Christmas Tradition #1 from the pigpen

I realize Christmas is still 45 days away, but I must admit with the first sighting of snow today I'm starting to get in the mood.  Now that doesn't mean I'm ready to decorate my house, but I have surfed the radio stations a few times looking for a good Christmas song as I love Christmas music.

Any way, I thought in the days leading up to and after Christmas, I would share some of my favorite family Christmas traditions with all of you.  Some have been passed down to me by generations before me and others are ones that we started right here at the pigpen.

Christmas pajamas are tradition #1.

I don't know where I got this idea, but every year since Big Sissy's first Christmas I have bought the kids a new pair of Christmas pajamas for them to wear on Christmas Eve.  They love putting on their new pajamas on Christmas Eve and, selfishly, it ensures that the kids looks pretty good in their Christmas morning pictures.  (Their hair can often be another topic, but at least they are dressed in something that matches as opposed to some of Big Sissy and Bubby's random pajama concoctions.)

I try to coordinate the pajamas as much as I can, but this is getting harder and harder with Big Sissy getting older.  (I can't believe she is 9.)

Today I stopped by Gymboree as I had a return to make and it must have been meant to be as they were having a sale on their Christmas pajamas.  I was able to pick up a pair of coordinating pajamas for Big Sissy, Bubby, and Little Sissy for $12.99 each.  The icing on the cake was I still got a refund after I purchased all 3 pairs of pajamas and made my return.

Now I can't wait to give them their new pajamas on Christmas Eve and capture their smiling and happy faces on Christmas morning.

What Christmas traditions does your family have?

A Book Review or Two from the pig pen

Buying good presents isn't always one of The Farmer's good traits.  Now I love him just the same, but he either knocks it out of the park like he has several times with jewelry and we all know diamonds are a girl's best friend or it can often be a big dud.

Well, this Christmas, he really knocked it out of the park and I was completely surprised.

Since Martini introduced me to her Kindle 2 years ago, I have secretly wanted one.  I never really discussed it with anyone but her and I just kept telling myself that my reading binges didn't justify me buying a Kindle.  Plus when I do read, I usually check the book out from our county library as opposed to buying one.  

Well much to my surprise, I opened up a Kindle on Christmas morning from The Farmer.   I was in complete shock especially since we had just given one to his mom the day before for Christmas from us and his younger brother and his girlfriend.

Come to find out, The Farmer had ordered my Kindle right after Thanksgiving and everyone had been keeping the secret since then even Big Sissy.

Needless to say, I was excited and couldn't wait to start using it on the drive to my mom and aunt's later on Christmas Day.  On the drive there, I downloaded a few free books; however, I didn't start reading on it right away as just before Christmas I had checked out 2 Christmas books from our county library that I wanted to finish first. So I hurried up and read them so I could start reading from my Kindle.  (The books I checked out from the library were The Gift by Nora Roberts and Skipping Christmas by John Grisham.  I would recommend them both for a quick Christmas read.)

Since Christmas, I have read The Potluck Club by Linda Evans Shepherd and Eva Marie Everson and Fireflies in December by Jennifer Erin Valent on my Kindle.  

The Potluck Club follows a group of women that get together once a month for a potluck lunch to pray; however, things don't always go as planned.  A nice touch to this book is it even includes some of the recipes they make for their potluck lunches.

Fireflies in December is set in 1932 in Virginia during segregation where the Lassiter family, a white family,  takes in Gemma, a black girl, after her parents are killed in a fire and raise her as one of their children.  This decision, which was the right one, changes everyone's life forever.

Although these books were very different, I really liked both of them and would recommend them.  The real extra bonus is both of these books were the first one in a series so I can continue my reading adventure with The Potluck Club and learn more about the Lassiters and Gemma on my Kindle thanks to my in-laws as I got an Amazon gift card for Christmas to buy books for my Kindle from them.

What book recommendations do you have?

Neglect...

Neglect...

Accoring to Merriam-Webster, the definition of neglect is as follows:

1.  to give little attention or respect to : disregard


2. to leave undone or unattended to especially through carelessness

Well, I have neglected a lot lately starting with this blog.  It is been well over a week (ok, almost 2 weeks) since I last blogged and I have been anything but consistent this Fall with my posts. 

I have lots of posts written in my head, but finding the time to actually type them out has not happened.  I thank those of you that have continued to follow along and have faith in me.  It is because of you that I will try to keep going and get on a more regular schedule because when I'm not blogging I'm also not keeping up with my friends' blogs and that is not good either.  For example, I have yet to join in on my good friend Leah's Hunk of Meat Mondays linky party.  I mean what kind of friend am I ? 

Besides not following my friends' blogs, I haven't done a real good job of keeping in touch with a lot of my friends lately by any means of communication and I really hate that.  I would describe my status the last several months as treading water and I'm sure some of you can relate.  I think I might finally see the light at the end of the tunnel as things at work should be changing around the 1st of the year which should help... I hope.

And since I haven't done a good job of blogging lately, I didn't get to tell you about the amazing cake our cousin made for Thanksgiving.  Check this out...

Yes, every part of it is edible.  She is absolutely amazing and just yesterday got a call from Food Network. Be sure to check out her blog, A Couple of Sweet Things.

So now that I've spilled my guts on just a few of things I've been neglecting, I'm proud to say that there are a few things I haven't neglected.

Thankfully, I've been able to plan out a work schedule that has kept me close to home most nights and that is huge for this pig pen. 

We finally got the house decorated for Christmas after I had to battle our pre-lit tree.

When I first plugged it in, this is what it looked like.

Thankfully, after a few good shakes and one extra strands of lights I know have a tree that looks like this.

Unfortunately I took this picture during the day so you can't see all of the glowing lights. :-)

I've also been doing a pretty decent job on my Christmas shopping and am almost done thanks to my pre-Thanksgiving shopping,  Black Friday shopping, Macy's, Amazon, and my sister-in-law's Etsy shop.  Now I just have to get everything wrapped. 

And most importantly, my kitchen table is clean with nothing piled on it.

So even though I've been neglectful, this full-time, working farm momma knows, it can always be worse.

Yes, I'm one of the crazies

Yes, I'm one of the crazies that participates in Black Friday which is why there was no Farmer Friday yesterday.  It is a tradition that my mom and I started several years ago.  I really can't tell you why we did it the first time, but now we love it.  Well, I should say I enjoy it and my mom is a trooper, but I do think there is a part of her that enjoys it.

This year there seemed to be a lot of chatter on the news and amongst my friends and family as to why would people choose to deal with the chaos of Black Friday.  This really made me think about why I do it.

Besides the amazing deals that I have been able to take advantage of over the years, it truly is the only time of the year that I can go shopping and not feel guilty about leaving my kids to go shopping as they are asleep with The Farmer "watching" them.  (I say "watching" because let's face it... he is asleep too and truthfully unaware of the fact that I am gone.)  I also don't have to worry about the time because everyone else is at home, asleep, and not missing me.  Believe it or not, it is actually a peaceful time for me to shop.  It also is a great time for me to spend one-on-one time with my mom as my youngest sister does the Black Friday thing with her husband (and we usuallly run into each other and help each other out), my other sister avoids it, and Black Friday is not my brother's thing; although, he did participate this year which is a whole other story. 

So thanks to Walmart's split sale this year, my mom and I left the house at 11pm on Thanksgiving night so we could take advantage of the Midnight Door Busters at Walmart.  Although, I was extremely exhausted since I had been up since 5:30am, it was worth it as I got everything on my list and we were out of Walmart within 2 hours. We were ecstatic to be out of Walmart in a relatively short amount of time, but now we had to wait until 3am for the next sale to start.  We knew if we went home for a little nap, we would never wake up so we decided to head to Steak n' Shake for a little snack. (This proved to be a good decision as my youngest sister went the nap route and overslept.  She was headed back to the sales when my mom and I were headed home at 6am.) 

Yes, we finally got back home shortly after 6am after hitting Kohl's and Target and starting at Walmart at 12am.  Even though I was ready to crash, I woke The Farmer up at 7am so we could head to Tractor Supply Company as he wanted a welding helmet (that he had to see before he bought it) and I knew if I didn't keep going I would crash.

After a few cat naps during the day and some online shopping at Amazon.com, I finally crashed last night and was able to sleep until 7am which is really good for this mother of 3. 

Being a glutton for punishment, my other sister and I decided to hit the outlet mall at 8am for a few stops.  Although, we missed out on some special offers by not going on Black Friday, we were still able to take advantage of some great deals and there was absolutely no crowd at all which was worth a lot to us.   

All in all, it was a successful shopping weekend and a great time to bond with my mom and two sisters and even though I didn't actually get to see her, I spent a lot of time "talking" with Ice Tea thanks to our Blackberries as she is my true partner in crime when it comes to Black Friday shopping and life in general.  Despite the fact that we are miles apart, we help each other out throughout the day to make sure we both get what we need or should I say want. And that is priceless even if I was up for almost 40 hours straight. 

The Magic of Christmas at the pig pen

So I did some Christmas shopping last night because I had a free shipping code for American Girl.  Even though I started buying gifts a few months ago, I can't believe it is already November and Thanksgiving is a few weeks away and Christmas is only a little over a month away. 

As I did my online shopping last night, I couldn't help but wonder how many more years Big Sissy would believe in all of the "magic" of Christmas.  As a second grader, she is reaching the age where kids talk about everything and start to question many things in their life as they are very inquisitive. 

My mother-in-law warned me today that this might be our last year of her believing in the "magic."  The thought of that is very depressing to me.  Although she is 8, she will always be my Little Girl and I want her to stay a little girl for as long as possible so I will do my best to keep the "magic" alive for her, Bubby, and Little Sissy for many years to come. 

How do you keep the "magic" alive at your house?

The Christmas Shopping has officially begun at this pig pen

I love buying presents for people and I love finding things on sale; although, I am nothing like Barbara at Frugalista Farmlife.  I don't normally start my Christmas shopping this early; however, while on a business trip the other day, I had some down time and journeyed into the Gymboree store. 

I love Gymboree.  I think their clothes are made very well and they are very cute.  I must admit though, I hardly ever, if ever, pay full price for anything there which is why my Christmas shopping started early this year.

First, I found this down vest for Little Sissy.  The vest was originally $39 and I paid $9.99.

Then, I found 3 pairs of pants and 1 top for our oldest.  The top was originally $19.75 and I paid $4.99.  The jeans were $36.75 and I paid $7.99.  The brown corduroys were $34.75 and I paid $6.99 and the pink sweatpants were originally $19.75 and I paid $4.99.

I personally thought the best deal I found was matching sweatshirts for Big Sissy and Little Sissy that they will probably wear for this year's Christmas picture with the pig.  They were both originally $28.75 and I paid $5.99 for Big Sissy's and $6.99 for Little Sissy's. 

What this means is I got $207.50 of clothing for $47.93 and there wasn't even sales tax. 

I was even able to throw in a pair of socks for our oldest and a pair of underwear for our son to qualify for $25 in gymbucks to be redeemed later this summer.  I can Christmas shop year round with savings like this.