We just put our tree up in our living room. This is our first year in this house and the first year we've used this tree (we bought it day after Christmas 2 years ago). We failed to realize that the 6.5 foot tree would look extremely teeny with our 10 foot ceilings. We bought a 9.5 foot tree today because we couldn't stand looking at the poor tiny tree!

AXO Alum, I'm PMing you :)

I love to give out ornaments! Get a box of the glass balls, and use a paint pen to write your letters on it. When the paint dries, on the other side maybe write something like "Merry Christmas 2006! Love, (Insert Name Here)"
They're always a big hit.

I'm having a hard time getting into the spirit of the season this year. The house is decorated, most of the presents are bought.. about half are wrapped. There is still a lot baking to do and three dinners to provide for various family get togethers. I usually love this season and enjoy it all but for some reason, this year, it all just feels like a chore. I wish I could snap out of it.

Agreed. Here's a little holiday comraderie for you and <<hugs>>.

I've been under the weather (nothing serious) since Turkey Day and am just getting back to semi-human. I feel like I'm two weeks behind on holiday prep, although it really isn't that bad. DH cut the tree on Saturday, brought it inside and did the lights yesterday. Most gifts but the stocking stuffers and such are already purchased, but still need to wrap and ship a few final ones in the next few days. Will wrap the guys' gifts next Monday night while they're all off at the hockey game. Hopefully can get the tree and house decorated this week. I'm all ready to bake, just don't have the energy or lack of cough to even consider starting that quite yet. Haven't even thought about Christmas Eve or Christmas dinner. It's the one year I wish we had an option to dine out instead of cooking.

PS--for those of you who need to hide gifts from prying eyes, luggage works wonders!

Puhlease! Unless there were locks on the luggage, that's the first place I looked as a child - yeah, I was *that* kid :o Glad you are starting to feel better.

I can't believe its just 2 weeks from today! I feel like there is so much to be done still -- but there's really not (except for deciding whether or not to tell hubby exactly what I want!) -- I do want to get some baking done.

epchick - make cookies & give them out. I just found the coolest thing at our Sam's Club -- sugar cookie dough SHEETS! Each sheet makes about a dozen cookies (depending on the size of your cutter) & it comes with red & green frosting. I bought it because I needed to make the apple taffy pizza from Pampered Chef - and it was much easier to put two side by side & cook it than to have to make the dough, refrigerate it, then roll out dough and all that mess.

Or, if you are crafty (and I am not, but they still looked cute), I bought the clear glass star ornaments from the craft store ($1 ea - but they were 40% off) & a pack of glitter paint (the kid kind sold in the plastic tubs that are all hooked together - a whopping 97c) -- I just made small circles in red, green, and gold all over.

I definitely looked in there when I was younger. Eventually my mom wisened up and just started ordering all of my gifts and having them shipped to her office so I wouldn't find them no matter how hard I looked.

I don't even have an excuse of being sick! I think everything is just now catching me up to me from when my mom was sick this summer. Can that be possible? It's the only thing I can think of.

I hide the kids' gifts in the empty boxes from the Christmas decorations. After we do the decorating, the gifts go in there and back under the stairs. They've never checked there yet!

Santa and 4 of the reindeers sing
 

My mom got lucky for hiding our presents...my family has three girls and my mom's sister has three boys, and since they did all their shopping together anyway, they just went home with each other's bags, so if we looked, all we'd find is boy toys.

And I like the idea of the ornaments as a present for sisters, and definitely the idea of baking, who wouldn't want some homemade cookies or fudge?! :)

Sneaky little thing even then I see.:confused:

A grammatically correct Tom Earp post. What happened- did you finally clean out the beer distributor?

BWAH HA HA

My parents hid my presents in my dresser last year. It was hilarious. I came home for Christmas a few days beforehand and they knew I was too tired to put my clothes away so I wouldn't go in there. ;)

I did decide to put up a tree this year (at first I wasn't going to because our house is a complete disaster area) so we got one yesterday and I decorated it last night. I will admit, I'm glad I gave in because it looks (and smells) so nice.

I always looked for my presents and knew all the usual hiding places: my parents' closet, the hall closets, the garage, the trunk of the car, etc... My husband now either waits until the last minute to buy my presents or keeps them at work so I don't find them.

Our presents are always in the closet under the stairs. It's kept locked and when we were little we didn't know where the keys were. Now, it's just not fun to find out your presents ahead of time! :)