Wrapped and Ready

Well July 25th was quite successful.  We started the day with a little Christmas breakfast

Ham and cheese quiche and some blueberry muffins from Publix.  I prepped everything for the quiche the night before and got up about an hour before everyone and popped them in the oven.

Then I got all the fixins in the slowcooker for our traditional chili.  Fortunately, our baker was on duty and she made about 6 sour dough loaves to contribute to the day.

We pulled out all the tables, the supplies and got busy

QVC was kind enough to be selling Christmas stuff all day so we tuned in......and only ordered a few things.

By five o'clock we had wrapped about 200 presents

This year was a little different.  I always do 12 days of Christmas for my daughter and her college roommates.  Usually it is a fun little treat for them all because they are leading up to finals and who doesn't need a present to open every day leading up to finals.  But the college has decided finals will be over when they come home for Thanksgiving.  There are 4 girls so I normally wrap 4 of the same items in one box, but this year I wrapped each girl's items individually.  They will each take all 12 of their presents home with them and they can zoom or Facetime to open them.   Anyone else already planning on virtual Christmas celebrations.......yeah, we are hoping not but planning just in case.

I always get a lot of questions about storage of all these wrapped presents.  Here's how we make that a success

1) tiny packages all go in a storage bin with a lid for easy storage

2) Use quality boxes.  Good quality boxes will stack nicely and not cave in or smush

3) Carefully stack the packages from heaviest to lightest

4) Stack in a Jenga fashion.  You all know the Jenga game, right? 

Well that is exactly how I stack the boxes.  One layer going one direction, the next layer turned in the opposite direction. 

5) I have one closet in my house that is truly the gift closet.  All my gift wrap supplies are here.  I have talked about my Elfa organizing system before.

All the gifts I buy through the year are stored here as they wait to be wrapped.  Once wrapped they go right back into the same closet.

When it is time to put up the trees, we will pull out the presents, put on ribbons and embellishments and we are ready to go!

Thanks to you all for sending me sweet Merry Christmas messages on Saturday and all the nice comments.  Nothing makes Christmas better than enjoying it with friends!!!

Wishing you a great week!

Getting Ready

Short and sweet today, girls, because tomorrow is a big day.....

And you know what that means.....

We will be watching Christmas movies

We will be wearing fuzzy PJs

We will be eating chili

We will be WRAPPING CHRISTMAS GIFTS!!!!

That's right, we will be dragging out all the bins and we will be surprised by some of the things we find that we don't even remember buying.  I got a new shipment of boxes. We are fully stocked in tissue paper and tape.

And all this quarantine time has given me more online shopping hours.  I am probably 95% done with all my shopping this year.

It is going to be great!!!

I'll give you a full report next week.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend too.

My Latest Netflix

I am a bit of a multitasker.  I am watching or listening to something while cooking, cleaning the kitchen, folding laundry, writing blog posts......So I have spent quite a bit of time with Netflix.  It is challenging though because I do hate bad entertainment.  And then if I start watching something bad it still shows up in my "continue watching" section. I can't tell you how much that annoys me.  So if anyone knows how to fix that, please let me know.

But here are some shows I started and actually liked
First up



This is an absolutely beautiful story.  Of course, it is based on a true story which makes it even more intense.  We watched this as a family and it was so good.  It is a movie so you don't have to get invested in multiple episodes.  Highly, highly recommend this one.

Next up



The Stranger.  Now this one is suspenseful and does involve several episodes.  The writers of this should be crowned the king and queens of cliff hangers.  At the end of every episode I wanted to immediately watch the next one.  I was literally guessing all the way through.  I watched this one solo.  There is nothing too graphic in it but it is slightly dark and does have some violence in it, but no more than a Law or Order show.  I enjoyed this series.

On a much lighter note



This is an Australian Show about four ladies who are either divorced or widowed and looking for new love.  I watched this one solo too.  But it turns out that it was not very grabby, overly physical.  I cannot watch most dating shows.  Two thumbs up to Australia for having a reasonable about of decorum in producing a dating show.  I was invested in these ladies and cheered for some of them and cringed at one of them.  I was definitely interested right through to the last episode.....and a little surprised by the conclusion which is also good.

This next one may be my favorite



These are all couples that have some interesting history together.  They are thrown a surprise wedding by these three


That's Jeremiah Brent who takes care of the venue and decor, Thai Nguyen who takes care of the attire and Chef Gabriele Bertaccini who takes care of the food.  The stories are so personal and they make the ceremonies very specialized to the couple.  Fair warning, if you are a crier you might want to get some kleenex ready with your popcorn.  These are such touching stories.  We are only up to episode 5 in this one but I don't mind it being in my "continue to watch" section.....because I actually plan to finish it.
I do love a sweet love story.

Send me suggestions.....I need them.