Tis the Season!

Our Cute Little Christmas House!

Years ago, before blogging was as common as dog poop on your shoes, I started sending out daily emails in a count down to Christmas style.  Usually it revolved around my inability to get all my outside Christmas lights to light at the same time.  It was amazing, how every night they came on, and something else was blown out!!  It was at that point in my life that I realized a few things.  One was that I was never meant to have a Griswold Family Christmas House.  The other thing is that when frustrated, its easier to write about it and allow my family and friends to laugh at me than to curl up in my room and cry.

That brings us to today.  See, my halls are all decked.  My outside is beautiful, yet incomplete.  Pitman is in charge of decorating the outside, mainly because of the introduction to today's blog.  This year, we lost an intricate member of our outside decor...  Mr. Snowman the Snowman.  Yes, I name my decorations.  That's so people know what I'm talking about.  Mr. Snowman the Snowman is our blow up, and, well, he no longer would blow up, so he got thrown out.  Pitman is in deep mourning.  He is very partial to blow ups and would love to try to rival his Dad, who has about 756 of the darned things in his yard every Christmas.

Inside, the last thing to be done was the hanging of stockings with care... and yarn.  We decided to hang them going down the staircase.  They look cute, but I cannot take a picture of them because one is still drying.  Drying?  Yes, drying.  See, we have matching stockings, except the animals.  But I don't have Steve's stocking, he does.  I don't know if he'll remember to bring it home, so he needs another stocking here holding his place.  Also, this year we'll be adding a new Christmas Eve Family Member, and that is LeeAnne's friend Andrew.  SIDE-NOTE!  We love Andrew.  We got to finally meet him this past summer, and the guy is a hoot.  I do enjoy him!  So, Andrew needs a stocking, too.  So off to the Dollar Store we go, and we pick up a few stockings.

Steve's Stocking, as we cut
as much of it apart as possible.

I sit down to personalize them and find out that they have iron-on decals!!  WOOHOO!!!  That'll be easy!!  That'll be cute!!  I can do this!!!!!!  Well, I can't do it.  See, Steve's was the first.  And I was so excited!!  When I was done ironing on the transfers, it looked amazing!!!  Not as amazing as the look on my face when I realized that while ironing it, I sealed the stocking shut.  It looked good, but it wasn't very practical.  I opened it the best I could, and I think Santa will be able to get a few presents in there, but I wasn't pleased.

So, for Andrew's, I put a towel INSIDE the stupid stocking so the same thing wouldn't happen.  I put the paper on, just like Steve's, and ironed it for 90 seconds, just like Steve's, and WHALLA!!!!  It wasn't sealed shut!!  HOWEVER...  the paper was stuck on the stocking and I was unable to get it off.  <sigh>  Remember when I said I bought a few stockings?  It was actually 3.  The one with the paper glued to the top is in the trash.  Steve will have to deal with wrestling gifts out of a small opening, and Andrew's stocking, which has his name written in glitter glue, is drying.

Personalized Stocking
Causes Paper to Stick
Like Glue!!!

And so the Christmas Season Begins.......