Extraordinary Merry Christmas part 4: Gifts From The Grinch!

Welcome back! Today on The Chatterbox Blog, I want to share a tradition that my wife and I started in our family… the tradition of gifts from The Grinch!

Now first and foremost, this only works if you have people in your family who can take a joke well. If not, then you run the risk of causing a big fight on Christmas and what fun is that?

The beauty of Grinch Gifts is the fact that you can be Naughty or Nice or Both. Included with the gift, we usually write a rhyming paragraph explaining what and/or why they are getting this specific gift from old Grinchy Claus! Below are some examples and ideas for you to use.

Socks with Green Pine Tree Air Fresheners taped or sewn around them (fun gift to give to a pre-teen girl)…

It’s always fun to pick on somebody saying that they have smelly feet… it’s just kind of a Grinchy thing to do.

Regular socks and underwear

Kids and Adults always need new socks and underwear. It’s a necessity, so why not make it fun for them to open? Actually, my daughter is getting underwear from The Grinch this year. She’s been potty training recently and made a killer break through so she’s going to get them from The Grinch.

Ziplock Bag of Water

This would come with a letter explaining that it is a snowball. When I did this one, I goofed and froze the snowball too much or I didn’t give it enough time to actually melt so I actually gave my wife’s cousin an actual snowball.

Sour Candies

We’re talking like a Warhead styled candy for the kids to eat and make silly faces.

Reindeer, Santa, or Snowmen Pooper Candy Dispenser

My wife had already gotten one of these from me each year for Christmas. From the time we were dating to today, she gets them still. In the actual cartoon, when The Grinch slides down the toybag he says “Poo Poo to the Whos!” which is something you can use in your letter with the gift. I still laugh when he says it. Yes, I’m mentally 5 years old!

Grinch Ornament/Gift Item

A nice gift would be to give out Grinch merchandise. There are tons of it during this season that you could use almost anything… Shirts, Hats, Shoes, Ornaments, Village Pieces, Figurines, Stationery sets, etc. They make tons of stuff to sell. Typically what we do is buy a bunch of it when it goes on clearance on New Year’s Day (That’s when all the 75% off clearances take place).

 

So there you have it! You can start a family tradition of your own in Grinch gifts this year! If you do please share. I’m always looking for new Grinchy ideas. I’ll be sure to post how ours turned out this year. I can’t put too much details on here because I know there are family members that read this and we simply can’t spoil the Grinch gifts… what fun would that be? Until next time… if you can’t be good, then be naughty this Christmas!

 

CB

Christmas 2011 Part 1: Knowing when is appropriate to start decorating.

Welcome back and sorry it’s been so long since my last post! Today I’m talking about a very special time of year. A time when (for the most part) people are a little more friendly to each other… when adults (like myself) turn into big kids again… I’m talking about Christmas!

This year, I had been completely overlooking Halloween to get to this moment. Like a General, I had my plan of attack on decorating for Christmas. Sometimes (in my house), decorating for Christmas feels like a war zone. We have acquired so many decorations over the years, it’s almost too difficult to find a good starting place. Last night, I put on my all time favorite Christmas movie, “A Christmas Story” and put up my village to match (as seen above). It’s a pretty great start!

Earlier in the day, my wife helped solved a minor problem with my daughter asking if Santa had come the night before…

Amber decided to make a tear away countdown chain for Zoe to rip on off each day. Orange and Brown are the ones counting before Thanksgiving and the Green and Red are for Christmas… obviously. In this, Zoe will now be able to see how many days are left until Christmas Day! Very creative idea on my wife’s part. Props to her for that because I thought I was going to have to explain daily to Zoe that Santa doesn’t come until Christmas which is almost 2 months away. We did have a funny conversation about cookies the other night, though…

We were sitting at the dinner table and we brought up for desert, we would bake some cookies for her. She then asked if we were going to bake some for Santa Clause. I told her that they would be hard and yucky by then and Santa likes his Chocolate Chip cookies slightly under-baked with a tall glass of milk LOL! She seemed to understand… *Fingers crossed*

In closing, the reason why I start getting Christmas out so early is because we have so much of it that it takes a while. I’ve never been able to have it completed before Thanksgiving. For the past couple of years, Amber and I have been on a quest for lazy December where we basically loaf around and watch Christmas movies while eating snacks lol. For now, that pretty much wraps it up for my part 1 edition of Christmas 2011. Be sure to check back this month and next month because I’ll be posting quite a bit! I’ll be talking about music, movies, decorations, candy, cookies, A Christmas Story House, anonymous Grinch gifts, Bronners, and more!