Everyday Chatting & Waffling {2025} Let's get to know each other!

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I'm so sorry Ane! Hope you feel better before Christmas. I keep my special ones up all year too. The picture ones from special families so I can look at their beautiful faces. I use some of the others as gift tags and some others in scrapbooking. My grandmother used to make Christmas card scrapbooks for each new grandchild with pictures of them and it was an ABC book... A is for Angel with a 4 line poem. I still have mine. They were gorgeous.
 
AJsRandom said:
Shana, your new shirts at Disney look amazing! <3

Lynnie, what an amazing idea for cards! We have a magnetic front door, so I use magnets to stick them to the inside half of it.

Carla, I got your card--beautiful! And I will definitely use it.

Here's a puzzle for everyone--what do you do with your cards when you are done admiring them?

It turns out that my cold developed into pneumonia! I went to urgent care yesterday morning and they had me do a chest x-ray. So now I have to take antibiotics until Christmas Eve. Wonderful! I have to remember to pack them when we go to my son's place next week.
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Ane, I hope you get to feeling better soon! And to answer your question, I typically throw the cards away after the holidays. Back when I was a traditional scrapbooker, I would sometimes use the cards as elements on my pages (cutting out certain bits or saving signatures of loved ones). But these days, I just recycle them.
 
Randy's family is doing a get together at his sister's house, and she's requested that everyone bring a white elephant gift between $30-$50. The youngest family member is a college student, so it's a group of all adults. Does anyone have any good ideas for White Elephant gifts? It can be a nice gift, a joke gift, or something useful. I'm half tempted to bring a bag of Disney stuff as one of the gifts, and then have something nice or useful for our second gift. Would love some ideas!
 
I always have trouble with white elephant gifts. A basket of carefully selected fun goodies is always a treat (crackers, cheese roll, summer sausage, wine, etc.), a tea basket (teacup, tea, tea biscuits, book, etc.), a book basket (wine, wine glass, fun books), a Disney basket (I am sure you can find stuff for this!)
 
Lynnie, you know me well! I ended up going through my storage area and found two brand new Disney travel tumblers that I'll pair with a Starbucks gift card, and a weighted Disney plush that I'll pair with an Amazon gift card. Done and done! I did see a video of a lady who had a brilliant suggestion. Instead of buying a gift for someone else, everyone should bring a gift for themselves... she pointed out that 1) you'd get what you want, 2) no need to set a minimum dollar amount so you could spend what you could on yourself, and 3) others would get to know you better to see what gift you selected for yourself. I thought that was brilliant! LOL!
 
I haven't bought Christmas presents for years. Since I crochet, several of my family members, especially my nieces ask me in advance for what they want, so I have several months to knit shawls, ponchos, and matching hat and mitten sets. I usually pair the crocheted piece with some cash. For the others, I give an Amazon gift card, and everyone is happy. They do the same for me, usually a box of chocolates with an envelope with cash. That way, I can buy myself whatever I want, which is usually yarn and scrapbooking kits.
I hope you all are doing well, nice weekend everyone!
 
Tomorrow after my volunteer shift, we are off to my oldest son's place to hang out for Christmas. And play with the grandkids! Hopefully my back hangs in there and my cough/congestion ease. We're staying until Saturday morning because I have to be back for our Sunday church service (leading a musical number). I am still hoping that the gifts I ordered for Eren will show up today, otherwise they will be a New Year's gift (I didn't consider that they might be coming from overseas). Oh and I have a big research project due Sunday too. Am I going to work on it during my trip? Yes, but not on Christmas itself. That is strictly a family day. :)

I'll try and check in when I can, but if I don't comment, Happy Holidays to all! 🎄
 
Wow, everyone has been so busy. I like all the ideas and suggestions for Christmas gift exchanges. In our family we have a website called Giftster that we sign up our family and share what gifts we want. We use it for birthday's and Christmas. It really helps and when you buy a gift you marked it purchased so no-one else purchases it.

I finally got my house somewhat decorated this year. I only have a ceramic tree that light sup, it was made by my Mom in the 70's so it is precious to me. I also have a cat so that helps with the chaos. I choose to make a few of my favorite sweets but shared some so I don't eat it all my self.

I am preparing for my trip to Portugal in February so have been going to the gym doing spin classes and I love it. The weather is dreadful these days but my neighbor bought my hubby's snow blower and he has been keeping my yard clean...what a savior as we had a blizzard last week and I think I have snowfall for 2 years worth!

I am working on some crafty cards and gifts but otherwise just taking care of my mental health these days.

Wishing everyone a very happy holiday season!
 
I am a little behind on things. Daughter Karen's dog died yesterday and I had to abandon everything I was doing and drive to hers. Fortunately, the drive up took less than 2 hours and the drive home only 1 1/2 hours. I stayed with her for a while. Geisha was a Siberian Husky and was almost 16. She was a lovely dog. Karen is heartbroken, but glad she went peacefully. I was at book club when she messaged me. She had just facetimed me a little while earlier so I could say goodbye. We knew she was close to the end. I left book club, went home and got a craft together and drove up to her place. Karen was so grateful we had something fun to work on. We watched "All Dogs Go to Heaven" and "Red One" and crafted. I stayed a little over four hours and we ordered in some food. I cuddled her and let her cry. Poor Karen. She is managing okay today.

I went to son Steven's this morning to do a photo shoot of the kids for my DILs Christmas present. I put some potatoes in to bake for dinner. Rand is shopping for Christmas meal. I think we have our act together :)
 
@Route66 Karen dear enjoy your trip to Portugal, I know you will love it! I lived in Lisbon for a couple of years, and while it's very hot in the summer, the weather was very pleasant in "winter." The food is delicious, I think I gained a few pounds eating it, especially the "pasteis de Belém," which you can find in any pastry shop, but the ones from the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém in Lisbon are out of this world. And if you like fish, you have to try the cod (bacalhau) at Claras em Castelo (it's near São Jorge Castle), they cook the best in town. Obviously there are dishes I preferred not to try, like their tripe soup, which is very similar to Spanish callos and Mexican pancita, and which are basically cow tripes, and although the history of all these dishes in Europe dates back to the Middle Age (and in Mexico inherited from Spain with the variation of adding chilies), honestly I never felt like trying them, and I don't think that I'm gonna try it never, because at nowadays I'm vegetarian.
 
So my life partner/caregiver/ex/sometimes abuser/only family I have had for 25 years, died on Dec 6th.

She was a "head in the sand" type of person, so myself and dogs are barley hanging on till life insurance comes in.
The state is making it complicated to get the death cert, because we never made it official, if we had I would have lost my disability and health care. When the LI comes in I will loose it anyway, because we could never save 4500. to put the LI into a trust, can u believe 4500. for a single piece of paper, insanity.

Please send prayers and good vibes, I can use them!!

I've been missing since the internet got cut, I'll be 54 in April and this is the first time in my life I've had internet in my own name...

Hard Candy Christmas <my fave Dolly song, for sure this year as many in the past.
Trying to have a lil hope that next year will be better.

Blessings and Love to you and yours.
 
VariaMoon said:
So my life partner/caregiver/ex/sometimes abuser/only family I have had for 25 years, died on Dec 6th.

She was a "head in the sand" type of person, so myself and dogs are barley hanging on till life insurance comes in.
The state is making it complicated to get the death cert, because we never made it official, if we had I would have lost my disability and health care. When the LI comes in I will loose it anyway, because we could never save 4500. to put the LI into a trust, can u believe 4500. for a single piece of paper, insanity.

Please send prayers and good vibes, I can use them!!

I've been missing since the internet got cut, I'll be 54 in April and this is the first time in my life I've had internet in my own name...

Hard Candy Christmas <my fave Dolly song, for sure this year as many in the past.
Trying to have a lil hope that next year will be better.

Blessings and Love to you and yours.
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I am SO SORRY. I don't know what else to say.
I get it about being a Hard Candy Christmas. I love that song too. We've had our share in 45 years. "Barely gettin' through tomorrow, but I won't let sorrow bring me way down." You can do this. I can hear Dolly right now. Freddy and I were just talking about that yesterday. About having NO money to buy gifts for the kids and finding a bag a random gifts on the front step. Or making plans to FINALLY go on a vacation for the first time and having nowhere to stay because the condo we were going to stay in (for free) was all of the sudden rented out. So my dad AND his dad called in some favors and Voila! We have two! We felt so bad, we couldn't say no to either, so we flew down to Phoenix and stayed half the week in one and half the week in the other. smh... hahaha.
You will get through this and I believe good things will come out on the other side. Look at where you are now.
Praying for you. Sending big love and hugs and prayers.
 
VariaMoon said:
So my life partner/caregiver/ex/sometimes abuser/only family I have had for 25 years, died on Dec 6th.

She was a "head in the sand" type of person, so myself and dogs are barley hanging on till life insurance comes in.
The state is making it complicated to get the death cert, because we never made it official, if we had I would have lost my disability and health care. When the LI comes in I will loose it anyway, because we could never save 4500. to put the LI into a trust, can u believe 4500. for a single piece of paper, insanity.

Please send prayers and good vibes, I can use them!!

I've been missing since the internet got cut, I'll be 54 in April and this is the first time in my life I've had internet in my own name...

Hard Candy Christmas <my fave Dolly song, for sure this year as many in the past.
Trying to have a lil hope that next year will be better.

Blessings and Love to you and yours.
Click to expand...
Deepest condolences to you. I'm so sorry about your current circumstances... especially during this time of year.
 
VariaMoon said:
So my life partner/caregiver/ex/sometimes abuser/only family I have had for 25 years, died on Dec 6th.

She was a "head in the sand" type of person, so myself and dogs are barley hanging on till life insurance comes in.
The state is making it complicated to get the death cert, because we never made it official, if we had I would have lost my disability and health care. When the LI comes in I will loose it anyway, because we could never save 4500. to put the LI into a trust, can u believe 4500. for a single piece of paper, insanity.

Please send prayers and good vibes, I can use them!!

I've been missing since the internet got cut, I'll be 54 in April and this is the first time in my life I've had internet in my own name...

Hard Candy Christmas <my fave Dolly song, for sure this year as many in the past.
Trying to have a lil hope that next year will be better.

Blessings and Love to you and yours.
Click to expand...
It is always tough to lose someone, but even tougher when there is a holiday to face alone. I am so sorry. I hope the insurance comes through soon and makes life a little easier for you.
 
Grace. said:
@Route66 Karen dear enjoy your trip to Portugal, I know you will love it! I lived in Lisbon for a couple of years, and while it's very hot in the summer, the weather was very pleasant in "winter." The food is delicious, I think I gained a few pounds eating it, especially the "pasteis de Belém," which you can find in any pastry shop, but the ones from the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém in Lisbon are out of this world. And if you like fish, you have to try the cod (bacalhau) at Claras em Castelo (it's near São Jorge Castle), they cook the best in town. Obviously there are dishes I preferred not to try, like their tripe soup, which is very similar to Spanish callos and Mexican pancita, and which are basically cow tripes, and although the history of all these dishes in Europe dates back to the Middle Age (and in Mexico inherited from Spain with the variation of adding chilies), honestly I never felt like trying them, and I don't think that I'm gonna try it never, because at nowadays I'm vegetarian.
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Thanks for the tips...I definitely will not be eating most of those dishes as I am almost vegetarian as well, the fish I might try depending where we are dining. Happy New Year!
 
VariaMoon said:
So my life partner/caregiver/ex/sometimes abuser/only family I have had for 25 years, died on Dec 6th.

She was a "head in the sand" type of person, so myself and dogs are barley hanging on till life insurance comes in.
The state is making it complicated to get the death cert, because we never made it official, if we had I would have lost my disability and health care. When the LI comes in I will loose it anyway, because we could never save 4500. to put the LI into a trust, can u believe 4500. for a single piece of paper, insanity.

Please send prayers and good vibes, I can use them!!

I've been missing since the internet got cut, I'll be 54 in April and this is the first time in my life I've had internet in my own name...

Hard Candy Christmas <my fave Dolly song, for sure this year as many in the past.
Trying to have a lil hope that next year will be better.

Blessings and Love to you and yours.
Click to expand...
My deepest condolences. Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers.
 
This was an amazing Christmas for us! Karen did the stockings, so I didn't know what was in there for the first time in over 50 years! She also did all the dishes after, so I wasn't up really late doing them all. That was the best gift. When the kids arrived and brought all their presents, it was even more amazing! We barely fit in the living room!

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It looks like we emptied Amazon's warehouses, but we didn't spend loads of money, most of it was hand-made.
  • I made the cutest tree ornaments of Geisha (one for us, two for Karen!) and of t Bruce and Scarlett. After Christmas, I will make some of the rest of the grandkids.
  • I made a photo album of Karen's wedding. I still have to do some pages of the reception, but it was mostly done. I made a copy for Karen and her new husband, Jon, one for husband Rand and one for Jon's mother, Kim.
  • I made a little photo tin with a magnetic pic on top that could be removed and put on fridge. The tins were filled with 2.75 x 3.75 pics. I did one for DIL and Steven with Bruce and Scarlett pics and one for Karen with Geisha pics.
  • I framed pictures of Karen's wedding. One for Karen and Jon, one for Rand and one of Karen and our friend, Lois, for Lois (who spends every holiday with us).
  • I framed grandchildren pics for DIL Nessa and Rand
  • I made wedding ornaments for DIL Nessa, daughter Karen, and son James and wife Hannah (who live in England.)
  • I made our traditional family calendar for everyone.
  • We went through out library and picked out the most beautiful old books we could find for Steven. He treasures them! There was a first edition of Phantom of the opera and quite a few books from the 1800s. He was so pleased.
The list goes on and on! It took me five hours on Christmas Eve to wrap. We ended up not going to church because it was raining so hard (poor excuse, but I was also very tired). We watched Christmas Carol, the Man Who Invented Christmas and a few other movies. The bows on the presents are all re-used ribbon. Many of our packages are in reusable boxes. We did throw a lot of paper away, though.

In short - our Christmas was mostly a Gingerscraps Christmas!! All the ornaments, albums, framed pictures, calendars, gift tags, etc. were created with Gingerscraps kits! I think I will put a bunch of the ideas in the Hybrid section of the site. THANK YOU GINGERSCRAPS!!

The meal went really well. Jon is vegan, so all our dishes except the ham and the gravy were completely vegan. In addition to the ham for us, I made a vegan meatloaf for Jon and Karen. Karen is mostly vegan because she is with Jon. She does have a bit of meat sometimes when she is with us, but not much. Jon feels as though he doesn't have to pick and choose with our food. He knows that the meat dish is the only thing he has to avoid. He absolutely loved the vegan meatloaf. I also made dahl, which was delicious. I always have a ton of lentils, so it is pretty easy to make and adds some protein for Karen and Jon. We had ham, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, carrots and turnips, peas, corn, dahl, crescent rolls and flaky rolls. It was so good and didn't feel like a chore.

Today I am making a frittata for breakfast and a ham and lentil soup for dinner.

(you don't actually have to read this whole thing, I will cut and paste it for my journal haha!)
 
Lynnie can't wait to see what you made with Gingerscraps products.

Hope everyone is feeling better and had a wonderful Christmas.

I've been making Christmas cards with all my paper scrapbooking supplies. I made close to 35 cards. I gave them to my coworkers with $1 lottery ticket in them. (Sounds cheap but money is tight.) I did give presents to my closest friends and did Secret Santa and White Elephant next week. So plenty of money was spent on co-workers!. We are going on a cruise on February 14th so I'm making a few Valentine's cards to leave around the ship.

We were a group of 7 for the Christmas Eve. My husband and I spent 4 hours prepping everything on Tuesday so we just stuck it in the oven on Wednesday. We ate and ate until we couldn't eat anymore. I couldn't bend over I was so stuffed. We cooked for a crowd. May husband doesn't know how to cook small. LOL!

My husband decorated outside A LOT! Turns out the electrician put all four of our outside outlets on one line so with all the lights he put out it keep blowing the fuses. We hired an electrician to add more outside lines. It blew certain section out still, probably still too many light per circuit. So we put some sections on each night instead of everything at once.
My husband and I spent two hours outside on Sunday night. He played Santa and quite a few families stopped by to take pictures with Santa. He loved doing this soooo much. The only Jewish Santa I know! He LOVES Christmas.

I got the spirit this year more than I've had in the past. I made a few displays for inside my house. I had two shelves below my TV where I put up displays of Christmas items. I made two vases with Christmas sprigs. I made a vase with the same sprigs. And I made a "valence" above one of my doors with a tension rod, some garland and some sprigs and ornaments. I strung garland and ornaments on the light fixture in the dining room and decorated 3 Christmas trees. I think I did so much this year because I realized that life is short and we need to make the memories.

Sorry this is so long!

HAPPY NEW YEARS!
 
@LilyAnn - not long enough! How wonderful - it sounds as though your celebration was fabulous! I love the idea of the tension rods! I think I might do something with that next year. I also love the lottery ticket idea, we should do that for our stockings :)

We always give a gift to our neighbours. I may have shared this previously, but the Daughters of the British Empire give gifts to the residents of the the British Home we support. It is no longer just for Brits. I made the same gift for our neighbours. It was a little bag with a notebook, pen, bookmark and a series of questions about their life. (Eight Pages!!). There was a vinyl sticker on the front of the notebook made with GS products that was an old fashioned pen with a nib that you would dip in an ink well and a vintage items. The sticker was so cute. Anyway, the idea is that our memories need to outlast us and provide a record of our times. The neighbours seemed to like them!

I also did our card with GS products. I will probably post some of them if I can sort out the credits. When I am in a rush, I don't record the credits and I don't post the items.
 
Quiet Christmas around my house this year. We're in that in between phase where our kids are grown and we don't have grandkids yet. Christmas lunch and exchange of gifts for the kids and they are off doing their own thing or driving back home out of state.

Today my husband, youngest daughter, and I went on a morning hike at a State Park we hadn't been to about an hour drive from here. Then we dropped her off at home to take care of something she needed to do and we went to a Nature Preserve about an hour away the other direction and hiked another 2.5 - 3 miles. Most of it was steep steps so I know I'm going to be feeling that tomorrow.

I think our hiking is about to get put on pause for a few months, probably until Spring Break in March but it's been nice to be able to get out and enjoy seeing some places we hadn't been to.
 
Christmas was certainly different this year, just me walking up with my cat, Hana. There were only 2 presents under the tree for Hana. I went to my son's place for breakfast (in-laws joined us from out of town). We had a lovely breakfast, in-laws left and son, daughter-in law and grandson opened presents. I stayed for awhile then headed home. Chatted with my son who lives out of province then was supposed to go to my brothers for dinner but his family all came down with the flu a few days before and were still not up to entertaining. I binged watched on Netflix.

Tomorrow I am going to help pack my disabled brother's apartment so he is ready to move on Monday. He went to the hospital this morning as he has many medical issues, he was treated and is now home. I can hardly wait for him to move in his new place plus it is closer and in a better area of town so it will be easier for us to visit more often and care for him.

I hosted a friends (mostly friends from grade school so we say we are "lifelong" friends) party last weekend which was a lot of fun and I made some hot chocolate bombs for them to take home, they all were surprised and loved them. Lots of laughs were had by all!

I did get lots of crafty stuff done this year, some decorations, gift tags and some handmade cards (I added my monogram this year with my wax seal that I purchased in Italy).

All in all I got along quite well by myself this year. Gearing up now for my trip to Portugal in February.
 
Varia, I am so sorry to hear about your ex's passing. I hope everything works out for you and you get the life insurance. <3

It looks like most everyone had nice Christmases! We had an interesting one out here in Ohio. I was running on less than 6 hours of sleep by time we finally "had" Christmas, 8:30 am or so. The grandkids got most of the presents, naturally. My son and DIL were nice enough to give us several too, like a new rice cooker (our is worn out but still works). Breakfast was delicious and we enjoyed much of the rest of the day watching the kiddos play with their presents, watching Christmas movies, and just hanging out. Today we went and saw Zootopia 2. It was the kiddos' first time seeing a movie in the theater. Lena (5) did well, and Adonis (2) lost interest about halfway. But they both behaved very well, which surprised all of us. Tomorrow will be sad, as we have to leave and I have to finish my paper. But it's been a great week and I've enjoyed our time here.
 
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