I Told You It Was A Fantastic White Elephant Gift...

Earlier this month I posted a picture of a wrapped present. The caption went something like this--it's for a company Christmas white elephant gift, and it's a great one.

Or something like that. 

The message I waned to convey is that I thought this was a fantastic white elephant gift. 

Last week we went sibling shopping. It's where we take the kids to a large store--usually Walmart--and they separate. They search for an inexpensive gift for each of their siblings. Four kids, three gifts. My son thought it would be fun to go to the cheap DVD bin and find some classic shows as presents. When he looked for a gift for his only sister, he found some Hallmark Christmas videos.

Bingo!

He had her gift.

As he and I walked from the electronics department, we passed the clothing section. I glanced over and saw some flannel shirts on sale. 

Then, it hit--I found my white elephant gift.

I ran back, picked up a cheap Christmas movie DVD and found a flannel shirt. I brought them home and wrapped them up. 

For those who are fans of this particular film genre, there are some "detail choices" familiar in many of the stories. Usually, there's a single, thirty-something girl who leaves her high-power job in a big city to go on vacation and return home to her small town where she finds some sort of crisis only she can take on. In addition, it's in this small town she meets "Mr. Right." He's either an old boyfriend or a new love interest. One thing's for certain--he's a much better match, romantically, than her current boyfriend/fiancee, who always seems to show up in the small town, thus ensuring a conflict of emotion for the main character.

Will she stay with Mr. Good, but not Right, or Mr. Right?

Mr. Good, but not Right wears a suit.

Mr. Right wears flannel.

Usually.

These are not hard and fast rules, but more often than not, this is what happens.

My team at work is comprised mostly of women. Since I work from home, I don't know these ladies very well, so I'm not sure if they understood the flannel reference. The co-worker who did end up with the gift, loved her new shirt, so it was a success.

Even though they may not have gotten the meaning, I thought it was great.

Happy Christmas...And To All A Good Night

We've got an hour until it's Christmas--officially--at least, in our time zone. There's still time to wish everyone out there a very Happy Christmas.

From all of us at the Scott Watty Doodle All The Day blog (which is basically, me...), I hope you have a wonderful evening tonight and an even better day tomorrow. May we be the best selves. May we be more concerned for others. May we find joy in the miracle that is life, and remember why we we honor this day.

Take care and God bless.

It's Beginning To...Smell A Lot Like Christmas

There are many obvious advantages to telecommuting. Then, there's some that are not so obvious, some you will only know about when it happens, like, never having to buy shoes again--especially work shoes. The shoes I used to wear for work will never wear out, only being worn on Sundays.

I'm discovering another advantage to working from home this week--the way the house smells at Christmastime.

The house also smells good at other times of the year, especially if dinner is simmering in a crock pot all day and I leave my office and am hit with the smells of a delicious meal. Today, however, it wasn't dinner I smelled as I emerged from my office--it was dessert. 

My wife and the kids are baking, getting ready for Christmas. Today they made chocolate peanut butter squares, egg nog, and sugar cookies. Yesterday, it was chocolate coconut thumbprint cookies. And as the holiday draws near, we'll move into other aromas, scrambled egg breakfasts, ham dinners...it IS a wonderful time of the year.

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas. And that's all right by me.

Remembering 2014...Christmas Video Card

Most of the time, when I see the Facebook's "Memories Of The Day" post, rarely do I click on them, partially, because when I see the picture, I remember posting it and why. But this morning, the memory link popped up and I decided to check it out.

It was a video I put together five years ago, a video of pictures and video of our family from 2014. Amazing the changes that can take place in half a decade.

The video is bittersweet, the biggest reason is my dear father-in-law is no longer with us, nor is our beautiful cat, Gracie. We also saw the moment our oldest left on his two-year church mission and the hug he gave his youngest brother.

Yes, it's bittersweet, but I'm glad we have the memories.

Nice Timing Dollar Loan Center...Nice Timing

It seems, thanks to technology, almost all the "real" mail we get is junk mail. I can't tell you how many letters from Chase Bank (and all the other banks...) we've received, then just as quickly, ripped up and tossed in the trash. Tonight, I got another letter, this time from Dollar Loan Center, or dontbebroke.com.

Clever.

Too bad, responding to their offer usually results in the opposite of "don't be broke." 

It's interesting they sent us their offer this week, a week and a couple of days before Christmas. It possible, it's just coincidence that it hit this week. Then again, it could be a well-orchestrated marketing campaign to maximize their message--offer cash to people as they're planning to spend the most money on others that they do all year long.

Shrewd.

Even though Dollar Loan Center, out of Las Vegas, Nevada, was kind enough to send a personal letter (it was addressed to me, after all...), I did not take them up on their offer. In fact, I didn't even open the letter. I guess I'm going to "be broke" after all.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree...When Did You Get So Expensive?

Simple, I thought. I had the day off and we figured it would be a great day to load up the family and get ourselves a real Christmas tree. Except for a few years, we've driven a few towns north and picked out a nice tree from a seller out of Montana. We've gotten shorter trees from them, extremely tall trees from them, full trees and not-so-full trees. We skipped last year getting our tree from them, so we weren't even sure they were still there. We were happy to realize as we turned off the main road and rounded a corner that indeed, the tree lot was open.

That excitement lasted long enough for us to park the van, climb out, and set foot on the lot. And after we spotted the price on the first tree we saw...poof, excitement gone.

When did real Christmas trees get so gosh darn expensive?

One of the reasons we liked getting trees from this particular lot was the price. They were cheaper than many of the places, and we could usually get a taller tree at a good price. Something happened in the past twenty-three months. Trees got expensive, and by expensive, I'm talking double the price.

We had a budget and we considered just a couple of trees that were a few dollars over that budget. Of course, we could have picked up a beautiful 3' tree, perfectly shaped. It would have looked great on top of a table. We decided to look somewhere else. We tried two other places and neither had what we were looking for.

A few years back, we found a nice tree at our local grocery store. Sure, it's not a tree from a tree lot, but it came at a good price. It turned out to be a pretty good tree. On the way home from tree shopping this afternoon we stopped by the grocery store, found a really nice tree, bought it, threw it on top of the van and headed home.

I don't know what we're going to do for a tree next year. If prices go up in the next couple of years as they have in the past two, we may break down and buy, "a great big, shiny, aluminum Christmas tree."

But, for this year, we got us a real one.

Restoring Mr. Snowman...

It was a Christmas present given to us from my sister-in-law a long time ago. We've put out Mr. Snowman every year. 

Even when his lights were all but out.

Years ago my wife's sister had a craft room where she created amazing things! We were fortunate enough to have received several of her works of art. Two make their appearance each December (and, sometimes sooner...). They're showing signs of wear-and-tear, especially, since we've got a big dog in the house.

But, we've always put out Mr. Snowman.

This week I've had some time on my hands. I brought out Mr. Snowman from storage and went to work on the lights. Given enough time, I'm usually able to troubleshoot a string of Christmas lights. I unplugged and plugged in each lightbulb several times--thankfully, it's a 25-light string. I even replaced the small fuses that are in the plug. 

Nope--no lights, nothing.

I'd have to replace the lights. Trouble is, 25-light strings are no longer as popular as they once were. Before I worked on Mr. Snowman's lights, there was another string of lights I was also trying to troubleshoot. Its problem was different--only half the lights worked.

Turns out, a half-lit string was a perfect replacement for the non-working one. It took a little time, and there's a lot of the string wrapped up and hiding behind, but for the first time in years, Mr. Snowman is happy and bright. 

And so are we.