsy, Ebay, and secondhand shops. I will have to buy from Amazon eventually, but am trying not to as much as possible. Probably 40% complete.
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Nov 16, 2021 20:20:19 GMT
Okay, so bought most of the Thanksgiving food. Still need to grab the turkey. And corn. Will probably buy a few more baked goods closer to the day (nope, I'm not baking). Will buy candy to put out.
Christmas shopping? What shopping?! I should probably start soon.
Oh, but I did buy a few more bags of candy for the stockings.
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Post by amp on Nov 16, 2021 20:22:22 GMT
For the first time in many, many years, I already ordered (and received a lot of) my Christmas gifts. I've got my cards and stamps, which I hope to have all written out by the end of November. I've planned and purchased a lot of the items for my Thanksgiving dinner, I think I will get the rest tomorrow. Again, a record for me. I think I am scared about supply chain issues, and letting my family down on the holidays. Not on this mama's watch!!!
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