Meeting The Real Santa

I met the REAL SANTA yesterday. I was having breakfast with the Lotion Store Refugees. We have all quit our jobs there in the past 3 months.
Lauren said "OMG Santa is here!" I turned around and he was behind me, chatting with the kids at the next table.  He was wearing jeans, a red plaid flannel shirt and red knitted vest.
Misty sent a text to her husband saying "Tell the kids I am with Santa". He texted back, "They said to ask him where he parked the sleigh."
He then came to our table and Betsy said "Oh, Santa, Misty has 3 small children. Could we take a picture of you?"

He did better than that. He sat down, pulled out a file folder with professional 8x10 glossies of himself in complete Christmas Eve garb. He asked each of Misty's kid's names and while we chatted with him he autographed a photo for each of them and signed them "Love, Santa".

He is the Santa on giant billboards in Central Florida advertising the Christian radio station. His December gig is to spend the month visiting homeless shelters and shelters for battered women and their children. He seemed genuinely honored to look like he does.

The four of us Lotion Store Refugees laughed like little kids at how much fun we were having. Another family with 2 small children came in to the restaurant. The looks on the kid's faces were priceless. They were grinning from ear to ear.

I BELIEVE.

Merry Christmas to all of my cherished Bloggy Friends, far and near.

Christmas Post-It Notes

Have you checked out the $1 bins at Target? I found rolls of wrapping paper that were not full-size but were pretty good quality!

I can't find the stocking holders. We've looked twice at our storage unit that we rent for Christmas stuff, extra beds, extra sets of dishes, extra bedding, boxes of books..and so on and so on.

I've looked twice in the small storage closet on our porch.

I've looked twice in my walk-in-closet.

Santa will find the stockings hanging on the knobs of my dining room storage cupboards.

We have an artificial tree. I HATE PINE NEEDLES!

What I really hate is watering the tree and dragging the tree to the dump area and vacuuming pine needles in January.

I love the candle that makes the house smell like a live Christmas tree.

I love meeting bloggers. I have never had a bad experience. I met Heather last Spring when she was visiting the Sunshine State.

When I heard she was escaping the frigid north and coming to Florida for Christmas I was

 SO EXCITED!!!

Heather and her darling daughters Gracie and Stella met Sorority Girl and I for breakfast this morning.

We sat and exchanged gifties and chatted for 2 hours before they had to go back to the hotel to grab Heather's husband and continue on to her Mom and Dad's. Sorority Girl commented in the car about what a connection Heather and I have. So true!!



Crazy-Free Christmas Countdown

I can't believe we're into Christmas week. It's my first Non-Retail-Job Holiday in over 10 years.
The decorating is done, the shopping is almost done. The cooking shall commence on Wed.

Today, I'm throwing Momma on the plane. The MA Registry of Motor Vehicles won't let her renew her driver's license online because now she is over 75 years old. In Florida, to get a DL she would have to show SS Card, Rental Agreement, Utility bills, Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate (to prove history of name change) and I think her 2nd grade report card.

That's what happens when you live in the state ranked 3rd in the country in Identity Theft. Since we had to send her home to renew her Driver's License, I figured she might as well go for the holidays. She can see her friends and 8/10 of her grandchildren.

I'm throwing her on the plane at Orlando International Airport. Yesterday there was a Hallelujah-singing Flash Mob in the atrium . Why couldn't they wait until today?

A good bloggy friend is passing through Orlando with her family tomorrow night, on their way to her Mom and Dad's for Christmas. I met her and her delightful daughters last year. Sorority Girl and I are meeting them for dinner Tuesday night. I'M SO EXCITED!!

Thursday morning I'm having breakfast with my good friends from the Shower Gel Store, where I no longer work, Forever and Ever, Amen and The Angels Sang. Thursday night, Cape Cod Kid arrives!!

I may actually get through this holiday week without my annual mental meltdown.

2010 Holiday House Tour

This is the 3rd year that Jen On The Edge has invited us to do a Holiday House Tour.

Welcome to our treehouse in The Sunshine State. We live up there on the second floor.

 The little tree on the porch is new this year. I rescued him from the dumpster at work last year. The snowman is the biggest one in my collection.

I really don't have any theme or style to my decorating. I would probably call it whimsical.  I do like similar decorations to be together. Like these miniature Nativity sets on the dining room shelf. The blown glass Nativity was a gift from the Principal of the Catholic School where Sorority Girl attended in Middle School.

 The Santas sit somewhere different every year. This year they're on the floor by the TV.

 The Snowman collection sits on my kitchen counter. There are closer views in my last post.

 The cast of Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer sits in their usual spot on top of the TV.

 These 2 make me smile!

 This is the tree from a previous year. This year the tree is up but not yet decorated.

 The only thing missing this year is Tigger under the tree.

Have a wonderful Christmas and a  Healthy, Happy New Year from The Sunshine State!

Meet The (Snow) Men In My Life

 I started collecting snowmen about 10 years ago. Every year I add to the collection. These are the ceramic snowmen. The one in the back on the left is a music box. The Patriotic little guy in front was added after 9-11.

 These are the stuffed snowmen.

 I have 2 snowglobes. The one on the right is this year's addition to the collection. It is battery operated and you can make it snow without turning it over.

These are the candleholders.

 I have a little tree that has snowman ornaments all around.

These are the mini-men. They are all between 2 and 3 inches tall. See the little guy in the front on the right? He has an open book on his head and he's wearing glasses. I got him back in 2002 when I was working at Barnes and Noble. 

Wait! All of my snowmen are not MEN! This pretty little blown-glass snow lady was a gift from my best friend.

 This other snow lady was a gift from my Mom. She puts on her own little laser light show!

I hope you enjoyed the Snowmen (and Ladies) in my life!

KEEP WARM!

At The Festival Of Trees

Every year the Orlando Museum Of Art has a Festival Of Trees. Interior designers and other companies decorate trees that are displayed in the museum for a week in November. Every tree is for sale and many are over $2000. Sometimes the trees are purchased and then donated to charitable organizations.

There is also a room where professional bakers and restaurants are invited to display Gingerbread houses.  These houses are BIG!

My favorite tree was one where EVERYTHING was made of paper. The tree skirt was made of strips of brown craft paper that were woven. There were stars, reindeer and owls made of crimped  paper.

 The garland on this tree took my breath away! It was cones made of pages from books and stapled in layers to a wide ribbon.

 I LOVED this next tree. It was made by art students at a local school. All the ornaments are made from recycled 2 Liter soda bottles. The bottles are cut from the bottom up in strips. The strips are left attached to the bottle top.They are curled, painted and glittered. It was SO creative and really stunning.

 Here's a closer look at the ornaments.

 This last tree was in the gift shop. I have seen a lot of red artificial trees this year. What do you think?

There is live entertainment the whole time the museum is open for the Festival. We watched a group doing ballroom dancing and we were really impressed with how good the teenagers were.

This was a really nice afternoon to kick off the Holiday spirit!

Naughty and Nice #2

You know how Santa has a list that tells him if you're naughty or nice? I like to help Santa with that little chore.

Here's another group for Santa to know about.

NAUGHTY: The condo board of our "treehouse in the Sunshine State".

There is ample parking in our lots. We never see cars that don't belong to our neighbors, so we were surprised to get a notice that the condo board decided to institute a parking pass system. I was informed that each unit would get 1 free Resident sticker and 1 Visitor sticker. This is good for Sorority Girl, who will occasionally spend the night, especially if all her housemates are elsewhere. Unfortunately, we have to pay $20 for a second Resident sticker. I had to show up at the condo office with a copy of our lease, our driver's licenses, our car registration, a lengthy questionnaire and the above-mentioned $20.

My neighbor says this is a way for the condo board to get contact info on private owners that are not paying Homeowner fees. Mr Sunshine State thinks it is just a money making scheme on the part of the board. I think it was crappy of the board to institute this system in December.

NICE: Second Harvest Food Bank and the people who volunteer for them.

40 employees in our district showed up yesterday to work at the Food Bank. I had never been there before and I was amazed to walk into the giant warehouse and see about 10,000 boxes of donated food.
Our group split into two groups. I was in the group that was checking expiration dates on all the donated food. The other group was sorting the donations into boxes by product category.

Much of the food came from Target and WalMart. They get tax breaks for donating the food before it gets to the expiration date. I was pulling boxes of food that were good until April and May. There were boxes of pizza crusts, crackers, dented cans of soup, crushed boxes of microwave popcorn and cases of water with 1 or 2 smooshed bottles.

Each pallet of boxes held about 48 boxes of food. Our group processed about 15 pallets of boxes in 3 hours.

I started thinking about where all that food was going. I will be without a job (by choice) as of Dec 16th but I was making pennies at my job and Mr Sunshine State takes pretty good care of me. There have been times in our lives when family and friends were giving us food, because we were having problems making ends meet with 2 small kids. I'll be spending the Holidays thinking about those people that rely on the Food Banks. They are having a food drive at the local TV station today. I'm off to clean out the cupboards and find some donations.

Food Bank volunteers everywhere are on today's NICE list.

No Naughty. Just Nice.

There are no naughty girls on today's list for Santa. Just my two favorite Sorority Girls.

My Sorority Girl grew up with only a brother and not even any girl cousins were born until she was a teenager. When she rushed for Sorority, she met Erin. They felt an immediate connection and because Erin was a RhoGamma, Alli didn't know which sorority she was from. (RhoGammas help out with Sorority Rush without revealing their affiliation.) Imagine her delight when she found out that Erin was in the sorority that she was joining!

Erin claimed Alli as her Little Sister. They called each other "Big" and "Little". Erin has lived up to that name in every way. She is really the Big Sister that Alli always wanted. She has been a sister, an advisor and a mentor. Erin has graduated, become a teacher and the girls are still close. I love that girl.

There are so many photos of the two of them together that I could fill a scrapbook.

This past summer Erin got married and had her "Little" standing at the altar with her.



My Sorority Girl is also going to be a teacher. She thought she was going to graduate with a degree in Communication Disorders, but found that the courses were too much science and too much regurgitation of facts on exams. This year she changed her major to Exceptional Education and I see the joy on her face when she talks about it.

She has been doing some volunteer hours at a UCP preschool. United Cerebral Palsy schools serve kids with a wide range of diagnoses. Last week she read "Goodnight Moon" 3 times in a row to one little girl and managed to have some chatty conversations with a little girl who is debilitatingly shy.

Sorority Girl spent the past semester going to school and working full-time without a word of complaint.

So, Dear Santa, please put my TWO  favorite Sorority Girls on the top of your NICE list. Thanks.

Naughty or Nice #1

You know how Santa has a list that tells him if you're naughty or nice? I like to help Santa with that little chore.

Here are the first two of my contributions to the 2010  Naughty or Nice list.

NAUGHTY: The older woman who works at the Hess station on San Carlos Blvd in Fort Myers Beach FL. She is seriously rude.  Mom went in to buy Hess gas cards for some of my nephews. She was trying to use her Mastercard and put in her MA zip code (on her billing address). The credit card reader wouldn't accept her card. She should have been using her FL zip code. When she asked the clerk why she couldn't get her credit card to work, the woman looked at her and in a rude tone of voice said "I don't know, just use another card".

I tried to use Mom's card at the pump to fill my gas tank, popped in Mom's MA zip code, and got a message on the screen to see the cashier. I went in and politely told the cashier that I was trying to use a Mastercard and asked why I needed to see the cashier. The same rude woman said, in her rude tone of voice, "According to me, you didn't even TRY to use the card". Here's the rest of the lovely conversation...

Me: EXCUSE ME. Look out the window. See that big, white SUV? I tried to use a card at the pump and the message says "See the cashier" so OBVIOUSLY I tried to use the card.
Rude Cashier: I don't know why.
Me: (turning purple) Can you PLEASE find out why? Maybe we need to ask a manager?
Rude Cashier stomps away from the register and says "I SUPPOSE I MIGHT BE ABLE TO FIND HIM".

I'm throwing her under the Santa Bus and I might even call Customer Service and throw her under the Hess Bus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NICE: I love our branch of the Seminole County Library. I love our library ladies. We had put the new Ken Follet book, Fall Of Giants on the waiting list a while back. We started the list in the 200's and the last time I checked the list we were 21. I checked again and the computer said "No Requests on hold".
Apparently someone had missed a zero in my email address and we never got the notification that we were up to #1.  When I asked the ladies to check it, they said there were once again over 150 people on the list but they were putting us at #1.

Thank you Library Info Desk Ladies. You're on Santa's Nice list this year.

I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas

Last year I introduced some of you to one of my favorite Christmas songs, Alien For Christmas by Fountains of Wayne.

This year I want a Hippopotamus. I watched about 27 versions of this on You Tube to find the best one. The things I do for you because I love you. Enjoy!

Making A List and Checking It Twice

No, not Santa!  Grandma Sunshine is officially settled in The Sunshine State for the winter. This involves a very long chore list and we managed to accomplish everything in about 3 and 1/2 days.

• Finish Christmas shopping for all her 10 grandchildren, wrap all the gifts and box them up to go to UPS. Check
• Wash the ceiling, walls, floor, ceiling fans, rewind all the rolling shades and wash 12 windows in the sunroom/laundry room. Check
• Wreath on the door, Snowman flag on the flagpole, lights on the little tree Check
• Get the car out of the auto shop (fuel pump was dead), take car to carwash, get new parking sticker for car. Check
• Grocery shop at SuperTarget, grocery shop at Winn-Dixie, grocery shop at Publix. Check
• Get flowers for patio pots. Find patio pots and fertilizer in the shed. Check
• Hire a guy to put a TV antenna on the roof, hire a guy to weed the flower beds and trim the shrubs, hire carpet cleaners. Check
• Clean all the A/C vents. Convince Mom to actually TURN ON the A/C when the indoor temperature reached 84 degrees. Check
• Reorganize the pantry closet, plan diabetic menus for 2 weeks, cut up multiple containers of veggies. Check
• Visit the neighbors, ignore the mean relatives who live on the next block (mean relatives are now officially pissed off at us) (we don't really care). Check
• Replace batteries in the clock and the CD player. Find Christmas CDs. Listen to Christmas CDs. Check
• Go out for Breakfast! Go out for LUNCH! Go out for DINNER. Go to the most awesome DOLLAR TREE store ever! (it is brand new and 3 times bigger than most) Check

Whew!!