A Guide to Christmas: Part Two- Christmas Shopping

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Here's part two of my Christmas guide for you! An easy, 5 step guide to help you with your holiday shopping! (I know, I probably should have put this out sooner than 5 days 'till Christmas. But hey.)

1.  If you buy online, ALWAYS buy it with at least two weeks to spare before Christmas. Even if it says "Order in the next 2 hours and 37 minutes to get it by _____________!"  It won't happen. The present won't get there in time. Also, I advise against buying things from out of your country. 

2. Don't do last minute shopping on Christmas Eve. It's a BAADDD idea. Everything will be sold out and you probably won't find anything. But if you do find something, it will probably be on sale for something REALLY cheap, like 95% off. Sound like a good deal? It's probably more like "Oh, this one got broken. Let's patch it up with bubble gum and then put it on the shelf for 95% off". And, when will you find time to wrap it? You'll also be very tired when it comes around to Christmas.

 3. If, however, you ignore my above stated advise, always expect the person in front of you in line to be really chatty and want to talk to the person checking them out for 20 minutes. Or they'll be on the phone, talking and laughing LOUDLY. Or your checkout person will be chatty and want to talk for hours.
 
4. Make sure you keep in touch with everyone else buying presents for immediate family so you don't end up with double presents. If you end up with double presents anyway, pretend to be absolutely thrilled. that sometimes works. If not, just smile and say how cute they are or something like that. Whatever you do, BE NICE about it.

5. When you run out of room under your tree, it's a good indication that more presents are not ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.  

Hope you have a good Christmas! Stay tuned for parts 3 and 4 of my Christmas guide. Thanks for reading!

NOTE: No elves were harmed in the making of this post.  

 

A Guide to Christmas: Part One - Christmas Carols

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Here is my guide to the Christmas songs you hear in stores, on the radio, and some you may have on CD.

 1. If you don't know the words to a Christmas song that everyone else in the car/ house/ wherever you may be is singing, have no fear. You can just hum, or wait for less than a minute. They will probably start laughing and stop singing because they don't know the words either. If they can't make it through one verse of 'Joy to the World', that should be saying something.

2. If you feel the need to hit the person that wrote the song you happen to be listening to, try to just tune it out. That sometimes works. Otherwise, I fear you will have to just live with the terrible music. Sorry.

3. Expect the person singing to not be the best singer in the world. Always expect them to not be very good. There are some very good singers out there that are not afraid to sing Christmas music, so if you hear one that is really good, you can be happily surprised. I am not telling you to make fun of the people singing or anything like that, I am just saying that a lot of Christmas music singers aren't great.

4. If you can vaguely play any instrument under the sun, and you either tell people you can play or are forced to play in front of them, they will think you can play EVERY Christmas song under the Milky Way. And then they will make you play for them. And they will choose the weirdest song you can think of, like Jingle Bell Rock *twitch twitch*. 

5. Beware that there are several categories of Christmas music: Songs that actually celebrate Christ's birth or tell about that glorious time, songs that celebrate Santa, presents, and candy, and instrumental music that can be either. If you like the tune of some of the songs that celebrate Santa, presents, and candy, but don't like the words, here's an idea for you: Get an instrumental version and make up your own words to it.

Please remember that in this post, I am not saying anything bad about Christmas songs, the singers, or the people who wrote the songs. I am just stating that some Christmas songs aren't great, I've heard some really, really bad singers that are singing Christmas music, and I have no idea where some people get their ideas for their Christmas music, because they make it twisted and slightly morbid.

NOTE: NO REINDEER WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS POST. 
  

Christmas Questions

It seems that people are gearing up for the holidays around here. If you go driving at night, you see Christmas trees peaking out windows and Christmas lights hanging off houses. In stores, you can easily find ornaments and artificial trees, Christmas decorations everywhere, and everything on sale. 

At my house, we got our artificial Christmas tree out yesterday, along with all our other Christmas decorations.  We even pulled out the lighted wire yard decorations, our angel and our three Christmas trees, though we're the only people that will be around to enjoy them.

The question is, do any of the people who love the Christmas season so that they can put lights up and try to be the most decorated people on the block even think about or remember the real reason for Christmas? Do they just put lights and trees up so that it's pretty and they're not the only people without lights and trees, or do they think about the reason they should be enjoying the holiday season?

I guess the more to-the-point question is: Do people in my community just celebrate Santa, getting presents, and trees and lights, or do they rejoice in the fact that their Savior was born and that it's when we celebrate His birthday?

I agree that I like the excitement of receiving a wrapped present and tearing into it to find something that I will treasure. And I admit that sometimes, during Christmas morning, as I'm opening presents, I don't think much about the One who gave me the ultimate present: A life with Him, free of sin.

 

This question nags more and more at me as I walk into Wal-Mart and see 'Happy Holidays' and Merry X-Mas' everywhere. People everywhere are crossing out Christ's name because they are 'Afraid of hurting someone's feelings'. Well guess what? They succeeded in hurting MY feelings! 

I suppose I understand, but not really. I know they can't make everyone happy. It's impossible, unless you're God, which they're not. Why change the decades old name of a holiday to make some people happy, and the people that already WERE happy, mad? I don't understand.

I'm sorry if I've offended any readers by using 'Christmas' instead of 'X-mas', but I strongly believe that people should keep the Christ in Christmas, as He is the reason Christmas even began being celebrated.

Now, let me be one of the first to wish you a Merry Christmas! (Unless you live in a place like me where, before Thanksgiving, they were having the lighted Christmas parade)

- Firefly

Reaching 11

So, it's about time for me to post again, huh? I'll tell you how things went.

At EYH last week, it all went nice and well. I knew about 6-8 of the people there: Cousin Ned, as I have referred to her before, was there, several people from orchestra, 3 people from camps I've been to, and several others.

The speakers were kinda so-so on interesting, but they were ok. A new friend that I met in the main room there and I went to: a vet, a public health person, another public health person, and a civil engineer.

 My first class was totally epic! I made a little robot thing made out of a tooth brush head, the most mini motor of all time, and a battery. After we made our creatures, we could glam them up with stick-on sparklies and pipe-cleaners. After everybody was ready, we raced. I won every race with my little robot, then it was time for lunch and we headed out.

Lunch was good; I sat with Cousin Ned, one of the people from orchestra, the girl I met in the main room, and a random person that happened to have the last two classes with me!  So, after lunch and waiting for a few minutes, we went off to marble roller coaster class.

In there, it was SOOO fun.We had about 50 minutes to build roller coasters with some pool noodles which were sliced in half. My team (made of VERY strange people, including myself) started ours at the top of a high window. We ran the track down to the table/desk and did a loopty-loop then continued downwards, finally ending with another loop. Ours didn't quite work when we showed the entire class, but nobody else's did either. After that, we were released off to ice-cream making class.

T (from lunch) and I were the first people in the ice cream class, but the last table to be able to get our ice cream started. After we shook it up, we waited. During that time, they put dry ice in drinks, mine being apple juice, which carbonated them. It was NASTY after the dry ice finally melted. They also put dry ice in with some dish soap, which most of the girls played with. When we were about to leave, they found out someone had left their bag of ice cream up front, so they asked whose it was. No one answered the first about 5 times, so when they asked again I said "I'll take it." They let me have it, so with some "Hey!"s and "Aww!" s trailing after me, I was the first person out. After that, I didn't have to wait long before I was picked up and taken to the Christmas Parade (on Nov. 17. Really??), which I'll post about later.

On Sunday, after church, I opened presents. From my grandparents (dad's side) I got black jeans (Oh yeah!), an awesome jacket, and the EPIC Oracles of Fire book series. They are awesome. I would advise reading them AFTER reading the Dragons in Our Midst series. Anyway! From Creator's Son, I got an awesome horse necklace. But one of my favorite presents I received, was my PAPERWHITE KINDLE!!!!! *Happy dance, Happy dance* Sunday was totally awesome.

On my REAL birthday, I woke up at about 7:30, but didn't come out of my room until 8. I got some AWESOME presents from my parents: A really fuzzy and warm and awesome horse blanket, and 3 Andrew Peterson music CDs. I sat around and played on my computer, wrapped in my horse blanket until around lunch time. I wanted to listen to some of AP's CDs, but I couldn't do that and play on my computer. Sooo, I haven't really listened to them yet, but I will cuz they're epic. I played on my computer too long to watch the Avengers, because we left here at 1:15 to pick up Grandma and head to Kerrville.

After we got there, we waited for the guys to come pick Grandma up, then Mom and I went to a very uneventful orchestra, but we left early to go to a Dale Gentry thing. I'll 'splain later. Anyway, after we got home from that, there was a little something sitting on the couch. Nana points at it and says "That's your birthday present from Bailey. She insisted on giving it to you on your real birthday, since she's immediate family." It was a gorgeous thing which I will hold a secret from you until next week, for I am surprising Mustang with it and I have a FEELING she MIGHT read this.

And yesterday, I drug out the celebration one last day, and watched the Avengers, wrapped in my horse blanket. It was glorious. So that's the EXCITING tale of my birthday.

Thinking back

So it's that time of year again: The leaves are turning red, orange, and yellow, you start thinking of turkeys, pies and cranberries, that sort of stuff. It's also about time for my 11th birthday.

Next Monday (five days from now) is my birthday, but I have three days of celebration before that. On Saturday, I'm going to Expanding Your Horizons (EYH) again. Of course, this time, Mustang isn't coming. Shame on her.  Then on Sunday, I open my grandparents' presents and come home. Finally, Monday arrives and I open my parents' presents and then (hopefully) watch the Avengers before we leave for orchestra.

Ahh! I remember my tenth birthday and birthday party like it was last year.. I mean like it was yesterday... so fun. I posted about my actual birthday  and going to EYH, but I didn't mention my party at all. So.. here goes nothin'.

Mustang came to my house early and I showed her what we were going to do, opened the present I received from her, and then we played outside for a bit before we left to meet 3 of my other friends at Wal-Mart and corralled them into the car, then went to my house. Once there, we goofed off for a while outside: jumping on the trampoline, running around, just plain playing. Then we went inside and painted some horse figures. Oh, that was a hoot. Girls everywhere painting their horses, saying how cute someone else's horse was and what not.

Then we ate my yummy cake and had a little bit of  time to pack boxes for "Operation: Christmas Child" and hand out goody bags containing rubber ducky penguins, some penguin finger puppets, and a penguin notepad before we sat down to make some bead necklaces. Also quite a hoot, except this time we had beads. It was very entertaining and except for the millions of times Mom had to help us get the thread back through the needles that we were using to make it easier (ha), I don't think she even tried to stop laughing.


But then (unfortunately) everyone had to leave except Mustang, who stayed for a bit afterwards and we messed with the stuff she had given me: a Webkinz dragon and a horse calender.

So that's pretty much how my party went. And you already know the rest, cuz I posted about that.

 

The Backstory of the Ranch

My parents bought this piece of property in c.1990, while they still lived down on the coast. They dreamed of moving out here, but Dad couldn't completely convince Mom to actually do it until 1999, when Creator's Son was a year and a half old. They set up shop until 2009, when we made the decision to move to town.

It was great being raised in the middle of nowhere, with dangerous creatures everywhere and spiny cacti everywhere else. I'm really not being sarcastic here, it was. It was great being able to step out my front door and a startled deer look up and run off, or go for a walk and see a snake sunning itself in the middle of the path. Then Dad quit his job, and things started getting pretty tight. He was out of work for at least 8 weeks, and things were really not looking good, when lo and behold: he got hired for HCTC as an I-Fix worker (aka a computer repair dude).

The real reason we moved though, was because Dad got that job. It was in town which didn't sound too bad by itself, but gas prices sky-rocketed and Mom and Dad realized it would be cheaper to rent a house in town then to stay out here. So we had to up and move to town.

It was super hard to leave the house I'd grown up in, plus all my trees, AND two cats. They had to drag me kicking and fighting into town, but both houses we rented in town were absolutely amazing to live in. Nothing, however, can beat out here. We moved back after (drum roll) Dad quit his job! Now we're back to stay, and I'm glad.

Me playing with a stick that my brother convinced me to call a bo staff

This is me in front of our gate

My brother and me outside on our swing set after a long day of saving the universe.

All three of these are from before we moved, just so you know.. I'm much older now.

An Update on Me

Well, by now you probably think that I disappeared off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again, or the earth swallowed me up whole or something like that. But, unfortunately for those who don't like listening to me gush about puffles and the like, that is not so. I'm still here!

Ok, so if you think aaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way back to my first post, back in August of 2010, you'll remember that I said I have lived in three different homes. That hasn't changed. I still have lived in only three different homes. We moved back to my first house, out in the middle of the Texas Hill Country (Maybe I'll tell you the story behind that next post). It is just as awesome, if not more awesome, than I remember. Lots of trees, the Hollow, and lots of good rocks. So that move took us a while, and that's mostly what I've been doing to not blog in so long.

I would've posted on Saturday (maybe), except for one very, very good reason: I was busy.  I was busy auditioning for REGION Orchestra. Later on, as we were about to leave a Target, Mom got a text from my private lesson teacher, who also happened to be one of the judges. I made 6th chair first violin out of over 200 people trying out. To make this even more astounding, there are 36 first violin chairs. And I was up against high schoolers.

Something else that happened since the last time I blogged: Mustang came down for the last time before the big move. We had a ton of fun goofing off, playing our strange games and whatnot. One special thing that is worth noting and is almost too hilarious (but didn't seem like it at the time, at least not to Mustang and I): Mustang, her dad, and I were out eating at Culver's. After we left, we convinced him to go to one of the nearby Redboxes to see if they had The Avengers. That Redbox was out of stock of it. He decided to take us to another very close Redbox. They were out of stock too. We had just given up, when I remembered there was a Redbox at a gas place... So we turned the other direction from home and went to the place. We scrambled frantically out half laughing like lunatics and half sincerely hoping that it was there. We were in luck: they had ONE left. Mustang slid the card. And then slid it again. And again. And again, until we called her dad over. HE slid the card about four times, then Mustang busts out laughing. Once she finally got ahold of herself, she said between laughter spasms, "I forgot to press pay!" Then she continued laughing, and I joined her while her dad pretended to glare at her. Finally, we got the movie home, laughing all the way, and watched it. As we bounded up the front steps, grinning and laughing, I called to my brother "We got it! The Avengers!"

One last thing that is coming up in the next couple weeks is my birthday. I turn 11 exactly 2 weeks from today.

Well, I guess that's all the exciting stuff for now. I'll be trying to get back in my blogging spirit now, so... wish me luck, I guess!