And I love online shopping and couponing, so its really sad that I don't have really great deals here in Mexico. I told DH that if we lived in the US I would be shopping every day :P
I'm getting some pendants for my sisters and SILs for Christmas, and I don't know what to get DH and the males in the family.
What are you shopping for? Do you need ideas, or deals?
I am hoping to score a good deal on Vtech's little train system. I don't need to get a ton of the track sets, since I can suggest those to PM's and my siblings as gifts for AB. I do want to get two at the very least.
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"I never understood why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." - Sophia Petrillo
I haven't even started to think about Christmas gifts. I think we are going to scale back on gift sizes this year because DH used to go over board with his family. We really don't need any more things on our apartment until we move so I would really like us to keep it small between each other. I have been too busy and still owe DH his "wedding gift" from me. I wanted to make him an etched mirror of his baseball team, the Sox to hang. I have the frame and glass, just need to do it. He wants to get me the ruby bead for my Trollbeadz bracelet but I am trying to tell him not to right now. We found a killer deal on our Colorado trip, a store that was discontinuing the line and had everything half off so we stocked up already.
Part of it has to do with budget and part of it is because we still don't know where are we going to spend Christmas. Since last year we stayed home because LO was a newborn I told DH that he got to choose which holiday to spend with his family.
Well it depends on when his parents are going to be in home state, and they suck at planning ahead, so we still don't know.
I told DH that if they wait to tell us on Wednesday 24 that they are there we are not going. And he agreed. So we'll see.
I kinda hope they bail on us so we can have both holidays to ourselves, my parents are going to the beach so we don't have any other commitments. I dislike spending the holidays with DH's family, they have 0 traditions and FIL always gets drunk and tries to treat the women on the family as his personal maids.
I hate doing the house hopping.
We did it once when both set of parents where in the same city and never again, the guilt trip from the ILs when we went to my parents house was annoying.
Never again, I understand you want to spend the holiday with us but our couple arrangement is to spend one holiday with one family and the next year the other family gets that holiday, please respect that!
And I just noticed how cranky that sounds, sorry, LO refused to go to bed early and I'm sleep deprived!
Last year we did Thanksgiving with DH's family (his mom's birthday fell the next day, so that was nice for her) and Christmas with mine.
The year before.... we stayed home. My family came down the day after.
I really, really don't want to go. It's so expensive. Gas, for one. Tolls- almost $20 US. Presents for everyone- there will be 9 on DH's side, and 13 on my side, not to mention us 4. We have to get a motel in DH's family's town.
And there's drama. So much drama. MIL and BIL/BIL's Fiancee don't get along at ALL, but they live together. My aunt and uncle are divorcing, but my grandma invited my aunt and her mom to come anyway like normal. I'm not really speaking to my sister, which is awkward. My sister won't cause actual drama with me because she still has enough sense to not start anything in front of everyone, and I'm still civil to her, just not chatty BFF's. But she's so rude to our parents.
DH gave me this fabulous news yesterday, he thought that when I said "we will spend the holiday that you want with your family" meant lets travel 6 hours to your home town and spend whatever holiday you want there with your family, I told him repeatedly that he got to pick the holiday to spend with his family in HOME STATE not HOME TOWN.
We never refer home town as home state, I don't know where did he got that one from. I think he either doesn't listen to me or he's trying to gas light me to avoid my wrath, either way it's bad, I'm trying to be civil to him but he can tell I'm upset by the whole thing.
I'm really frustrated, not only I have no control over where we are spending the holiday, I will have 0 control over what are we going to do and that sucks. I dislike going to his home town because there's nothing to do there, we have no internet and every one ignores us most of the time. FIL has an alcohol problem and he spends most of the days out of the house "doing errands" and comes back drunk. That really hurts DH, it makes him feel that we are not good enough for him to stick around and spend time with us, but he still wants to go to visit his grandma.
I don't want LO to be around an alcoholic, and I want that this holiday season is full of magic for her. If we go there I'll do my best to make the holiday the best for us 3, but so far the holidays that we have spent there have SUCKED all the way around. I can't really do anything about it now, if we go we go, I will keep my word. I guess that now I can use some advice about how to make the best out of it.
No ideas here. :/ We're still planning to spend Christmas eve/morning with a druggie/alcoholic. Yay. "But it's FAMILY!"
I'm still leaning toward having Christmas in our new house. If I don't book the motel until the last minute, maybe it will be too expensive.
Can you tell your DH what you told us, and couch it in terms of not wanting him to be disappointed when no one spends time with you even though you're there?
Why a motel? That for me sounds like the place were you go to have sex :P
We talked a little bit about it last night. He knows I'm upset, but I also told him that I'm keeping my word.
He knows why I don't like going there, is a really long trip to go to a place where no one actually pays attention to you. And then they complain about us not going often. Go figure. And he doesn't like going either.
You know living, we should get together and spend the holidays together hahaha
We stay in a motel when we visit the IL's, because they're too many people crammed in a too small house on a normal day. They'll have two extra people with the girls. Add our four? Yikes.
Plus they have roaches. And BIL gets high and drunk every.single.day.
DH feels like we can't back out now that we've told them we'll be coming. They're not paying for it, so if we really can't afford it, we're not going.
I need to see what our paycheck looks like at the end of the month.
Yes we had a conversation about it yesterday. He said that he wants to go and see his grandma. He doesn't like what happens with his dad and we talked about having a plan B if/when FIL gets home drunk.
DH will also talk with his mom and tell her ahead of time about how we feel and what will happen if FIL gets home drunk. We both agreed that if this happens we will go to a hotel and then the next morning we will leave for home. We both agreed that his dad does it because no one ever has actually said anything about it, so I guess this will be a first.
I'm going to do a little "emergency holiday kit" and will have a couple of things to make our holiday memorable if we have to leave the ILs home.
DH also said that we could go visit at another time, during the holiday season, not on a holiday. I haven't considered that because I told him we would spend a holiday with his family, but we will see.
And yeah too many people in that house living, also roaches? Nope, nope, nope.
Mmmmmmmmmm I think you can back out, you can get a case of the 24 hr runs :P
I'm kidding (mostly)
Yes we had a conversation about it yesterday. He said that he wants to go and see his grandma. He doesn't like what happens with his dad and we talked about having a plan B if/when FIL gets home drunk.
DH will also talk with his mom and tell her ahead of time about how we feel and what will happen if FIL gets home drunk. We both agreed that if this happens we will go to a hotel and then the next morning we will leave for home. We both agreed that his dad does it because no one ever has actually said anything about it, so I guess this will be a first. I'm going to do a little "emergency holiday kit" and will have a couple of things to make our holiday memorable if we have to leave the ILs home.
DH also said that we could go visit at another time, during the holiday season, not on a holiday. I haven't considered that because I told him we would spend a holiday with his family, but we will see.
And yeah too many people in that house living, also roaches? Nope, nope, nope. Mmmmmmmmmm I think you can back out, you can get a case of the 24 hr runs :P I'm kidding (mostly)
Bought for my mom and brother over the weekend. We know what DH's mom wants because apparently they have always been in the habit of exchanging links to actual items. This was a whole discussion with DH about future gifts. I told him that while it is his mom and I will defer to him, if he wants my help in shopping, I want to actually get to pick out gifts. To me it means even more sense we live so far apart to take the time and thought to pick something out.
We also ordered photo calendars to give to grandparents and aunts/uncles. The cover is a collage of photos of the two of us from our wedding trip and the months have photos of places we have visited through out 2013.
Other than that, we will be playing it a little low key as far as gift giving this year. We will need to find something for his dad yet but it won't be anything big.
I just ordered the Little Tikes workbench for AB from Toys R Us. They started their BF deals about 15 minutes ago, so I got it for $13 instead of $25. Of course, I had to pay $8 in shipping, but it was worth it not to fight the crowds.
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"I never understood why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." - Sophia Petrillo
I hit the JoAnne's website and got an Ott light for me and material for the kids' stockings. 75% off it all, and free shipping. Then Bath & Body for the Black Friday special bag and the pocket hand sanitizers (25 of them) for stocking stuffers. Now I just have to get the bracelets and ornaments made, the ears sewn on the Yoda hats, and figure out what to get 2 of my sons. And my mom - she's so hard to buy for anymore.
When you do online shopping, do you use your debit card or a credit card? I usually use my credit card. For some reason I think it might be better to use a credit card, but I can't remember why.
I can sew, but only basic things. I did jewelry last year. DH does woodwork. I'm thinking about making infinity scarves, they're REALLY easy. But that only covers the ladies, and not all of them because not all of them will wear a scarf.
And I can bake. Which I've done before, but it was a huge pain I'd rather avoid if possible.
CC is better, you can always not recognize a charge that you didn't make and the bank will help you. If someone get a hold of your DC number you're fried, the bank will not return the money they stole from you.
And I finished shopping for DH! I got him a portable battery cell, his phone battery is always about to die. And I also got him perfume (lotion I don't know which one is it in English lol) I got him Lacoste, it's yummy!!!
I'm waiting until after LO's birthday party to choose her Christmas present :)
PM and I aren't doing gifts for each other this year. Money's going to be extra tight, so we'll just do our usual $5 worth of fun snacks for the stockings.
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"I never understood why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." - Sophia Petrillo
Well, we're going to both families' houses. *sigh* My parents offered yesterday to pay our gas and tolls as part of our christmas gift, but then they asked if we could stay extra days to visit them. Which means a motel, instead of staying at my grandparents' house one night. Grrr. IDK what we're going to do.
And I have gotten no further on Christmas shopping/creating. COOKIES FOR ALL! *snort* Maybe everyone will get a nice piece of Mexican pottery, I'm sure with that many pieces I could get a good bargain.
Aaaaw * hugs * for you Living, I bet you can get a really good price on pottery! I think that if you get more than 10 pieces you get a discount, at least in most places it's how it works. You could go to walmart and get some ornaments for each family member.
This weekend it was decided that we'll spend Christmas at the ILs. We are doing a gift exchange, so that's good.
DH hasn't talked with his mom yet but we'll see.
I'm annoyed at FIL (what else is new lol) he threw a sob story at us on Saturday about how his mom's health wasn't all that great and that we all should get prepared for when the Lord calls his mom to His side. I just think it's odd from him to be telling us that, we kinda of already knew... That and when I asked about the plans for Christmas dinner he told me that DH and DH's Older sister will be in contact to deal with everything, I told him that why didn't we do it right then and there we were all there so what's the point on doing it by the phone?
I'm in trouble.
