Free Kitchen Design Tips For Your Christmas

By Christmasidea.blogspot.com

Ho Ho Ho - Who's your best support at Christmas� Santa Claus or you may know him as Saint Nicholas. Think about his qualities - kind, generous, loving, forgiving.

The greatest drawback of our home was the kitchen design. We moved into our home five years ago. We fell in love with the location. We live on a beautiful lake. We loved the master bedroom, which is the upper loft of our A-frame home. The master suite has its own deck over looking the lake, what a wonderful way to wake up each morning.

The cabinets of the kitchen were in good shape, but they were stained a very dark walnut. The walls were covered in floral wall paper with a garden scene border. The kitchen design was set up so cooking was done on one side of the kitchen and food prep and clean up was done on the other side.

The kitchen design did not allow for more than one person to comfortably work in the kitchen. This was a problem for us because we enjoy preparing meals together and I also host a Christmas cookie exchange each year. We did not like the kitchen design; by we also did not want the expense of a major remodeling project.

Ho Ho Ho - Home made gift box - after you take down your Christmas cards, buy a medium sized box from the $2 shop for each family member. Cut the front of the used cards up into small squares and place in a bag or hat.

After we had lived in the house for 6 months we did a face lift on the kitchen. We painted the cabinets off white and purchased new hardware for them. We stripped the wallpaper and the border off and painted the walls yellow. We put in a ceramic backsplash by the sink and stove area. We also put in a new exhaust hood over the cook top. This greatly improved the looks of the room; however the kitchen design still needs some help. There is still limited counter top space to work on.

Now that we have been in the house five years we have adapted to the kitchen design, but we still get frustrated at the cramped quarters, especially when entertaining. No matter what size your kitchen is, it seems that this is the room that guests congregate in.

We try to prepare as much of the meals that we are going to serve our guests ahead of time, but there are always things that need to be done last minute. It is during these last minute preparations that the kitchen design really limits us.

Ho Ho Ho - In some European countries at the end of the Christmas festive meal you must not leave the table until the host gives a signal that the Christmas feast has ended. Then all family and guests rise from the table in unison and leave.

We are now considering a full remodeling project that will improve the kitchen area. We do not have a way of enlarging the space, but the building contractor feels that by rearranging the kitchen design we will be able to accomplish our goal of having a more efficient kitchen area.

Ho Ho Ho - Bedrooms are also part of Christmas decorating activity.

He has suggested moving the stove to the same side as the sink. This will eliminate the back and forth from one side of the kitchen to the other. He has also suggested a portable butcher block that we can roll into the kitchen during food preparation and then store in the entry way off the kitchen when it is not in use. This will give the entry area another surface also.

We begin on the new kitchen design next week. It will be interesting to see if the minor changes we have planned will make a difference.

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Get Thank You Cards For All Occasions

By Christmasidea.blogspot.com

Ho Ho Ho - Many people are familiar with the term 'The Twelve Days of Christmas,' but not everyone knows where it originated.

Thank you cards are appropriate for a large number of occasions, from reciving a birthday or Christmas gift to thanking someone for a dinner or concert invitation. An actual, physical thank you card will mean a lot more to your hosts or your gift-givers than a phone call or email will, even if you don't say a whole lot on the card. The card itself doesn't have to be very fancy either; most gift or holiday-card stores sell packs of thank you cards that are quite nice.

Ho Ho Ho - Take your Christmas Dinner budget and make a shopping list.

You don't necessarialy have to go to a specialty stationary store or printmaker to get your thank you cards, though these establishments, without a doubt, make the highest quality cards around. If you do go the custom route your options are almost limitless; embossing, ribbons, wax seals, personalization, or specialty papers and envelopes are all popular options.

Thank you cards are especially helpful if you've been given a gift or invited to an event by someone you don't know particularly well, since your card will imbed yourself in their memory. Being remembered is particularly nice if you're sending the thank you card to a superior or a business investor, since it's always good to be remembered by these sorts of people in the future.

Ho Ho Ho - Take the total of your Christmas expenses and divide it by the total amount of pays until next Christmas.

Before our current era of email and telephones, the humble letter was the only way to communicate over long distances. We now give the letter a certain amount of romanticism since it represents a bygone era.

However, in the past few years we've seen a slight renaissance in letter writing; stationary stores and specialty papermakers have reported that they've seen more people interested in designer papers and wax seals than they've seen in years. It's tough to completely revive letter writing though, since after all, writing an email or dialing up someone on the phone takes a lot less time than it takes to sit down and write a letter.

Though there's a good chance you won't turn off your computer and start writing letters to everyone you know instead of jotting them an email, there is one artifact of the times of letter writing that should find its way back into everyone's life: the simple thank you card.

Ho Ho Ho - Artificial Christmas trees fold up compactly for storage and are easy to transport - unlike a tall real tree that can be a struggle to fit into the car and squeeze through the door.

When writing the thank you card, remember to be both cordial and specific. Be sure to let your reader know why exactly you enjoyed the gift or invitation or what, exactly, you're thankful for.

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Xbox 360 - Popular Gaming System As Gifts

By Christmasidea.blogspot.com

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It was the fourth most searched for item on the Internet. It was the number one sell-out item on EBay (where it was selling and being auctioned off for prices as high as $5,000 for the new $400 console, says WebPro News' technology and business writer Jason L. Miller). It is fought over, dreamed of, and hurt for its possession. It is the Xbox 360.

The Xbox 360 was second to none this year except last year at this time (Christmastime), when it didn't hit the markets in time for shoppers, and forfeited its number-one status to the ever-popular Sony PlayStation, reports Miller.

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But as with the $150 dollar sneakers a few years ago, the Xbox 360 may be too popular (or our culture too covetous):

In Stafford, Virginia, November saw an Electronics Boutique getting robbed at gunpoint not for cash or any of the other valuable technology and gameware, but for two Xbox 360s.

In one unidentified city where lines of desperate shoppers waited to purchase the next delivery of Xboxes, one dweeb who had already purchased his held it out the window of the car he and friends were driving from the store in. The show-off dropped the box and an agile-footed teen swooped in, scooped up the 360 and ran off with his now brand new toy.

Tips! Customer service is always there to help with any shipping, tracking, or game problem that may arise within 24 hours.

Outside of one Walmart, reports blogger soccerbob, three friends of the writer were held up by two armed man, who, he says, "only wanted the Xbox."

And in North Dakota, as Jason Miller also reports, a seventeen-year-old who had been lucky enough to purchase one of the first Xbox 360s fresh off the newly-stocked shelves was punched in the face and robbed of his new gaming platform by two "assailants".

It is now New Year's Eve in the US, and the emailed promotion to "Get what you REALLY wanted" [for Xmas] speaks to the continued popularity of the Xbox 360: the first auction feature has a bid of $700, with a "BUY IT NOW" price of $800. The second photo offers the same at the high bid at $575...and the photo shows a warehouse stack of em. And the third listing has the Xbox 360 going for $1,300.

Tips! Hard-to-Find Games : Many games that we never even knew about were included within their selection. If you want to play a game with little or no popularity, Gottaplay has this covered as well.

Are these the stolen Xboxes now being pawned off for 1 and ½, 2, and 3times the store price? Are these the ones we gullible line-standers waited hours for, only to be turned away empty-handed, as he first ten people in line got the first fifty (to sell on EBay...NOT to give as gifts)?

Are we back to the materialism and greed of pre-9-1-1? Have we misplaced our values again, passed them off onto unknowing children who just want to engage in the ADD activity that is gaming?

Or are we merely very, very fortunate to live in a culture where good art (in good games with good graphics), cutting edge technology as entertainment, and Christmas are limitless sources of pleasure and reward for being good all year, working hard, studying hard, and taking out he trash when Mommy asks the first time?

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