Ornament stories.

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Taken in December 10, 2023

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Ornament stories. 

Top Left: Crafted ornaments from inexpensive kits. These are several years old. 

Top Right: Plushie ornament received during an ornament exchange party at work from many years ago.

Bottom Left: A Merry Christmas ornament that was my mom's. Not sure how old, but old.

Bottom Right: Church's Chicken Wing. A new ornament for 2023. The first new ornament after many years of using the ones we already have and/or making handcrafted ones. 

#Holiday

#HolidayDecor

#HolidayDecorations

Audio: "My First Attempt at a Fantasy Zone (Slower Version)" by Amalgam Creative Arts

Adding decorations to the tree!

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Taken on November 26, 2023

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Adding decorations to the tree!

Many of the ornaments that we currently have were either handmade or from ornament exchanges. 

#Holiday

#HolidayDecor

#HolidayDecorations

Audio: Winter Solstice by Michele McLaughlin

Memories of Yore: Photos from My Mother's Camera - 2008 ~ End of the Year

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Taken in 2008

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Memories of Yore: Photos from My Mother's Camera - 2008 ~ End of the Year

Hello there. After having taken out all the photos from my mother's camera, which had photos from 2007 through 2011, I thought perhaps making photo/vid collages of them. 

In the past I've uploaded a video here and there, however, ultimately decided in making specific photo/vid collages of them to share. This series is titled Memories of Yore: Photos from my Mother's Camera and will include the year. The years where there were so many photos that would have made for a far too long of a video have been broken down to specific videos.

The background image is a photo I took of my mother in 2007 where she is looking at the photos on the camera where all these photos were taken. 

Audio: Natural Light by Chris Haugen and Christmas Homecoming by Aaron Kenny which are from the YouTube Audio Library.

Memories of Yore: Photos from My Mother's Camera - 2008 ~ Phoenix ZooLights

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Taken in 2008

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Memories of Yore: Photos from My Mother's Camera - 2008 ~ Phoenix ZooLights

Hello there. After having taken out all the photos from my mother's camera, which had photos from 2007 through 2011, I thought perhaps making photo/vid collages of them. 

In the past I've uploaded a video here and there, however, ultimately decided in making specific photo/vid collages of them to share. This series is titled Memories of Yore: Photos from my Mother's Camera and will include the year. The years where there were so many photos that would have made for a far too long of a video have been broken down to specific videos.

The background image is a photo I took of my mother in 2007 where she is looking at the photos on the camera where all these photos were taken. 

Audio: Snow Princess by Jimena Contreras, Christmas Chores by RKVC, and Oh Christmas Tree by DJ Williams which are all from the YouTube Audio Library.

Holiday Fire Pit 2017 with Dean Martin

Holiday Fire Pit with Dean Martin

Holiday Fire Pit 2017

Holiday Fire Pit 2017

Family Holiday Traditions

We were asked to share some of our winter holiday traditions at work. Here's what I shared:


My Family Holiday Traditions are celebrated at my Grandmother's house in Mexico. Some of the traditional family celebrations for the winter holidays that my family takes part in are:

- Piñatas: Both on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, our family will have piñatas in the shapes of stars. We fill them up with candy and sometimes add some dollar bills. Both kids and adults partake.

- Gift Giving: Gift giving in our family is mainly for the children. Only some adults, aunts mainly, are the ones that may give gifts to their brothers/sisters and are usually handmade items like scarfs, hats, buñuelos, personalized/embroidered items like towels or jars with trinkets in them, etc.

- Loteria: Because we do not do big gift exchanges, on Christmas Day and New Year's Day, we get together and play loteria(Mexican bingo). Some family members will bring wrapped items that vary from chocolates, Avon, house items, etc. Some years we have had just one big loteria day on New Year's Day.

- Corsages: A variety of handmade corsages are made by my mother or one of my aunts and everyone gets to choose theirs on Christmas Eve. Aunts, uncles, children all get one.

- Traveling Canasta: My grandmother started this tradition of filling up a huge basket with snack items from soda, chips, cookies, etc. I couldn't tell you when but definitely before I was born(1980) as we have been doing that for as long as I can remember. She would stuff the basket with as much as could fit in it for Christmas. Then everyone's name is put in a bowl and one person wins the basket. The person that wins the basket on Christmas then refills the basket with new items for New Year's and again the names go in a bowl for a winner. The winner then returns the basket to my grandmother for the following year. My grandmother passed away in 2007, so now the traveling basket is continued by my aunts.

- Posada and Rosary: Christmas Eve is the day my family gets together to celebrate begin the Christmas celebrations. It starts with a praying the rosary and then we do the posada. The men go outside with candles and a sheet with the verses to sing and the women stay inside. We do the different stages starting on one door and ending on the other. Once we are let in then dinner begins. 

- Nativity scene: The nativity scene is finished by the youngest member of the family. The youngest person carries the baby Jesus and everyone gives a kiss to both. Once everyone has done this then the baby Jesus is placed in the Nativity Scene.

- New Year's Eve and Day: On New Year's Eve, our family gets together for a late dinner. When the clock strikes at midnight, we all cheer to each other and drink our Champagne. We also eat 12 grapes, each symbolizing the coming 12 months, and make a wish for each of those months as we eat each grape. After this, we all hug and wish each other a Happy New Year.  

- Dia de Los Reyes: On January 6th we celebrate Dia de los Reyes(Kings Day/Little Christmas), although most of the family is back to their routines, there will be a Rosca de Reyes(a sweet bread) that everyone can come by and get a piece of. A baby Jesus is baked in the bread and whoever gets the piece with the baby is supposed to do a dinner/celebration on el Dia de la Candelaria(Candlemass) which is on February 2nd.

Happy Holidays Y'all !!!

Happy Holidays Y'all !!!... So now to catch up.... PBS day. 12/6/08, went good. I thought it would drag, but the fours hours went by really fast... Later that day went to the Parade of Lights, my first time. Next time I should take a chair. It was a looong parade, and it got cold by the end of it. It was pretty.

Holiday Party 2008... This year it was at a friend's house on 12/20/08, with maybe only a week of planning. Food, drinks, Singstar, and more drinks, it was great. Woke up with a headache the next day, too much wine I think.

...On a (long) side note... this year I didn't feel any holiday cheer, even though I have been signing loudly for all to hear. I haven't been really all that festive this year, I sort of have immersed myself in work, volunteer events, and diversity events. Also, because I was going to be moving by the end of September, I had packed all my Fall and Winter Holiday stuff, and then I didn't move, but didn't feel like unpacking since moving would be in six months(maybe). I think that maybe I am still mourning my grandma's passing last year. I think maybe the prices going up on everything just made me not want to shop. Usually I shop for my roommates(Jerry, Aaron), mom, a couple of aunts, a couple of friends and give cards to almost all work friends, old friends, new friends, and family. So this year all I got out were 3 cards, my mom and 2 aunts. Not sure what's going on with me, maybe it's the over commercialized holidays or a combination of all the above, and somehow I need to cheer up. Although, today as my roommates gave me gifts and they gave gifts to each other and I had no gifts, not even a card to give them I felt that little x-mas spark lighting back up. It's not about the gift is about the giver.

My family back home, Texas/Mexico are very catholic, not crazy catholic, just very, and they do a traditional x-mas. Traditional of course is different to every family.

My family's traditional is to pray a rosary, then a classic posada, then dinner, then some fireworks, then to midnight mass. We wear corsages that are usually made by one of my aunts. This is all done on the 24th. On the 25th they all get together for breakfast, usually barbacoa, then a couple of pinatas. Both kids and adults get in the action. Then we play loteria(similar but not congruent to bingo) for wrapped prizes/gifts that several of us have brought. The prizes are varied from a box of cherry cordials, kitchen towels, sopas, avon items, etc. Then after this there is a raffle of a basket that consists of mostly pantry items. Everyone's names goes in a bowl, someone draws a name and that person wins it. This was something that we have done as long as I can remember. The person who wins the basket will fill it up the next year, if they can't, my grandma or my mom or another aunt would help fill it. My grandma, as far as I know, is the one who made the basket raffle tradition.

New Year's Eve and Day are similar except no posada. We also try to celebrate El Dia de Reyes(I think it's what they call Epiphany in English?), but that day already everyone is back to work, family, etc. so usually their is a Rosca De Reyes(a circular bread like cake) and whoever drops by can have a piece. There is a baby baked into the bread and whoever gets the slice with the baby in it is supposed to throw a celebration later in the year on El Dia de la Candelaria, but I'm not sure when that is as there usually isn't a celebration made. I think maybe once or twice it was done, that I can remember. All these celebrations, xmas, new year's, dia de reyes, etc, are all done at my grandma's house in Mexico.

Anyways, the point of this I think maybe that I should start spending x-mas holiday back home.


Hope you are all having a Happy holiday Season! :)

X-mas 2007 with Family photos

So as you may know if you read my last post of the 2007 year, in December my grandmother passed away. So spending the Holidays with family was bittersweet. It was nice to spend a Holiday with the family even though grandma or "Gueli" as I called her was no longer with us.

I always wrote to my mother, a couple of my closest aunts, and Gueli throughout the year not just for birthdays and holidays, but just to keep in touch. I have always felt that handwritten letters are always more personal.

The last Christmas I spent with family was in 1999. The last time I spent time with my Grandma was in March of 2005 when I drove down to spend a whole week at home. The times since then I would write, and my mother and aunt came to visit a couple times throughout the 2005, 2006, and 2007 years, so I didn't get time to spend time with Gueli the past couple of years. My mother and aunt would always tell me that she held very dear to her all the letters and cards I sent her.

In 1998 My mother, cousin and Gueli drove to Arizona and went to the Grand Canyon. A few days before her passing I had mailed out a postcard of the Grand Canyon. The day my cousin and I arrived for the funeral was the same day the postcard arrived. She didn't get to see the postcard but I am sure she remembers that trip. She did receive her birthday card. Her birthday is in October so that was the last mailing I sent that she got. The day after her funeral I was in her room and she had her Birthday card on a chair that was near her bed. Sidenote - my mother was her 4th child out of eleven, and the last to be born in her room instead of a hospital.

Anyways I think I'll leave the rest of the memories to myself. Here's a photo of part of the family at church on one of the days of novenario. Novenario is where they have 9 consecutive masses for the person who passed.

Holiday 2007 Party Photos

Here's some photos from the Holiday Party 2007 at the Kiwannis park in Tempe, AZ with work friends:

Last post of the 2007 Year...

It's the last post of the Year... My grandma or "Gueli" as I called her passed away 2 weeks ago, so my cousin and I flew out and then drove back home. We stayed for about a week for the funeral and for X-mas. The last X-mas Holiday I spent back home was 1999. I have visited for short periods throughout since then and also my Ma and Tia Rosa visited in 2006 and 2007. The last time I visited home was in March 2005. That's the Last time I saw Gueli. Spending this time back home has made me want to move back. Not too close, but close enough to be able to be home faster than having to catch a plane and then drive some more. San Antonio or Austin would be perfect as they would be just a short drive. There again I also would like to move farther to maybe Canada or Spain or Italy. Anyways we'll see what happens this year. Y'all have a good one.

Homemade Fall Wreath

I have always wanted to have a fall wreath to hang on the front door, however every year by the time I start looking at Autumnal themed wreaths, fall has passed and it's already x-mas.

I bought my x-mas wreath several years ago. It is a Martha Stewart Everyday brand wreath from Kmart. The wreath has frosty fake snow and is stringed with white lights. to this day I have not had to replace a single bulb. I like that all the things I buy from Martha Stewart always have some recipe or idea. I got some bows last year that said the first Christmas card appeared in London in 1843, however sending holiday cards did not become popular in the United States until the 1870s.

So this year I decided no matter what I was going to have a fall wreath. I looked at some stores but did not like the prices. I could wait until after Thanksgiving when they would likely be discounted but by then it's time to put the x-mas stuff up.

Looking through my decorating stuff and found I had several fall garlands that I used last year for work that I was not using this year. I got my crafty gloves on and cut a circle out of a cardboard box and then spray painted it. I cut up several of the garlands into smaller usable pieces and then hot glued them onto the cardboard box. The finished wreath looked awesome.

Just some holiday wrapping pics...

X-mas wrapping...

I have always liked wrapping gifts and finding interesting ways of making each wrapping even a little different/unique, rather than just wrapping and sticking a pre-made bows. Although I am guilty of doing that, I do enjoy taking the time to wrap a gift. During x-mas I buy wrapping paper both before and after x-mas and am always stocked full of paper and things to embellish like ribbon, bows, ornaments, etc. Last year I decided to get only solid colors during the after x-mas clearances on wrapping paper, that way I could use it on other occasions rather than only during x-mas. This x-mas I decided that there is just so much waste that comes from wrapping gifts, that I will no longer buy any wrapping paper. I am trying to reduce the among of waste I produce. Probably a product of seeing Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. So I am using the remaining wrapping paper I have for this x-mas (pictures of some of my wrapping to come later) and any other events thereafter until I run out and will no longer buy wrapping paper nor things to embellish. Doesn't mean I won't be wrapping gifts whenever there is a gifting occasion, just using more clever wrapping options with things that can be used and reused as opposed to just tossed in the garbage. Some tips I have already picked up for when that time comes is using pretty hand towels, kitchen towels, even t-shirts. It's not much, but it's a start right. If you have any ideas on clever waste reducing gift wrapping techniques, send them my way :)

Holiday Party 2006!

Holiday Party 2006!

nothing... just pictures...

Nothing just pictures from the holiday get together at Rocio's.

Blueberry coffee cake not pie I tell you!!!

There's a holiday party I am going to today. Starts in about an hour and I am not even ready so I'll be late. It's a potluck party.

I woke up around 6:30am on the back of my mind what will I be making for the potluck party. Should I make a main dish, a side dish, or dessert, or snacks. The decision lied really in how much time I wanted to put into this.

Yesterday I bought a cookbook with nothing but chicken recipes. I scanned through that. It has many dishes/recipes I want to try, however not for a potluck. First, I would need to taste test the recipe by making it home at least once. So scratch of the main dish idea.

I then noticed a cookies and bars magazine I got a few days ago.I started going through it and one of the first recipes was called Minty Meringue Drops. Recipe simple, check. Gets me into the x-mas mood, check.

So off to the pantry to check and make sure I have all the ingredients. Not too good of an idea as I ended up going through all the baking stuff to see what else I would need to make more cookies from other recipe magazines. The meringue drops recipe required 2 egg whites. I though what a waste of egg. Would I toss the egg yolks, or make it into dinner. Jackpot I found a recipe for yellow cake that uses egg yolks and no egg whites. That recipes requires four egg yolks. So hey I figure I will just double the meringue recipe and well win. I would take tons of cookies and cake to the party. Plus I have all the ingredients to make butter cream icing from scratch. Perfect.

So off to the store now to get the remaining ingredients plus more for various other recipes I want to make throughout the next few weeks. One of the recipes is called Blueberry Macademia Nut Swirl Coffee Cake. Sounds yummy doesn't it. The sample picture looks scrumptious.

Back from the store and everything on the counter I decide I will make the blueberry. I had more than enough time to make the coffee cake and then make the cookies and yellow cake and butter cream, then get ready and go to the party. So yeah, cookies cake and coffeecake.

The recipe making comes out perfect. I always read the recipe completely before making it to make sure I know what I'll be doing and where I will have time to do what and in what order.

The recipe says to "Spoon batter into grease 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Drop blueberry filling by..."

So off I go with greasing a pie plate and spoon the batter and then the rest of the steps, and into the oven. Yeah I am happy. The pie in the oven and with enough time to start on the rest of the recipes... Nah... I'll just take coffee cake only don't feel like doing the rest of the recipes, plus Aaron started making a big cookie to take to a party he is going to. So I sit and watch tv.

About half time into the baking time I think to myself, "I can't wait to try the Blueberry Pie... wait a minute, wait a minute. Blueberry Pie... That sounds yummy but the name of my recipe was yummier." So I go take a look at the recipe calling for a greased 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Crap!!! I put it into the wrong type of baking dish.. I open the oven and sure enough it was had started to overflow. Come to think of it, When I was putting everything into the pie plate I thought to myself, "wow, this is alot for a pie plate" So I put a cookie sheet under the baking pie and just let it finish baking.

Alright so what the heck am I taking to the party. At this point I have a headache. I take a chill pill. Well it was ibuprofen, and head to the store to get blueberry pie filling. The recipe is so simple that I could still make a new one and this time put it in a "greased 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

So right now I just finished putting the new blueberry pie... correction Blueberry Macadamia Nut Swirl Coffee Cake into the oven. I still have to get ready. I just took another glance at the recipe and it says 1 cup blueberry pie filling. I put the whole freaking can(15 oz) that's about almost 2 cups of blueberry pie filling. That's it this blueberry coffeecake will be the moistest coffee cake they will ever taste!!!

Everyone have a good evening!!!

Thanksgiving Weekend 2006

On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I went to work for several hours. The original plan was to work, leave early if possible to do my turkey dinner as lunch, and then head over to Marla's in the evening for dinner. Well, not really Marla's as her plan had changed. She got the normal amount of stuff for her Thanksgiving dinner which is great, only thing this year her family is in Chicago so it would be only her, her husband and her 2 kids. So she decided to take her stuff to her friend's and cook there along with what her friend got and have dinner there. Sounds like a plan. I'll be there for dinner with dessert. I would be making a Cheesecake with a creamy topping and fresh raspberries and kiwi.

Work did not go as planned. It was fairly slow, but decided to stay the entire shift for the day. I couldn't pass up 7 hours including lunch at 1 1/2 times pay on such an easy day.

I was not able to make the cheesecake the day before, so I would need to get home, make the cheesecake, and then head over to dinner with Marla, her family, and friend. I got off work at 1:30 pm and was past 2:00 pm when I got home.

~brain-wandering, last year I was off and my mother came to visit. We went shopping at K-Mart that happened to be opened on Thanksgiving Day, we got some awesome deals, then went to dinner at Marla's house that was fully packed with her family and friends, we then headed to the Phoenix Zoolights. such a lovely day~

The plan for me now was to make the cheesecake, then head over to dinner with Marla and friends, and postpone the dinner with My cousin, who is also my roommate, and Aaron, also my roommate. However, I realized that what I had really wanted is to just stay and make dinner, even if it was just heating up the ready-meal, and have a relaxed afternoon/evening at home. So instead I started my dinner at home. This meant that dinner would be at around 5pm or 6pm. I don't remember if I called Marla or if she called, but decided we would try to get together the next day, Black Friday...

About 30 minutes before dinner was done, Jerry had waken up. He works nightshift at a store so he sleeps during the day, however he was off on Thanksgiving. We served ourselves, ate with no room for dessert and then just vegged out, the rest of the evening.


I woke up Friday morning at my usual time. On a normal work day I am up between 4:30 am - 5:00 am, but Friday's are my days off. I usually sleep in on this day which means getting up no later than 10am. That's really late for me.

I really wasn't going to shop 'till i dropped, just wanted to get a digital camera that was advertised at a really good price as a gift.

Target Stores kicked off their 2-day sale with doors opening on Friday at 6am. So I drive by my closest Target and there was maybe 20-40 people in line, so I decided to drive to check out a different location. I drove to the Target Greatland by the Chandler Fashion Mall. It's now 15 minutes before 6am and there must have been about 200 people lined up. The line extended from the entrance almost to the road of the shopping center. I am not about to wait in line for anything no matter how great the sale is. Third and last attempt. Drove to the Target in Ahwatukee and the line extended from the entrance all the way to the Mervyn's store which is on the other end of the shopping center. It was now just 3 minutes before 6am. So no thanks. No sale is great enough for me to stand in line and then try and "fight" with people on stuff. I will gladly pay regular price for anything than stoop to that level.

I drove back home, made a pot of coffee and turned on the news. The news had on of course video of the people lined up at Target and other stores, with some having camped out the night. An hour and a couple cups of coffee later, I decided I would go to Target. I went to a different location than the ones I had driven by earlier. It was now just past 7am. The parking lot was plenty full, but not as packed as I expected. My guess, the early birds were done and gone and the rest of the people were still sleeping off their Thanksgiving dinners from the night before.

Inside the store, most people were shopping the electronics and toys section, which is where I was headed. I did not find the camera that was advertised, however I was not going to waste my waking up early and not getting at least something. So I wandered around the store and found some neat deals on other stuff, not for gifts, but for me. :) So I now have a crock-pot, and I got it at an awesome price, a movie, and a new computer monitor. I also got a couple hand towels. The hand towels have a snowman on them to match with a hand soap dispenser from Avon shaped like a snowman that my mother gave me last year. I was most happy about the monitor. I have been wanting to update/upgrade computers for a while, so a new monitor is a first step. My old monitor was a bulky 15 inch, CRT I think it's called. Anyways, that one is going to Goodwill, I now have a 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor. So excited I can't even tell you.

Anyways, I got home and of course first thing I had to do is hook up my new Monitor. At first it seemed that it would not work, but I had not plugged in the cord correctly on the back of the monitor. So so excited, next step upgrade PC.

By this time it was close to noon and I was ready for a bite. I called Marla to see if we were still getting together, in my mind possibly having lunch, but when I called sounded like she had her hands full with her children. She said she'd call back. Waited about 10 minutes but something must have come up. So I made a turkey pot pie with some of the left over turkey and watched several episodes of Smallville. Watching back to back episodes makes the time fly by. Marla called back several hours later, so we should definitely get together sometime before the year ends.

It's X-mas time... I always kick of the season watching Christmas Vacation. So I popped that in as I started assembling the small fake x-mas tree. It's a small tree. I got it several years ago when my cousin moved from Texas, and we got an apt together. The tree seems small now that we are in a house, but it was the perfect size for the couple of apartments we got to use it in. Assembling it was as far as I got though as It was late and I just plopped down to finish watching the movie and then went to sleep. Aaron put up some snowy green garland on the hallway entrance and hung ornaments on the loops. It looks nice. I had a good day.

Saturday and Sunday of this weekend was my weekend to work. I work every other weekend. No luck leaving early on either day, but Amy was working on Saturday, so the day went by faster. Left work at 4:30pm got home after 5pm. Ate some left overs as I watched several more episodes of Smallville. I strung some lights on the tree. Aaron suggested I put colored lights, however the first x-mas I had with this tree I made it look quite elegant with all white non-blinking lights, with gorgeous silver, frost-white and red glass ornaments and perfectly made ribbon-bows. I loved the look of that first time so I have kept it similar, adding a few different ornaments each year. Last year I added perfectly matching ornaments in green. Each year My X-mas stuff grows by a couple of extra lights and decorations. This year is not the exception, but I still like my tree with just white lights. The only colored lights I have are for a pre-strung green garland that I got last year, and 2 sets of either 200 or 300 small lights used for the outside. Maybe I'll get a bigger tree in the future and decorate it with colored lights.




.... Updated 02/14/2010, link to Amy's bloghttp://thosecrazyschuberts.com/

Dwight... Thanksgiving.... and X-mas....

Yesterday I got the Dwight Schrute Bobble Head I had won at ebay... so excited.. not sure if I should keep him at work or at home? OH I also got some Thalia cds (Japanese versions of the ones I already have) and Mortal Kombat II for the SNES. I never had that game, but played it quite a bit back then when it came out. Thankfully I still have my old SNES to play it in... Oh and Target has the Seasons 1-3 of Smallville on sale for $14.88. That's right $14.88 I had originally gotten the first season at regular price and then realized if I kept buying them I would have spent tons of money on it. So am so glad that they are on sale. plus I get my 10% off.

I also went and got Viva Pinata at Target plus they were giving out $10 giftcard just for buying it. I don't have the Xbox 360, but eventually I will. Oh another thing I want to get that I haven't gotten a chance to is the Zune., however before I can get that I need a new computer. My computer is from 2000 and it is running Windows ME. Yeah I know old... So, I have been looking around. Originally I wanted a super beefed up computer from Alienware or Voodoo, but realized I don't really play as many PC games as I once used to. It would be really expensive if I did get one with all the additions I wanted that I really would not use.

Now on Thanksgiving that's already next week... I had decided that I would get a ready meal for that day since I was working. I still am. In past years I have either made it myself or bought it ready made from Albertson's or Safeway, but for X-mas. It was not really tradition for us to do any celebration for Thanksgiving. It is more an Anglo thing, and I am Hispanic/Latino who grew up in the border, my cousin the same, and Aaron is Native American. So yeah celebrating Thanksgiving is really not something that is on my mind, but I do love turkey. Anyways, I think I will be getting it from Supertarget though.

Albertsons had a very basic one for $39.99 Which is already more than what Jerry, Aaron, and I could eat in a week. It included Turkey (10-12lbs), Bread stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, choice of pie, and rolls.

Basha's has a fuller meal for $49.99 that includes Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, baked yams, green beans, gravy, cranberry/orange sauce, pumpkin pie, and rolls.

Safeway... I haven't been to Safeway in the longest time and have not seen their specials so I have no idea what they are offering as their ready meals this year.

Supertarget has theirs for $59.99 and includes 10- to 12-lb. Butter-Basted Turkey, 1.5-lbs. Fresh Green Beans with side of 15-oz. Lemon-butter Thyme Sauce, Potato Trio: 2-lbs. Traditional, 1-lb. Bacon Cheddar, 1-lb. Sweet, 2.5-lbs. Stuffing, 15-oz. Gravy, 15-oz. Cranberry Sauce, 12 Dinner Rolls, choice of pie, and it also includes appetizers Triple Créme Brie, Artichoke and Spinach Dip, Stone Ground Wheat Crackers, Honey Cashew Crunch

So it seems I get more bang for my buck at Supertarget and it's practically free. I will get 10% plus with all the OT gift cards I have received, this will be essentially free. However Supertarget, has pick-up days from Monday - Wednesday, I think they are closed on Thursday, while the others I believe are open part of the day on Thursday. So I may just do Thanksgiving a few days early for us at home since on Thursday I will be going over to Marla's and may even stop by at Nancy's also.

Now on X-mas... I need to locate the boxes where I have the x-mas stuff to sort and start decorating. I have not started x-mas shopping yet, however I don't have alot to get so it can wait for a while. I did get already most of the x-mas cards. That's the one thing I always do, send x-mas cards. X-mas cards make me happy. I don't really care so much about gifts 'cause I can always get myself what I want/need, but I do like cards. I have all my x-mas (and birthday cards) that I have received through the years stored by years, since 1998. That was the year I left home in the little town I lived in Texas.

Ok so now back to work.... Have a good day ya'll!!!