Monday, September 19, 2011

Christmas in September

Maybe I don't handle this task of parenting several kids as well as some others do.  I often feel overwhelmed.  Nonetheless, I feel the need to start my Christmas shopping now so I am not unprepared for the season.  It happens!

My teen has not asked for any gifts yet and she is hardest to buy for.  She says that she is "strategically only putting a few key items" on her list to ensure that she gets exactly what she wants.  Since when does she not get exactly what she wants?  Nonetheless, she informs me that iPad and a new cell phone are on her wish list.  Wow!  I'm not sure that Santa has that kind of a budget.

Nonetheless, my toddler doesn't need anything but clothes.  I'm not sure what she will ask Santa for Christmas since she already has lots of toddler toys at home from her brother.

Bro, my preschooler, has lots of wants and.. ahem... NEEDS.  Plus, he needs Christmas gifts and then has a birthday right after the New Year.  So, this past week I started getting some stuff together for him.

The problem is that I am not one to keep secrets and surprises.

I fear that Christmas might go something like this... this is me talking... "Okay kids... I have good news and bad news.  The good news is that I bought you a boat load of gifts for Christmas.  The bad news is that... we already opened them and played with them... so hope you liked them."

Let's see how I am doing so far.

I preordered The LEGO Ideas book along with a LEGO Star Wars Minifig Catalog - for a 41% savings off of full price.  We opened the LEGO Ideas Book this weekend. We had a great time building with LEGO bricks.  Lulu and Bro are building houses.  Bro asked if I would build him a church, so I am working on it.


I bought Cars Squinkies and Marvel Super Hero Squinkies... of which we played with them... ate with them... and slept with them all weekend long.  They were a HUGE hit.  However, we've lost almost all of them at this point and we saw the family dog eat several.  Normally he does not go near our stuff.  I guess a small squinkie (the size of a grape) is too good to pass up.


I desperately want baby Bri to enjoy reading books.  So far, she still will NOT sit still for even the shortest book... no matter what.  So, I tried this little interactive selection by LeapFrog.  Yes, we read it.  Um... she kinda likes it more than other books.  She just has NO ability to sit still for any length of time.  It's totally frustrating.


Bro wants a pirate ship with "with a plank." I did some research and found two that seem to be great buys.  One is selling for $79.99 on Amazon and I snagged it (new in box) for $9.93 on ebay.  I might have to see if Fairy Grandmother will store it for me until Christmas, lest we play with this before Christmas too.  Argh!

Shopping early means that I have the wiggle room to look for and wait for deals to come along.  Money is not growing on trees at my house and we need to save as much as possible.  Ya know?

I found What's In the Bible Volume 1 on sale for 5 bucks at my local Christian bookstore.  Have we watched it already?  Of course we have.  That's okay.  We can still ask for volumes 2-6 for Christmas.  Right?


In the coming months, you will find that there are lots of religious items on our Christmas lists.  After 13 years of parenting, it has all of the suddenly occurred to me that since my kids are going to public school, I am chief-in-charge of spearheading their religious education.  We have some catching up to do but it is better to be late than never, right?

My hope is that my teen can get up to speed quickly about some basics of the Bible as we start to teach the basics to my preschooler.  That's the immediate plan anyway.  We'll see how it goes.

Oh - so... you want my opinion on What's in the Bible?  hahahahahaha!  Believe the hype!  It was fabulous!  We sat down and watched both parts of volume 1 as a Friday Family Movie Night.  We laughed... we all laughed... it was great.  My son asked to watch it again on Saturday.  My only tip is that it was a tad bit overwhelming to watch both parts in one night.  Next time, we will probably divide it up into two movie nights. Nonetheless, it is a great buy and we are looking forward to getting more episodes.

So... tell me...
do you open Christmas gifts early
or are you totally okay with hiding them 'til the big day?     

3 comments:

Mrs. Bird said...

Oh, goodness. I'm the kind of person who's at the mall on Dec. 24th buying Christmas presents. They're not even on my radar yet :)

Fairy Grandmother said...

I can wait...that is the point...so yes I have room for the pirate ship with the plank...and I promise not to turn it over until Christmas arrives! :-)

SusieQ said...

What are you thinking?? You are the one who is supposed to keep everything in the proper order around that house and you are the leader in opening presents early! You need to develop sometning called "self control".... As soon as you make a purchase you need to head straight to fair grandmother's house!!!