My husband and I are friends with a couple that we met through our church. We enjoy their company and through the years we have done many things together. We will get together at each other’s homes to play cards. We also go out to eat and to plays and other events. Each year between Christmas and New Years we take a day off of work and spend time together. Last year we went to a center that had several homes that had been replicated. Each home was from a different country and was decorated for the holidays in the traditions of that country. The houses were spaced several yards apart. There were also old world shops set up to create a small village atmosphere. The homes were life sized and had actors dressed for the time period and country that they were suppose to be representing. You had your choice of walking through the village and having a sleigh ride back to your car, or you could take the sleigh ride to the far end and work your way back. It was a very cold day so we decided to begin walking to the closest house.

The first house was from German decent. The first thing I noticed as we walked in was the beautiful braided rug. I am from German ancestry so I knew that the area rug was an authentic handmade piece. My grandmother always had a colorful braided rug in front of her kitchen sink. She would make them during the winter months. The woman that was dressed in period costume was sitting in front of the fireplace and was sewing the strips of fabric together that would be used to make the area rugs. All kinds of scrap fabrics are cut into strips and are sewn together to form ropes. The ropes are then braided together. Once the ropes are long enough they are wrapped around each other until the desired size is reached. The braided rug is then stitched together so that it will not uncoil. My husband and I have talked about learning these braiding techniques to make our own rugs. The women told us that after the holidays are over the different houses stay opened and they have classes to teach the various old world crafts. She was going to be teaching rug braiding in January.

We continued on our tour of the different houses. Each ethnic group has added a different way of celebrating the holidays. It was very interesting to discover where some traditions have originated. We thoroughly enjoyed our day and my husband and I have promised each other that we will learn how to make a braided rug for Christmas.

If you’re an avid reader and checking books out of your local library just isn’t your style, perhaps you should consider joining a book club. A lot of people have negative impressions of book clubs but they can be quite convenient and worthwhile to some people. Sure, getting the monthly catalogs and having to return a postcard can be a nuisance. However, most book clubs will now allow you to respond online and you don’t have to worry about mailing anything back or getting unwanted books shipped to you simply because you didn’t return the postcard quickly enough. In fact, everything through most book clubs can be done online. Sometimes you’ll find better savings online than you do in the catalogs that are sent to you via the regular mail.

Most often, you’ll get a bunch of books free up front – just for joining. You’ll pay shipping and that’s it. Usually, books from book clubs are all hardcover, which means that getting those books for free is a great deal. Of course, you’re usually then obligated to buy a few more books within a certain time frame in order to complete your membership. Considering the fact that the prices are usually pretty good in the first place, fulfilling that obligation isn’t too difficult. Books make great gifts, so you can always fulfill your obligation by purchasing them as gifts for family and friends.

I belong to a book club. Every few weeks, I get advertisements or catalogs from them, so they do create quite a bit of extra garbage for my cans. I always respond online and have never had any issues. I’ve always paid my bills online when I place an order as well. My orders have always been correct and I’ve always been satisfied with the service that I’ve gotten from them. I fulfilled my obligation in no time and last Christmas, managed to get my father a collector’s book as a Christmas gift that just thrilled him to tears. I couldn’t believe that the book club would have it, but I searched their site online and found it. That’s another great thing about book clubs – browsing online always finds more titles than they send in their catalogs. You’re not so limited to your selections.

Years after joining a book club, I have quite the collection of books in my house. I hate to part with books, but after they start to pile up, I’ll sell them at a garage sale, pass them onto my friends or donate them to a library. In my opinion, a book is never a bad investment. And book clubs just may be a worthwhile investment of your time, if you’re as huge a book lover as I am.

Have naturally curly hair presents some special problems that those with straight locks do not have to deal with on a daily basis. I know my hair is very temperamental, and it never looks the same from one day to the next. When I was growing up I was frustrated that my hair never grew as fast as my friends’ hair, and I always had to have a simple style when they could do whatever they wanted. At one point I learned how to use blow dryers to do different things with my hair, but it led to my hair being dried out and dull looking.

Though there are better blow dryers out there today, most of them will still do harm to my hair. I rarely use one, and that is because there is no benefit for me what so ever. If I use blow dryers my hair becomes frizzy and dry, and there is nothing I can do with it. I must allow my hair to air dry, and that is not always convenient for me. My curls definitely do not like the forced heat, and if I try to use it my locks will rebel.

The newer blow dryers are supposed to be a lot better for all hair types, but I have found that the change is not enough. Even with frizz serum and an advanced dryer I ended up with frizzy and out of control hair. On occasion I use blow dryers to straighten my hair, but that only works once in a while. The condition of my hair, the humidity, and the amount of time I have to devote to the process all have a say in how it comes out. More times than not I have had to rewash my hair so it could curl back up.

There are new blow dryers coming out everyday. This suggests to me that I am not the only one who is having a problem. If a product were good, there would be no need to improve upon it. I saw an ad for blow dryers the other day that are supposed to be a hair dryer and straighten all in one. I’m not rushing out to buy it. A hair dresser once told me that if I want to straighten my hair with little to no frizz I have to get a ceramic plated iron. I think I’ll put that on my Christmas list for next year.

I have watched people become more and more casual in the way they dress over the past ten years. It is amazing to me how little people think about what they are wearing. When I was growing up we still had very strict dress codes in school. Jeans were not allowed except for one Friday afternoon a month. Now kids and teachers wear jeans, shorts t-shirts and sweats to classes. My son came home complaining that they had to dress up for the choir concert. I was glad to hear that the choir director was going to require the students to dress up. When my son handed me the written requirements I realized that things were still going to be casual. For the concert the choir members had to wear black on the bottom and white on the top. Girls could wear either skirts or pants. No shorts were allowed. Black jeans were permitted as long as they were not faded.

I took my son clothes shopping. He wanted to buy black jeans for the concert. I told him that I wanted him in dress pants instead. He said that he would get more wear out of black jeans than he would out of dress pants. I explained that then he would have a nice pair of pants to wear for church on Sundays and also for the Christmas holiday that was coming up. He tried on several pairs of black pants before he found a pair that he liked. He also bought a button down white shirt in a soft fabric. When we arrived home he went to put the outfit on to show his dad. It was amazing how much taller he stood and how he carried himself when he had the dress clothes on. You could tell he felt good about how he looked in his dress clothes.

On the evening of the concert we went early in order to get good seats. I noticed several of the students walking in. Many of them had black jeans and white t-shirts on. They had followed the guidelines however they looked as casual as they do everyday in school. My son came over to ask me a question and then went back stage. The woman I was sitting next to commented on how nice he looked. She stated that her son would only let her buy him black jeans. She asked how I got my son to wear dress pants. I explained that I gave him no choice. I was paying for the pants and I did not want to buy him a pair of black jeans. I also mentioned that I could tell that wearing the dressy clothes made him feel good about himself.

During the concert I noticed that the students that were dressed in the casual black jeans and t-shirts did not appear as confident and polished as the students that chose to wear dress clothes.

I don’t visit my dad as often as I wish I could, but when I go there to spend time sitting with him at the dining room table. We have spent a lot of time there catching up, and we often spent family time together there playing games and having family meals around the holidays. Because my dad is a bachelor, he can do anything he wants with his home without asking anyone else. This was not more apparent to me than on the day when I realized he had traded in his regular dining room table for a billiards table.

It took me a few minutes to realize what he had done. We were standing in the kitchen talking, when I went to put my purse on the dining room table. I didn’t notice that it was a billiards table because he had put a tablecloth over it. Perhaps he did this to protect it, but I’m not really sure. In any case, when I set my purse down on the billiards table it flopped sideways. It momentarily startled me, as I was pretty sure I was setting my purse on a flat surface. As it turned out, I had set it along the rail of the billiards table, and that caused it to fall over.

Once I realized what had happened, I asked my dad where he had gotten the billiards table. He and my cousin like to play games on the computer together, and I know his basement has been turned into a game room. Perhaps this is why I was not expecting to find a billiards table in his dining room. He told me that they had run out of room in the basement, and that he had to find a place to put it. Since he lived on his own, his dining room table was not really essential.

I think that it is wonderful that my dad keeps busy and has so much to do. If he must have a billiards table in his dining room then I am all for it. When we went this year for Christmas celebration, he simply put a piece of wood over the top of the billiards table, and then covered it with a tablecloth. You would have never known it was not a regular table had he not told you. Perhaps he is onto something here. Though I can’t imagine I will have a billiards table in my dining room any time soon, perhaps someday when my daughter is older, this may be a fun thing to do.

The fall is the season that I see very little of my husband. He is an avid hunter. He archery hunts for white tail deer. The archery season opens in mid September. He hunts for ducks and geese, that season opens the end of September. He hunts pheasant that season opens the middle of October and he hunts deer with a rifle in November. Most of the weekend days during this time are filled with hunting trips. Most of the time he is home in the evenings, but a few of his trips are overnights. When he is gone on overnight trips I usually get together with the wives of whom ever he is hunting with. When he is rifle hunting in November I get together with my sister-in-law. Each year we spend this weekend making some sort of Christmas craft item.

The last two years we have made a beaded Christmas ornament. We learned the beading techniques in a community education class. The beaded Christmas ornament is fun to make and they look very nice on the Christmas tree. The church my husband and I belong to has a bake and craft sale each year in December. I thought this year I would donate a beaded Christmas ornament as my craft item and decorated sugar cookies as my baked item. This year my husband and his brother were going to take a few extra days hunting, so my sister-in-law and I decided that we would lengthen our weekend together also. She came to my house after work on Friday. We set up our beads and started, making the ornaments. We have done them often enough that we each completed a beaded Christmas ornament that night. We had the supplies for more so we agreed that we would compete more the next day and would donate them to the church sale.

We spent Saturday morning shopping and then had lunch together and shopped some more. Our other sister-in-law called us and we met for happy hour late in the afternoon. After a few drinks we went home and started to make the beaded Christmas ornament for the church sale. We were laughing and having fun as we beaded. We also had a few more drinks.

We laughed when we looked at the ornaments the next morning. The beads were not straight and the Styrofoam form underneath was showing. We had to spend over an hour trying to repair the ornaments so we could donate them. We both agreed that we should not drink and try to bead ornaments at the same time. We will try less complicated crafts when we are having a few drinks.

Christmas lights are always fun, but they are also limited by where your outlets are in your home. Unless you want multiple extension cords running across your floor, you are only going to be able to hang lights in certain spots. This may or may not be a problem for you, but if you really need to hang some lights where there is no electric available to you, you can get battery powered Christmas lights to solve the problem. You can find these online and in retail stores, and in just about any color you wish. Just remember to stock up on batteries, and remember that the more you use, the more batteries you should buy. This might be a good time to get out the rechargeable batteries.

If you are hanging lights on a tree outside in your yard, battery powered Christmas lights might be just what you need. You can even use these to drape on a tree out in the middle of the woods. I won’t advise this, however, because that might be a huge fire hazard. If you have a pine tree in your yard that you want to decorate, but don’t want to run extension cords through the yard, battery powered Christmas lights will be perfect for the job. As long as you keep an eye on the batteries, your lights will shine throughout the holidays.

Battery powered Christmas lights are a great idea if you have a limited amount of outlets in your home. Most newer homes have a lot of outlets, and finding one is never a problem. However, if you live in an older home, you may only have one or two outlets per room, and you can’t really unplug everything just to hang lights. Battery powered Christmas lights will free up your outlets and allow you to go nuts with the decorations if you so choose.

You will also find that battery powered Christmas lights are good for other things as well. You can use them to draw attention to just about anything at any time of the year. Are you going to a concert and taking a sign along? You can use battery powered Christmas lights to draw attention to your sign. They may not let you in with it, but it’s worth a shot right? You can use them around a ‘for sale’ sign, or to light up a dark hallway or staircase rather cheaply.

If there is one thing I am good at it is saving money. Perhaps it is the miserly influence of my dad, but I have learned to be the ultimate bargain shopper. My husband often shakes his head when he goes shopping with me, but he is always impressed in the end with the money I save, and how much I can buy for so little. When it comes to being a bargain shopper, I have learned all the tricks by experience and knowing that saving money in the store means more money in my savings. When it comes time to retire, I’ll be happy I was so picky.

One thing a good bargain shopper needs is patience. This can mean taking your time searching through a discount rack, or it can mean waiting for something expensive to come down in price or to go on sale. If you are one of those people that has to have all the newest stuff as soon as it hits the shelves, you may not be cut out to be a bargain shopper. However, if you don’t mind buying Christmas cards for the next year on December 27th, you are ready to go.

When it comes to clothing, you have to be ready to search to save some money. A bargain is not a bargain if the clothes are no good. Just because a top is six dollars at Wal-Mart does not mean that it is a good bargain. You get the bargain when you find a high priced piece of apparel marked down to an affordable price. A bargain shopper knows that when shopping for clothing, you have to take some time to search through the discount rack. A lot of the stuff won’t be anything you like, but you can find some great clothes if you look.

Remember to look at the clearance section in any store you visit, even if you aren’t looking for anything at the moment. This is a great way to get your Christmas shopping done. A good bargain shopper will start buying things early, and then will look around all year for great prices on items they know their friends and family will love. They will never know you got their gift off a clearance shelf unless you tell them. These gifts are as good as any, but you just saved yourself some money by being a good bargain shopper.

They’re some of the oldest toys in the business. If you have a daughter, you’ve probably seen them on a birthday wish list or Christmas list. Barbies are simply one of those great toys that stand the test of time. It doesn’t matter if you were born in the 70′s or the 90′s; they’re still going strong.

From Barbie dolls to Barbie play sets and cars, young girls can never seem to get enough of the tall, thin blond. Although they’re rather simple compared to a lot of the newer toys these days, Barbie dolls remain all the rage.

When I had a daughter, a new Barbie was inevitable. Sure enough, by the time she could recognize the rubber dolls, she had a list of them in mind. However, I didn’t quite realize the extent of the Barbie collection. These classic little toys go on for miles. There’s endless versions of Barbie, herself. From Christmas Barbies to diving Barbies to Cinderella Barbies, the list continues. In addition, there are also the male versions, called Ken, of course, and we can’t forget about little sister, Kelly.

If you search online for Barbie dolls and toys, you will soon understand the blond bombshell craze that’s dominated the toy world for some time. One thing I certainly learned to count on at Christmas time was Barbie is a sure win. If it says Barbie on it and is pink, I can’t lose. Stores like Toys R Us and a number of online sites offer a wide variety of Barbie toys to meet any little girl’s wants and needs.

Even if you’re all grown up, you still may hold a strong fascination for the classic toys. Barbie spans beyond our little girls. Yes, it’s true; adults too collect these finely dressed, little dolls. Collector Barbies date back several decades. These collectible toys can even run you into some fat price tags. Vintage Barbie dolls are no kids matter.

Numerous Barbie fan sites, chat forums, and collector pages exist throughout the Internet. It’s hard to fathom the appeal of these dolls for some, but others can’t get enough. Having a mother of my own who’s had an ongoing love for Barbie dolls, I get the full brunt of the craze. The only problem is keeping my daughter away from my mother’s collection of dolls when we visit for the holidays. That can be a real challenge.

We live in an area with many tree farms. Many people do not realize the work that goes into growing Christmas trees. The trees need to be planted, trimmed and harvested. Many of the farms plant a variety of trees because of the different rate of growth for each species of tree. Because we live close to several of the tree farms we go out and cut our own tree each year.

When I was growing up my parents had Norway pines on one end of the property. We always cut down one of these trees and dad would try to shape it before bringing it into the house. The long needles made it difficult to hang ornaments. Since I have been married we have tried many varieties of trees. Our favorite is the balsam Christmas tree. We also like the looks of a blue spruce, but it is so prickly that you have to wear gloves while putting on the lights. The balsam Christmas tree has a wonderful fragrance and is soft to the touch. It has short needles and sturdy branches so it is easy to hang many ornaments on it. The balsam Christmas tree also holds its needles very well so there is not the problem of shedding that many of the other short needle varieties have.

Last year when we went to cut down our tree we were told that a new field had been opened for cutting. This field featured the balsam Christmas tree that we were after, but also had several of the Frasier firs. The Frasier fir is suppose to be the most aromatic of all evergreens and does not shed. We tried one a few years ago and liked the looks of the tree and the fragrance; however the branches are very soft. The soft branches cannot hold the heavier Christmas ornaments that we have collected through the years. This meant that many of the ornaments that had the most meaning to us were placed in the inner branches. We decided that because of this we would not spend the extra money for a Frasier fir again.

Many of the tree farms offer a shaker service as well as a bagging service for the trees that are cut. The tree is placed in a stand on an automatic shaker that helps get rid of dead needles and other debris that may be in the freshly cut tree. The tree is then shoved through a barrel that has netting on the end. The netting is cut the length of the tree and tied on both ends. This allows for easy transport as well as ease in getting the tree in the house. The tree growers are always looking for ways to make getting your Christmas tree more enjoyable. We are looking forward to going to cut down our balsam Christmas tree again this year.