* It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year * - It's the 2016 Christmas Chatter Thread

Spendless

Well back from present wrapping and I got several items for family members. Still got more to buy, but will be making a list and getting the rest over the next week or so. Next step is for conservatory to be cleared and then each household's presents go in separate carrier bags on the worktop leaving my present cupboard clear for jsut storing this households pressies. Haven't bought or written a single card:o and my side of the family make a great deal of special card, my ILs well I can use the ones I forgot to give them last year.

Fran- Thankfully the one advantage of teenagers is you don't have to take them with you!! DD is involved in a lot of out of school activities, so there is playing taxi driver to do and hang around in waiting rooms! I told DH it was his job this weekend though.

mrsinvisible

I have almost finished wrapping, so today l will be sorting the presents into 'family' groups and decorating the wrapping ready for delivery. That gives me opportunity to check for 'doubles' or 'forgotten' and then l can make the final list of still to gets, and hopefully be finished by this time next week. l haven't made up the hampers yet, as l am waiting for mince pies sell by dates to extend past 25th dec. Then l need to practice cooking vegan meals, can't let DS1 starve, and as l have to keep up the pretense of being able to do ANYTHING (except plastering) l cant let the side down! (what a saddo).
My cards are written, but l need to put a little token into them, (a bauble, mini photoframe, fridge magnet, that sort of thing, ) just to make them a bit special for people l don't buy presents for, then we can deliver them with the littlies when they are here.
l am getting soooooo excited, its only 19 days till they get here.

System

If we manage to get the hall flooring down today then i will put the tree up tomorrow or Tuesday.

I have the families cards ready to post tomorrow then we are done.

kiss_me_now9

Well it's nearly December and I'm feeling that lovely stress already.

I have 3 secret santa presents to buy, my family (Mum, Dad, sister, brother in law) and 4 or 5 friends to buy for. One of my friends recently emigrated to Australia and I wanted to send her something but I've missed the last posting date and still not finished her present - I have no idea what to send her! I have a couple of little bits but stuff that I would normally think of is either impractical because it's too heavy or fragile or it's not really something that would travel well. I'm stuck

I'm thinking of doing a glam gardening hamper for my sister, getting a few bits together in a bucket and wrapping that all up nicely.

I've been looking online but everything seems to be the same things as you get every year, I hate just the generic gift sets and over-expensive crap that you could make up yourself cheaper Bah humbug.

freespirit66

Afternoon everyone, i had a lovely afternoon yesterday wrapping stocking fillers and presents and listening to christmas songs, so now i know exactly whose is who presents. Today i have finished both DDs so i have only 1 present, just a little something, to get for DD2s OHs parents, and that is it finito :T

MURIE thankyou for doing the card swap

FRAN ewwww i have had that once throwing the chicken carcass in the bin in the height of summer it was covered in maggots yuck!

SPENDLESS i would love to know where they are getting in, its always in the loft, no matter how much poison they eat we still keep hearing them or it grrr. Hope you had a productive day yesterday shopping. Do Burts Bees do anything for males?

MRSINVISIBLE so glad the wedding all went smoothly, no wonder you are getting excited with only a couple of weeks to go til your lovely family are with you

CHRISSY aww glad you all had a fab day with the Meerkats they sound very cute

Franalamadingdong

Haha, spendless mine is 5 so it's frowned upon to abandon him still. Mum called me to ask for help so my shadow came along too. He gave my dad a headache and my mum said that she feels so sorry for me. He's mostly a good boy but he never shuts up. Roll on teenage years where it's just a grunt! You sound like you have masses of people to buy for!

Well done Chrissy! Hope the floor laying goes smoothly.

Kmn9, will your friend be visiting in the spring or something? You could send a special card, a friend of mine is an artist so I have some of her cards for special people, then give her the gift when she visits. It's hard to suggest things without knowing her I'm afraid.

Free that's great! Well done!

I've put photos in frames today for those who are having them as gifts so I need to wrap them and get addresses from mum before wrapping again for posting. I didn't end up doing any wrapping last night. Bit annoyed that mum's shoes arrived and they weren't in a shoe box. I think I have a box the perfect size that I can put them in to wrap up. I have my brother to do, but I might not be seeing him so I don't want to get something until it's confirmed - complicated relationship. And I am waiting to do stocking bits for the boy, which will be chocolate/sweets, mouthwash (he's been sneaking mine, but I said he might get some children's one for Christmas), flannel and toothbrush that I've already got, satsuma, cracker and I'm thinking of getting a pack of Uno cards too. I love his stocking because I knitted it for his first Christmas. I am hoping that he will always treasure it.

Spendless

Well another productive day of gift buying. :T Called at my parents this morning and got suggestions on what to add to my Grandmothers presents. Both in their 90s, one in a nursing home with dementia, one lives alone, recovering from a hip replacement.

So I bought underwear on 3for2 in M&S. Found Anais Anais perfume on offer in Boots. Bought it and got a voucher for £3 off No7 make-up and £5 off skincare. Helpful assistant told me if I bought 2 make up items I'd qualify for the free gift of a bauble with make up in worth £26, so scoured round for the cheapest items, to stick in a £1.99 tin from B&M that says 'girly stuff' on it for DD. Found a concealer stick and an eyebrow pencil. Also picked up the expensive no7 shave gel for DH. Using the 2 vouchers the goods cost me £15 plus I got the gift free, so £49 worth of products for £15. :money:

Then I called at Primark and picked up for my Neice, some Harry Potter trainer socks (Gryffindor and Slytherin) and a Hufflepuff scatter cushion. I'd already got her a Gryffindor tote bag from there, slightly disappointed I couldn't get a Ravenclaw item to add to it.

In Bargain Buys I picked up a blue and a pink set of earbuds, kids always needing them for school/college for £1 each.

Then finally at H Samuel they had a black Friday offer of anything in store buy one get second half price. This is on anything. :j I got DH a watch/cufflink/pen set and also a watch jewellery box as he's talked about building up a collection of watches for a while. He doesn't like any other jewellery, apart from his wedding ring. I then met up with DH showed him the offer and he decided to treat himself to a watch and get the second for DS for Xmas. Knew the jewellery box would come in handy.

So, I'm almost done. DH is ordering some items on line, including re-ordering the jigsaw for his Mum as the nitwit originally sent them a photo where their heads were chopped off the picture.

If anyone wants the info. The boots voucher is still available when you buy something tomorrow (I don't know what min spend is to get one) but has to be used tomorrow as well, as deal finishes after that.

H Samuel offer is on tomorrow and Tuesday then ends

kiss_me_now9

Franalamadingdong wrote: »

Kmn9, will your friend be visiting in the spring or something? You could send a special card, a friend of mine is an artist so I have some of her cards for special people, then give her the gift when she visits. It's hard to suggest things without knowing her I'm afraid.

No, I'm not sure when they're coming back this way as they've just plowed a load of money into a new house/car/setting up a life down under and understandably it's an expensive trip I was planning to go see her next summer but I'm 90% certain that's not happening now with some uni shenanigans on my end so postponing it's probably going to mean she never gets anything.

She's a tricky one to buy for anyway because she's always had her own money and bought things for herself; she's a bit like a guy in the sense that she doesn't want for much or need much! I think they're trying to keep the new house quite minimalist as well so home stuff is probably out (and generally falls under the too expensive to ship/too fragile to get there in one piece category). I'm not sure on the alcohol export laws so that's another category that's out - a nice strange bottle of gin normally goes down well with her.

RE the stocking; well I still use my stocking that I got when I was a little one and I insist on it's use every year :rotfl: I'm sure he will treasure it! Those tend to be the little traditions that even the most hard and fast grinch-y people hang on to

I've spent the whole afternoon making chutney (from this recipe) and I can't decide if it's burnt and weird tasting or if it's just that the burnt bottom bit has permeated the kitchen and my clothes and it's actually ok tasting. I made just 3.5 little jars! Takes forever but if I'd doubled the quantities I would not have fitted it all in my pan, haha. Oh well, that means a jar for my parents, a jar for my sister and B-I-L and a jar to take with me on boxing day/NYE to family... and a sneaky little half jar for myself Thinking that I might make a little couples hamper for my parents/sister and B-I-L with some nice cheeses, crackers, the home made chutney and some nice homemade lemonade if I can figure out how to make it...

I've also started on some flavoured vodka - gummy bear flavoured! Not sure how well that's going to work and I can't test it because I'm a veggie and they have gelatine in but I'm sure as I live in halls I can find someone to have a taste test of them for me. :rotfl:

Still feeling pretty rotten, I always find this is the worst time of year for me mood wise as I start to struggle with the lack of light and haven't got excited enough for christmas yet to buoy myself through. So I'm going to have a nice shower, curl up in bed with a hot chocolate, try and finish my reflection for this week's placement week (shouldn't take me more than 20 minutes once I get going) and binge on Gilmore Girls until it's bed time (10pm for a 5 to 6 wake up call :eek: bloody hate being on placement but only two more weeks!)

Spendless sounds like you've had a good day - very productive! The HP stuff in Primark atm is great; even as a non-fan some of it is very temping!

Franalamadingdong

Wow spendless, great Boots bargaining! My grandparents etc have got a nice framed picture of DS. The frames were just from poundland, but they're really nice. I originally bought one for me and I liked it so much bought a few more. They don't get to see him living so far and grandma (on my dad's side) is housebound, and grandad (mum's side) is... Complicated. DS is blinking beautiful too even if I do say so myself.

Kmn9, I've a framed print in my downstairs loo that says, " when life gives you lemons make a g&t!" What about something like that? Bit of bubble wrap and you should be fine. And if they're keeping it minimalist they can put it in their loo too! Haha

Wrapped a stack of things, done dad (box was no good for mum's shoes but was perfect for dad's bourbon), grandparents, aunt, cousin, nieces and nephew and a bunch of the boy's. He wasn't getting much, but I got 3 DVDs for free, and 8 books for 50p each (we don't mind 2nd hand). Still got more to do, but that is the beauty of starting early. My brother is indeed getting everything delivered to me for me to wrap for other people. I've said it's fine, although it's a bit annoying. Not as annoying as there apparently being no signal on the TV and the programmes I set to record failing. Grr.

tin_can

:xmastree::santa2:

kiss_me_now9 wrote: »

Well it's nearly December and I'm feeling that lovely stress already.

I have 3 secret santa presents to buy, my family (Mum, Dad, sister, brother in law) and 4 or 5 friends to buy for. One of my friends recently emigrated to Australia and I wanted to send her something but I've missed the last posting date and still not finished her present - I have no idea what to send her! I have a couple of little bits but stuff that I would normally think of is either impractical because it's too heavy or fragile or it's not really something that would travel well. I'm stuck

I'm thinking of doing a glam gardening hamper for my sister, getting a few bits together in a bucket and wrapping that all up nicely.

I've been looking online but everything seems to be the same things as you get every year, I hate just the generic gift sets and over-expensive crap that you could make up yourself cheaper Bah humbug.

wot about ordering a present from amazon australia then she will have a present from you then and you wont have to lug it to the post office:santa2::xmastree: