Each year I look forward to receiving a Christmas card from Pazio. My husband orders some RPG books from them, so he is on the mailing list. I love their cards. They make it to the ‘keep’ pile.

This guest post from Rafael Hodge

Remember the days of black and white TV, well the younger ones couldn’t even conceive of the idea of black and white, let alone only having three channels, four if you had PBS in your area. Back then we had great family shows and Saturday morning cartoons that weren’t all filled with the violence of today.

And we can’t forget that around 10 P.M. every night we would hear the words “oh say can you see” coming from TV and then the old test pattern. In some cases all you would see was snow on the screen until 7 A.M. rolled around and once again our TV set would boom into life again.

Show like Howdy Doody, The Mickey Mouse Club, The Jetsons, or The Bullwinkle Show are classics that I wanted my children to experience. Then Satellite TV came along with great networks like Nickelodeon that we added back in the late 70′s. Our children and our grandchildren now have the opportunity to watch a lot of the great shows like we did when we were children.

The great thing about Nickelodeon is that it shares space with Nick at Nite that has reruns of some of greatest sitcoms from years ago. And even this past May they purchased the rights to the Power Rangers franchise and will actually resume production for the eighteenth season of this popular show that kids have loved for years. If you don’t have nickelodeon on your direct tv specials get it and remember the good old days.

Brownies are one dessert that my daughter will eat. She is five and extremely picky. She does not eat cake, most candies, or cookies. She does love brownies. My mom usually has brownies made for her. For Christmas, my daughter wanted to get my Mom a Perfect Brownie Pan Set. She had seen in on TV and was convinced that Mamaw needed this to make brownies.

We got her one for Christmas and gave it to her at our family get together last weekend. Mom made brownies the next day using the brownie set. My daughter would not eat the brownies. They were thicker then my Mom’s brownies. Each brownie also had an edge on every side – something my daughter does not eat. Their texture was different, too. My Mom’s brownies are more fudge-like while these turned out more the texture of cake.

My Mom made brownies the old way just for her. The brownie pan is nice. All the brownies are neatly baked, and the dish also can be a serving tray. It just wasn’t what my daughter expected. This is a great lesson for her. Just because it looks good on TV, it doesn’t mean that it will work how you might think.

When I decided to stay at home with our daughter, I thought I would get so much done in a day. A clean house, home-cooked dinner every night, and plenty of free time with my daughter. It seems to take twice as long to do even the simplest tasks. Being a home is a huge distraction. There is so much to do that nothing ever seems to get done.

I’ve made a resolution to have goals for each day. These should start out small since I should be able to complete them. Plus I love the sense of accomplishment. It is better to get something done than nothing at all. These small tasks will eventually add up.

Today’s goal is to clean the kitchen. It is a borderline big goal since the kitchen is a wreck. But it’s something that I should be able to do. I also need to wrap some Christmas gifts. Tomorrow I plan to work on the living room and moving out everything that doesn’t belong.

It seems my best time to work is in the morning. After lunch just seems to either fly by or drag. In both case, I never get any work done. I’m hoping the once I get a few small goals under my belt that I can move to bigger tasks each day.

Guest post written by Erica Shephard

I think that Christmas time is the easiest time to get a little more creative with all things that you can bake. I mean, there are all kinds of ways that you could decorate it with icing or even use as a cake topper. There are all kinds of little cheap trinkets and toys that you can use as a cake topper, or so I thought.

I had imagined this perfect little cake in my mind to make for our annual family get-together for Christmas and wanted to find a reindeer topper that was pretty big to put on top of it for it. Well, I didn’t have a whole lot of luck finding any in a store or online with our WIRELESS INTERNET. So I knew that I would have to get a little creative.

I knew that I would probably have to make one myself and found an example of a deer cake topper that was similar to what I wanted to do. So I think that I’m just going to take this craft and modify it so that it’s a reindeer instead

On Christmas, we are usually traveling to see family. There is something serene about traveling Christmas day. The roads are practically empty and many stores are closed. It is a nice break from the chaos of shopping and Christmas parties.

Coming back is as not as serene but at least the trip there is calm. It has become our Christmas tradition. We open presents and then are usually on the road by noon. It’s about a four hour trip that usually takes five with all the stops along the way. I always enjoy our holiday travel. It gives us a nice ride to get ready for the next Christmas celebration.

After my fourth trip to the store in a month for cat food, I have decided that it is time to start buying larger bags. Those small trips add up quickly in both time and money. It doesn’t matter the store, it will take an hour to get either a few or fifty items.

We have a Sam’s Club membership and use it mainly to buy tires. We just don’t have a lot of room to store a lot of stuff. I now believe that I can find room for some bulk items. When you run out of toilet paper, then you have to go to the store. I hope that buying in bulk items like cat food, dog food, and toilet paper that my trips to town will be greatly reduced. I find that the trips to the store aren’t as annoying as it is to lose a couple of hours of productivity.

In January we will start buying more in bulk. I did buy a 16 pound bag of cat food that should last two months. I was worried about having such a big bag of cat food without being able to seal it. Today is a warm day, so the ants are out in full force. This large bag of cat food will be the mother load for them. Luckily I remembered I had a large Ziploc bag that I can use.

It will hopefully keep the ants and the dog out of the cat food. Buying in bulk may be more expensive up front but it should save us some money in the long run.

This past week I have been cleaning our house and thinking of last minute Christmas gifts. We have friends in Dallas, TX who are super hard to buy for. One gift I think would be really appreciated is the gift of clean.

I was checking out local carpet cleaning Austin and the company The Steam Team. They look to offer several cleaning options. The Steam Team can clean up after natural disasters like storms and fires. It is an option and something they could use. Their green carpet cleaners Austin that I know they will appreciate.

The gift of clean for Christmas could be a really good idea. It could become a tradition and would definitely make shopping for a gift easier. They have been interesting in finding a household carpet cleaner Austin. The holidays are hard enough so making gift buying simple is a great solution.

Brought to you by your friends at The Steam Team

Every Christmas I start with a modest budget that always grows as Christmas draws closer. The problem is that I forget to put some people on my Christmas list. Then I’m really in a bind since my money is spent but still need a few presents.

When I need a cheap Christmas present, I buy useful items. One of the handiest, cheapest items around is a magnetic shopping list notepad. These cost about $1 and are really handy. When I need something, I can write it down at the refrigerator. I always know where I wrote down the grocery list.

Food is always a nice gift – like hot cocoa. It’s cheap and it will certainly be consumed in cold weather.

Also another inexpensive gift is mini-tool kits. I buy one each year for the house. I usually lose a lot of parts throughout the year. But it’s not big loss since I can get another one for $5.

There are some board games that are inexpensive, too. There are several portable versions of a game that run less than $10. Games are always fun.

Those are just a few ideas for cheap Christmas gifts. What is your go-to-cheap gift for the holidays?

It has been almost a month since I cancelled our DirecTV service. We had been a customer for two years and really enjoyed all the DirecTV channels. We were introduced to so many great shows not to mention countless hours of entertainment for our daughter.

We are taking a break from satellite TV for a while. I do miss it though. Next year we hope to add it back once I have a full-time job. I have to admit that Direct TV is my favorite satellite TV provider. They are the only satellite TV provider we have ever used, but family members have tried others. We realized we had better programming at home with DirecTV.

We just like the variety in the DirecTV packages and really hope that our local channels will be available next year. Apparently they are working on it, so maybe it will finally happen. It is kind of exciting to think about having satellite TV again. So many of our favorite shows are now in new seasons. We are missing them – which makes us sad. We will trim our budget for now and will come back to DirecTV at some point in the future.

Brought to you by your friends at My TV Options.com