The Holiday Ramp-up

We are now past Thanksgiving (hope everyone had a great one!) and the official countdown to the Holidays has begun.  Some people are way ahead of the game....some haven't even started.  Where do you fall?

This year, I am ahead of the game.  I fully admit that this year is somewhat of a rarity.  I am always done early by traditional standards (probably by Dec 15).  This year, because I had my Christmas fund, I was able to start shopping a little earlier, and had the money to do so.  Plus, we are on track to have about $150 left in the fund in the end, which will go into the Pet care fund (for food, litter, and vet expenses)

But right now....all but 1 gift has been purchased.  And a few stocking stuffers.  This one gift is bugging me.  It is for my boss. We have a casual office, and I have known my boss for almost 9 years.  But he is soooo hard to shop for.  I have a $15 budget and am really trying to stay in that budget.  I can go up to $20.  But no idea what to get him.  I don't want to cop out and just get a Starbucks gift card.  All of my ideas have turned out to be too expensive.  So here I am....pondering this.  Any thoughts????  Especially from the male readers???


UPDATE:   After talking to a bunch of people...I discovered that men like gadgets and "cool stuff."  So I am getting him a flashlight that has a tripod, and it can be used as 1 big flashlight, or 3 little ones.
We started decorating the outside of the house, and it looks nice.  I am hoping to have that finished this week.  As we were putting things up, some people walked by, and commented how pretty it looked.  That made us feel good.

We will be getting our tree and putting it up this weekend.  Normally we get it the second weekend of December, but that weekend is crazy, so we are doing it a little early.  This week I will finish moving a few things around in the room to accomodate the tree, and by Friday we will be all set.

I have mentioned that I put up lots of trees and decorations.  This week is quiet, so I am hoping to clean one area each night, and put up the actual tree....decorating will probably be this weekend.

Holiday cards are 95% done.  I had a hard time cropping the pictures so I will finish it at work, and they will be ordered today.  I made address labels years ago, so once the cards arrive, it is usually an hour process to stuff and address it all.  I have the kids help with it.

Wrapping....I love doing it.  So I will probably wait until after the crazy period of time to do it.  So I can actually enjoy it.  The only exception....the stuff that needs to be shipped.  That will get wrapped and ready to go, so they can go out by the 10th.

We have a cocktail party to go to....hostess gift purchased and ready to go.

Dinners for Dec 24 and Dec 25....we let the kids pick what they wanted.  He picked Calzones for Christmas Eve, and she picked Ham for Christmas.  Sounds good to me!  Santa cookies are also on the plan.

Yule is Dec 22.  So we will be doing some traditional Yule activities to celebrate, including decorating a tree outside with edible goodies.  We will also be making a Yule log, and will be making Sun bells.  I love that we are doing this!

Really the only other pending thing is getting the kids their new PJs for Christmas Eve.

I am happy with the progress.  I am not stressed about any of it.  I am going to enjoy it ALL.  I deserve to enjoy it.