I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

I figure at some point I would need to comment on the holidays, so let's get it out of the way.

I am one gift and a couple of stocking stuffers away from being done with shopping. As I have done in the past couple of years I did almost all of my shopping online. This year I did my shopping a bit earlier after my close call last Christmas. I guess Amazon was having some issues last year. I did my shopping within the first few days of December and was sweating Christmas Eve morning until the last of the gifts arrived.

This is looking to be a pretty boring Christmas under the tree for Beloved and I.

Why I am sure you are asking?

Well let me tell you.

It all started with a silent auction. My in-laws and I attended a fundraiser for my job and there was a silent auction. There was an item I very much wanted to bid on, but ran out of time to go do it. My in-laws decided they would give it a go and give the item to us for Christmas if they won, and in all honesty they did not expect to win.

Well they did. The item was a large gift certificate to a local store that sells Oriental Rugs. What we did not know is that the store is closing and the certificate had to be claimed by December 31. Not wanting us to be rushed or have a poor selection to choose from my in-laws gave us the certificate at Thanksgiving.

It was a large certificate, but not large enough to get the rug we really wanted and truly needed. So we ended up paying a large amount out of our own pocket and decided that was Christmas and Anniversary gift for us this year. We got a gorgeous rug at a really good price, and I am quite happy with it. Just means that there won't be much happening around the tree.

However we do have a purty rug to admire while the girlies open their gifts.

Not sure how we will incorporate it into celebrating our anniversary, but hey we are creative people so I am sure we will think of something.

I am really looking foward to holiday baking which I plan to commence with next week. I am really hungry for frosted sugar cookies. I am going to try and be fancy and detailed with my icing this year.

Yum!