Santa must have approved of the cookies and chocolate milk because he left the little girl exactly what she had wanted. Hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas!

I have to admit that I hate to wrap Christmas presents. Love buying them but loathe the wrapping part. I wrap gifts usually the day that I give them – which is a habit that I wish I could break. I blame my lack of enthusiam for wrapping presents on not having a proper place to wrap gifts. If only I had a nice, big kitchen table to lay out everything the process would be so much easier. Oh well. At least for now I will just make due with the setup I have – wrapping presents on the bed as it is the largest clean surface in our home.

Last year some friends had a gift wrapping party where everyone brought the gifts they needed to wrap. Then everyone wrapped their gifts together. You still had to wrap but at least there was company.

One trick to keep from wrapping presents is to just use gift bags. If the gift doesn’t fit, then I keep looking for a gift that will. Besides a gift bag is like two gifts in one since it seems everyone keeps gift bags to reuse for their own gifts.

One thing that does get me motivated to wrap presents is the feeling of accomplishment once I’m done. Let’s hope I get done before Christmas Eve.

Yesterday I bought my first Christmas gift of the season. It made me want to buy more. I have already begun trying to prep for the holidays by making the Christmas list and organizing exactly what I plan to make and for whom.

A part of holiday giving is baking but is hard with a very temperamental oven to cook anything. So I’ve been on the lookout for simple holiday treats with either a short cook time or don’t require an oven.

One idea I found was cookie cutter white fudge. Basically you take a cookie cutter and place it on wax paper. Melt white chocolate and a few other ingredients and then pour into cookie cutter. Let it set and then decorate the top. Wrap up in cellophane for a sweet holiday treat perfect for giving. I may try to make a round to practice before giving them. I always like to cook/bake something at least once before I give it to someone.

Today is Earth Day although I think everyday should be Earth Day. Here is what we’ve done today for Mother Earth:

Took last night’s leftovers to compost

“Upcycled” the leftover biscuits into chicken feed for the chickens.

Holding off on drying the laundry until later in the day.

Open the windows instead of running the air conditioner.

Of course, these are things we do everyday and not just for Earth Day. So what are you doing for Earth Day?

The holidays are over. Now it’s time to put up all that left over holiday wrapping paper. Usually I use every last scrap I have but this year I have four rolls left over. This is the first time in a long time that I’m actually putting up wrapping paper for next year.

Most of what I have isn’t opened yet, so storing it is pretty much a toss into the top of the closet. But the opened rolls are a different story. If something isn’t done, then the paper will most likely unroll, crinkle, and not be usable next year.

Here is what I do to store rolls of open wrapping paper. Take three small pieces of invisible tape. Use one in the middle and one on each end to secure the loose end to the paper on the roll.

This keeps the edge from getting messed up. It’s also easy to remove and won’t ruin much if any of the wrapping paper. Once you have it taped together, if you would like a better solution than tossing into the top of the closet, try a tall garbage can. I had wanted to buy one of the tall plastic wrapping paper containers but waited too late. Then it dawned on me how much it reminded me of a garbage can. It might be exactly the same but it’s close enough for government work. Wait a minute. I’m not sure that is meant to be a compliment anymore. Anyway, I think the garbage can could work well if you prefer to toss the rolls in the bottom instead the top of the closet.

Whew! Two Christmas get-togethers down and one New Year’s Eve party to go. This time of the year is a mix between joy and survival.

We came back from visiting my husband’s family with illness. My husband is sick. Hopefully I can avoid it as I’m usually the one who needs a few day to detox from the cigarette smoke. He grew up with smokers but has developed an intolerance to it. After Rae was born, we would bring an air purifier with us. That seemed to help. Next trip we will have to remember to take one.

Now it’s time to think about the upcoming year and goals. I have plenty and have been working to free up some of my commitments to make them happen. I really want to write more here at Housewife since this is my ‘baby,’ so I’m breaking free from some other blogs. I had started writing for a few blog networks to make money when I was staying at home. Now that I’m working part-time and Rae is older, it’s time to refocus. The money is not that important and I really need to get my skills in place to do something else when she starts school. Ugh. Hard to believe that is just two years away.

Still I’m happy with my decisions and hopefully it will translate into more quality posts here and the handful of other blogs that are mine.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a great New Year.

It always seems Christmas sneaks up on me before I am ready, so this year I’ve decided to do some pre-planning in July. I’ll just start out by making a list of everyone I need to buy for and then deciding on a budget.

The hardest part of our Christmas budget is that I usually go over. But if I start thinking about it now, then I will have time to formulate a plan to stay within budget as I get sidetracked when I start to shop off my Christmas list.

For some one my list it will be easy to buy for like my pregnant niece could use some maternity clothes. Others, however, will be more difficult. But still thinking about it a little now will hopefully save us money in the long run and finally be totally prepared for December.

With the nice spring weather my mind has turned to vacation planning. There are two events that we want to attend this year. One is Labor Day weekend while the other is in late November. They are both a few months away, so there is plenty of time to plan.

We will need a lot before going on vacation like some Briggs and Riley luggage and some new clothes. We need to start saving money that we will need for food, hotel stay, and gas. Of course, we will want to buy souvenirs, too.

While those events might be months away, it is nice to go ahead and make a plan to save money so we can attend. Too bad they aren’t happening within a few months because it would be great to get away for a few days soon. This spring weather beckons to us to go somewhere. Anywhere.

I had wanted a digital picture frame for Christmas. So, my husband spent most of his budget for me on getting me a really nice one. After reading all of what it can do, it will probably turn into more than a way to display pictures.

The digital picture frame will play videos, so I’m thinking this might be a way to keep the little one entertained especially at bed time. We might be in the market for a tv mount since the picture frame does have a mount to hang it on the wall, but I would feel better with something more sturdy.

I can’t wait to really delve into what all it can do. It’s a Kodak digital picture frame. It’s not the version that has built-in WIFI but is still a very neat digital picture frame.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!