Precious Christmas Collectibles for These Moments

By my friend, Bobby Ker -
I think that having their own Christmas collectibles is going to be good for my kids. When they leave home, they will be taking part of their identity within our family with them. I will be a little sad to see my son's tin stars or my daughter's Jim Shore collectibles figurines "Snowman" go. It will be nice to be able to visit my kids and their Christmas collectibles in their new homes and with their new families.

One of the things that I decided when I started having kids was that they would each have their very own Christmas collectibles. My sisters and I still fighting about who is going to get which pieces of our childhood Christmas collectibles that were treasured equally by all of us. It has been impossible to decide and our mother has had to remain in possession of everything.

When my first child was born, I bought for her a small Snowbabies figurine. This was her first Christmas collectible to come. I have gotten her a new Snowbaby every couple of years. She has a favorite figurine; it is named "Love Will Make It Grow". I bought it for her the year she was in kindergarten.

My son has a completely different collection of Christmas collectibles. When he came along, I decided that I wanted to have two Christmas trees, one for the whole family in the den, and one for the kids in their bedroom. I started buying my son reproductions of Klaus Reinhardt tin ornaments. He has a collection that includes over fifty tin stars collectible ornaments.

My second daughter was also included in my Christmas collectibles shopping after she came along. I bought just one Jim Shore figure for her first Christmas, and then I did not buy her another piece until she was about eight. Since then, we have added four more. Her collection is not huge, but it has some really nice pieces.

My last daughter has been adding Precious Moments collectibles to her collection like crazy ever since she got her first job. She just loved the few that she had gotten from me over the years so much that she decided she was going to continue for the Precious Moments Christmas collectibles vigorously.

Your Christmas Decorations and Ornaments Spirits

By Janice Ng -
There is no other season of the year I enjoy more than Christmas. As soon as the radios start to play Christmas music right after Thanksgiving, I am in the attic dragging out the boxes of Christmas decorations. I have more ornaments boxes than my husband would like me to have. Within hours, I have those Christmas decorations scattered all over the house and I am in my creative decorating mode.

My husband hates it because he knows he will most likely be recruited to do some tedious decorating. He usually tries to escape when he knows I am rummaging around for the Christmas decorations. This last year, I handed him the box of lights and told him to decorate the outside bushes and porch.

He looked a bit relieved that he was getting out of the house but not thrilled at the potential hours of work ahead of him. I remained inside and pulled out the most important Christmas decorations. Over the years, I have collected many Christmas decorations that belonged to grandparents or other relatives.

I have purchased antique Christmas decorations and ornaments as well. I like to think that the person who owned it gets some of their Christmas spirit passed on by displaying those once cherished Christmas decorations. My grandmother used to love Christmas. She would decorate her entire house, inside and outside, and had some of the most beautiful decorations ornaments.

Once she passed away, I inherited them. I make sure that I display some of her favorites every year good enough for Christmas party. I put my Christmas decorations up right after Thanksgiving and display them until New Year's Day. The holiday season is such a wonderful time of the year and the decorations only enhance its happiness and joy in families. We make a big point of decorating the tree as a family and putting the stockings out.

While my children no longer believe in Santa, the magic of Christmas still exists. Their stockings are one of the first things they rummage for when the boxes of Christmas decor are brought down from the attic. Once the holiday season has officially arrived, trips to the mall become more pleasant. While you may be battling longer lines and fighting for parking spots, the Christmas decorations and music that most malls play are just lovely.

Many shoppers do not even bother to pay attention to the time and effort that people spent decorating, but I do. I try to not get upset when the stores are more crowded and people are not being as polite as they normally are. I take the time to admire the Christmas decorations and enjoy the season.

Next time you are standing in line with an arm full of gifts for others, wishing the person in front of you would hurry up; take some time to glance around for special Christmas decoration. Admire the beauty of the season. Perhaps it will help to get you into the Christmas spirit.

Get Personalized Unique Christmas Gifts at Your Budgets

Finding some unique Christmas gifts for those you love is something of an art form. If you are like me, you do not like to buy boring things for people whom you care about. While clothes, jewelry, electronics, Steak Knives or even Credit Card are all great, they just are not very creative as unique gifts, are they? Finding unique Christmas gifts is a great opportunity to show off your creative talents and get a real surprise from people.

One great unusual Christmas gift that I fall back on a lot is live animals. Most people would just say 'Pets' but I am saying live animals because traditional pets are not very creative either. A Cat, Dog, or Hamster is certainly different, but is not what I would call truly unusual Christmas gifts.

I have had some great reactions presenting loved ones with different amphibians and reptiles as my personalized gifts. Opening a box (with some well-concealed air holes) to discover a live Iguana is a sure fire way to get a priceless look on that special someone.

While the scaly critters are good, oversized insects are even better. One of the unique Christmas gifts I have given was a three-pound Brazilian Beetle I affectionately named Bub (Big Ugly Bug). Oh how I wish I had a camera handy when my ex-girlfriend opened that lovingly wrapped box. Though we are not getting together currently, but that scene is not going to be forgotten.

In addition, one of the most exciting gifts ideas a person can give may be a new Car. With the words "Honey, come outside, I have something to show you", can inspire a rapid heartbeat on a Christmas day or any other occasion, especially if saying those while dangling a pair of keys. Cars are great gifts, but are far from unique unusual gifts. Playing on this instinctual excitement is a great way to get an inspired reaction from your true love.

When I lead my last girlfriend outside to present her a brand new Llama, explaining that the keys I had dangled in front of her are for the chains binding it to the fence, it was truly a beautiful moment in our relationship. What better way to say "I love you forever" than with a flea ridden 6-foot tall quadruped that spits? As an alternative to Llamas, Donkeys and Kangaroos also make good unusual and personalized Christmas gifts.

If live animals really are not your cup of tea, consider dead ones if you follow more vegetarian persuasions, you might consider a box of assorted Fungi as one of those unique Christmas gifts for the one you care about. Also, if you prefer inexpensive or cheap gifts like broken glass, piles of mud, expired medicines, straw, and driftwood that should make great unusual homemade gifts for Christmas too, for those on tighter budgets. Yet are all sure to get you some adorable reactions with those "Homemade gifts".

Mail Order Christmas Tree with Only a Good One

If you celebrate Christmas, you know that each year you get a Christmas tree and decorate it for all to see and enjoy. Many people who celebrate the season consider Christmas tree as the center of their holiday, and use it to express their religious beliefs, and as a spot of family to gather around.

If you do not want the same old Christmas trees, or what something different for environmental reasons, you can always get a mail order Christmas tree for you and your family. You can find both artificial Christmas trees and real trees when you choose to get a mail order Christmas tree.

Let us say if you are looking for an artificial Christmas trees, there are hundreds of styles from which to choose. You can get a pre-lit mail order Christmas tree, or you can go for one that looks almost natural. In fact, no one may know the difference unless they do a thorough inspection of your new Christmas tree artificial. You can also find a natural mail order Christmas tree in real, but shipping and handling can be a huge problem.

Make sure you buy from reputable Christmas tree shops when you are doing a mail order shopping online or offline. You do not want to buy those unhealthy real Christmas tree, nor do you want to buy an artificial tree that falls apart when you use it. There are many great shops to buy, but also many stores that will sell substandard merchandise. Just use common sense and keep an eye on prices. You get what you pay for.

Keep your artificial mail order Christmas tree in good shape by buying a model that will last, and by taking care of it when it is not being used for any season. Follow instructions, and remember to keep it stored away in a safe place after you get off all the Christmas decorations.

If they have lighting that comes through the tree itself, make sure you do not cause kinks in the cords that may damage the tree. Only clean them according to procedures, and never submerge any tree with electronic lights or decorations into any amount of water.

Thinking ahead, and I am talking far ahead, you can buy a mail order Christmas tree that is real and small. You can watch it grow. When the time comes, you may not even end up using it for a Christmas tree in your home, but rather a place to decorate your yard for the holidays. You can buy more than one, and grow them in your yard for years to come.

Harley Davidson Christmas Ornament - Special Gift for Him

This item features Santa in a leather jacket and a green shirt, red pants and classis black boots. He is leaning back on a Harley next to a bag filled with toys. The detail on this Harley Davidson Christmas ornament is stunning and I knew I had finally found a special gift for him.

Nothing is as appreciated as much as a Harley Davidson Christmas ornament when you are a motorcycle enthusiast. My father has been riding since I can remember and this year I thought that I would find one of these motorcycle ornaments for his Christmas tree from variety of Christmas decorations.

I was happy to find that there are many choices when it comes to the Harley Davidson Christmas ornament. Choosing just one was going to be a challenge so I decided to weed out some of the options and focus on getting just the right personalized ornament for Dad's style and personality as one of those special Christmas gifts.

This was a little harder than I expected. I never thought that there would be so many Christmas decorations to choose from and I did not know where to start. My friend saw my struggle in finding the right Harley Davidson Christmas ornament and decided to help me out. He and my father are great for talking about bikes while I am more of an occasional passenger rather than an actual rider.

This is not to say that I do not know my Harleys. I certainly do and I know the history of the motorcycle as well. My father spent a good deal of time filling me in on the details of the history of Harley and I have absorbed quite a bit of information over the years. I guess that this is why I wanted to get the Harley Davidson Christmas ornament as a gift for him.

My father's passion for the classic bike may also be why I am having such trouble figuring out which ornament to choose. I like the idea of getting a Harley Davidson Christmas ornament made out of die cast metal. There are many types of motorcycle decorations to choose from and I thought that this would be a great place to start finding those special gifts.

Dad owns a Softtail Deuce and I found a Harley Davidson Christmas ornament that is a miniature of this model. However, the color of this Christmas ornaments is completely different from my father's bike and I just did not feel that it was the perfect choice. Just when I was about to give up I found what I was looking for him.

Watch Christmas Vacation Movie for This Season

If you have never seen the movie, you truly are missing out on one of the absolute best movies representing a true family vacation Christmas, and not one that is all sugar coated and touchy feely. Of course, there are some of those moments, but Christmas Vacation is a comedy relief during what can be one of the most stressful times of the year.

It just would not be an official holiday season without multiple viewings of the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We generally pull our DVD out around mid October, when the weather starts to get dreary and those first thoughts of Christmas enter our minds. By the end of January, we have viewed Christmas Vacation a good five times and are quoting the entire Christmas vacation soundtrack movie with each viewing.

Christmas Vacation is written by John Hughes and stars the legendary Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo. Of course, the lead actors are fabulous, but Christmas Vacation is truly an ensemble that is a force to be reckoned with.

From a young Juliette Lewis portraying the surly teenage daughter to Doris Roberts, portraying the mother in law that just can't bite her tongue and drinks a little too much to the fantastic Randy Quaid, portraying the long lost cousin that just doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the family driving in and unloading his rusty old RV in the pristine suburban community. If any of the supporting cast was not included, Christmas Vacation would be a completely different movie.

There are countless quotable scenes during the movie, and many of them are simple exaggerations of things we have each encountered in our own lives. The movie is completely relatable, which is one of the reasons it feels like inviting an old friend over when you watch it. Clark (Chevy Chase) hates his job and his boss, but sucks up endlessly to receive recognition only to be shafted on his Christmas bonus.

Juliette Lewis (Audrey) laments at the fact that she has to sleep with her brother while her grandparents visit. Mae Questel (Aunt Bethany) is the old relative that is not quite all there, wraps up her cat as a Christmas present, and sings the National Anthem instead of saying grace.

Once again, if you have not seen Christmas Vacation movie, get it now. Once you rent it, I guarantee that it will be purchased within the next few days and made a permanent part of your video collection for this holiday season.

Prepare Christmas Storage with Greater Results

By Zion
If you take the time to organize your holiday items and pack them carefully the decorations and collectables will last for years. Because of proper Christmas storage, I can let several items from my mother passed on to my children. Now you can have all your Christmas gifts and decor stored safety in those storage boxes and bins.

I absolutely love the Christmas Holiday Season. So many activities and events occur at this special time of the year. I take special care in preparing our home with lights, ornament decorations candles, and homemade goodies.

We place lights on the out side of our home and decorate two live trees in the house along with several miniature trees. I also have two extensive holiday village that I place out. With all the decorations and dishware, ornament storage becomes quite an issue. I have found through the years that the greater amount of time I put into proper Christmas storage the better results I get.

We have an attic area that is formed in our bedroom due to the steep pitch of our roof. This area is about 30 feet long and 3 feet wide. We found large plastic storage containers to use for Christmas ornament storage. The bins come in a variety of shapes, sizes and with varied features. The attic area gets very warm in the summer and cold in the winter so the things that are stored there cannot be affected by heat.

I have found that on some ornaments that have glitter and other embellishments glued on them the glue may harden because of the temperature fluxes. For this reason, the Christmas storage that I choose for Christmas tree decorations are flat plastic boxes that can be slid under the bed in the spare bedrooms.

For other items, like my Village pieces the temperatures do not affect them. I try to keep as many of the original boxes and packaging for each item as possible. This does increase the space I need for Christmas storage, but it also prolongs the looks of the items. In addition, the boxes can be stacked neatly inside of the plastic bins without concern of breakage.

I do decorate in stages. The villages and the outdoor lights are put out the day after Thanksgiving. When I am putting away the Christmas storage, I arrange the tubs so that the ones that are needed first are in the front. Each bin is clearly marked with permanent marker regarding what is in it. I also have numbered the bins so if my husband is putting them away he can arrange them numerically and I will have what I need first closest to the door.

Some items I dispose of at the end of each season. The small lights that are placed on the tree are very inexpensive and bulky to store. In addition, it seems that it takes hours to untangle the light strands each year. The small lights no longer are placed in Christmas storage; they are donated for events at the local school, and new ones are purchased each year.

Get Christmas Lights On Pre-Season Sale Bargain?

By Zat -
Are you a Christmas fanatic? Each year as the holidays approach, you will tell yourself that this year you will check through all of your Christmas storage prior to making any new purchases. Then you will be out shopping and see a pre-season sale and cannot pass up the bargain.

It seems that each year the Christmas merchandise hits the shelves earlier. Last year on Labor Day weekend when I was searching through the school supply aisle, I noticed that the Christmas lights were displayed in the next aisle. It seems that the same day that the Halloween Candy goes on clearance is the same day that the Christmas candy goes on the shelves.

I am going to try to resists the sales this year until I go through the storage area check out. I know that we did donate the Christmas lights that we used last year, but I do not remember if I have bought more Led lights at the end of the season sales to lights Christmas decorations.

Last year I did not pass up the pre-season Christmas lights. They were a very good deal and I could not remember if the Led Christmas lights from the year before worked or not. Of course when I did take decorations out of storage I found that I had purchased new Christmas lights at a clearance sale at the end of the previous season.

My mom often reminds me that I need to check what I have prior to buying more because we are running out of storage space. Last year I was glad I had the extra Christmas lights because the old strand was burned out. We did not even try to locate why the strand did not light we simply used all the new ones.

I told my mom we should buy new Christmas light each year and donate the old ones to the school. Each year the school is looking for lights to use at dances, proms, and plays. By donating the lights, they will go to a good cause and we do not have to store them and then try to untangle them each year. It is so much easier to decorate with new Christmas light because they are not tangled and they all light.

Those outdoor lights for Christmas are more expensive so we put in more effort in packing them so that they do not tangle. This is not always easy because the weather is usually bitterly cold when we put the Christmas outdoor lights away. My mom just cannot tolerate having those string lights stay on the house once the holiday season is over.

She will never be one of the homeowners that leave the holiday lights on the house year round. She enjoys looking at light displays and we enjoy decorating our home and yard with hanging lights up to our Christmas Tree and around our house, but after News Years Day, she insists that the decorations go back into storage room.

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