Christmas shopping can be fun!

Merry Christmas to all 

This year I decided to change my shopping. Basically I needed to save money. In order to do that I would have to cut back on the amount I was going to spend on each member of my family. Normally I would spend $25 per person.

I decided to change that to $10 per person with some wiggle room of $5. I figured if I found something really great that I knew someone would love, that extra give or take $5 wouldn't matter. Believe it or not I found many of the gifts at Kroger! Books, hats, gloves, Starbucks' mugs & ornaments, cars to name a few. 

However, there was an unintended consequence. Christmas shopping this year was fun! I didn't have to make sure everything was equal. It was sorta equal. I didn't set out with a list and my credit card. I would see something awesome and buy it. Everything just fell into place and before I knew it my shopping was done. No stress. No worry. No tearing my hair out trying to figure out what to get. 

It has worked for me and now I hope it works for them. We will see on Christmas Eve.

The Elf

I woke up this morning and realized it was December 1. I was so excited. I felt young and alive and Christmasy. Santa Claus is coming to town! I curled up in my covers and pillows and thought about all the wonderful things that are going to happen between now and the new year. Crank up the Christmas carols. Turn on the lights. Trim the tree. Bake the cookies. Shop til you drop. DIET. BUDGET. ORGANIZE.  CLEAN. DECORATE. 

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And then I heard something out in the living room; no, maybe the dining room. Mice!! Or one really loud rat. 

By this time Winston had to go outside. So I opened the sliding glass doors and released him to his wild side. I turned and there she was. A tiny elf. Sitting in the middle of my dining room table surrounded by genealogy papers and research. 

She just looked at me and said" Are you ready? it is Christmas and we have some presents to deliver." I had no idea what she meant, but I had a feeling that I was about to find out.

She politely introduced herself and said she is called by the name of Geni. She said she knows my family and she knows if they have been naughty or nice. 

Oh Deer!!