Friday, December 14, 2012

Holiday Gifts of Love Blog Hop



It's a Happy Holiday from your favorite Authors and Bloggers. While we know everyone celebrates a different way, we wanted to make sure that you guys knew how much we treasure you all. So from Dec 14th to Dec 17th, all 200 or so of us will be blogging about the holidays and what they mean to us. We may talk about our favorite holiday traditions, recipes, gifts, reads, heroes, and so much more. We want to hear about what you do for the holidays, what you read, and who you'll spend it with. We hope to see you here and happy hopping!

And while we do that, we are EACH doing a giveaway. Yep. There will be over 200 giveaways on each blog hosted by that Author or Blogger.

But that's not all....
We have THREE grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter over 200 times!


Now what are those prizes?

1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet
2nd Grand Prize: A $200 Amazon or B&N Gift Card
3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!



This is how I feel on the Holidays. Really.  When I was a kid, the holidays were about family, now I’m not saying I had the most functional family in the world, but it was about getting together with family.  A big meal, seeing relatives and those annoying cousins who got into your room and messed with your stuff.  The tree was real, in fact most times ours was cut in the marsh on the farm.  That lovely smell through the house, except the year of the skunk tree—it was frigid cold outside and we went and got the tree.  Couldn’t smell a thing it was so cold.

Until the tree thawed out in the living room, then it became pungently clear that a skunk had sprayed the tree.  We still refer to that Holiday tree as Skunk Christmas. Wonder if they’d like to bottle that and make it into candles and plug ins and sprays—somehow I don’t think so.

Every year it comes sooner, this year it came along with Halloween, went to the store to get some bags of candy for Halloween and they had Christmas décor on sale already.  What happened to Thanksgiving?  Time goes fast enough without retail stores hitting the warp speed button.  The giant of commercialism is sitting at the helm waiting for Santa to point his finger and say Enaguge.   Or wait is that a different situation?

It does seem that everything is being pushed by Santa, no more good or bad girls and boys, everyone should get it all under the tree!  Even a new car.  Last year I think I saw one add with a Santa salesman selling cars.  It must have worked because this year it seems every add has a santa hawking a new car in red or white. 

The economy is still harsh, this, I am sure is why retailers are hawking their wares so hard, grabbing for every last bit consumers have to spend. 

This year, we are broke.  Yeah broke.  Am I getting out the plastic?  No.  borrowing from relatives? No. taking out a bank loan? No.  We decided this year that we would spend $10 bucks on each other.  That’s 10 per person, not each person spending 10 on each other person.  We are going to Dollar stores and putting together a fun and silly bunch of gifts,  It’s been a lot of fun hunting the $1 Jungle looking for what the other person might like, and find amusing.

And under the tree all those little gifts look kinda neat with their big bows the cats and the raccoon keep snatching.   This year we are rediscovering the old values that the Holidays held, about family and fun, not the biggest most expensive gifts, not traffic and lines at stores, the closeness of family and friends.

Happy Holidays Everyone From my home and my critters to you and yours!





<!-- start LinkyTools script -->

31 comments:

  1. Thanks for reminding me of the spirit of Christmas. What a wonderful idea to shop the dollar store for fun items, so fun in this frugal time. autumnwrite1@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the idea of the dollar store. I love that place. You can get some fun stuff there. Thanks for participating in the hop. Merry Christmas.

    woolfcindy@aol.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the giveaway!

    parisfan_ca@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the giveaway. Happy Holidays.

    sherryfundin69 at netscape dot net

    I am also a new follower of your blog. I came over because I love your handle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the follow, I hope you stop back often. I aim to do three blogs a week, unless it's hop time.

      Delete
  5. Thanks for the giveaway and the chance to win!
    Happy Holidays!
    kacidesigns AT yahoo DOT com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for participating in the hop! Happy holidays!

    squiggles87(At)aol(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  7. One of my favorite Christmas Romance Books is The Untamable Rogue by Annette Blair! The story is about Ashford Blackburne Fifth Earl and he has to get married and get his willing bride pregnant before Christmas or his grandfather won’t let him inherit his money. Ash truly needs to inherit the money because his late father squandered it all away and he is taking care of his mother. After getting stood up at the alter, again, Ash and his friends go to the local pub where the owner plays a drunken Ash in a card game…his consolation prize is the pubs daughter Larkin, who he wants to get ride of. Ash has to learn to forgive…Larkin has to learn how to trust…can two completely different people find love together. This is a cute, extremely funny, romantic story with a surprise Christmas ending!

    Angelheart618@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. What a wonderful idea, that way you don't bankrupt yourself with the plastic and loans. I did neither too but I spent what I could afford. It wasn't much but still is the thought that counts.

    Happy Holidays
    Dawna N.

    vampiremistress2010(at)gmail(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  9. That's a great idea Thanks for the giveaway Merry Christmas

    crystaley73 at yahoo dot com

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh wow...I totally love your idea. We are having a rough year too, the kids dad died out of the blue last year and we are still in the hole with jobs scarce. I thought with the economy doing so bad that others were having it rough too..yet when I asked on an open board what parents are getting for teens...I needed ideas. I was blown away. They were talking lists of things all costing hundreds of dollars..many are giving them ipod touches and new cell phones for stocking stuffers. I think we may do something like you are. In the meantime, I will keep entering contests, but I want my kids to get the real feel for the season...and it isnt a bunch of high priced items. Thank you.
    peach_hugs@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  11. Merry Christmas to you! Thank you for the giveaway!
    verusbognar (at) gmail (dot) com

    ReplyDelete
  12. I've never been to your blog before- very interesting. I'm so glad I found you!

    kissa_starling at yahoo

    ReplyDelete
  13. See hubby and I do not buy each other things. We wait for income tax and buy what we want. That's our belated christmas gifts to each other

    Raonaid at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks for the ideas :)

    Happy Holidays
    BeckeyWhiteATgmailDOTcom

    ReplyDelete
  15. Happy Happy Holidays! Thanks for the great giveaway!
    We are also doing a broke Christmas. But it is about the spirit of the season not the amout you spend!
    grapeapril75(AT)gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  16. Thanks for the great hop.
    magic5905 at embarqmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thanks for being part of the hop... I agree about the craziness... Hubby's birthday is halloween so he hates seeing christmas stuff on his birthday lol... I made a lot of the gifts this year jewelry for all those special women in our families lives... I hit up the dollar store also for gift bags for sons class and hubby and i aren't getting anything for each other this year besides our santa jammies... Sometimes it is better just to sit back and enjoy the small things in life.

    j.m.platt83@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  18. the best gifts are always the little ones i like making special gifts for people and chose to do that instead of spending tons of money on gifts
    kaholgate at ymail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  19. Thanks for the chance to win!
    Happy holidays!
    natasha_donohoo_8 at hotmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  20. Ah, the fresh smell of a real tree, and couldn't agree with you more with making room for Thanksgiving Day. Happy Holidays :)

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hello, thanks for the giveaway!

    skizzles_22_hju@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  22. Happy Holidays!
    ajcraig77@comcast.net

    ReplyDelete
  23. You are going to have a lovely holiday I'm certain. :0)
    Happy Holidays!
    morebooksthanlivros@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  24. What an awesome hop!! And a fantastic giveaway! Thank you!! Happy holidays to you all! Best wishes and many blessings!
    shadowluvs2read(at)gmail(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  25. Happy Holidays!

    Morganlafey86(at)aol(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  26. I'm spending this holiday season with my family and hoping to win so I can read more romances. I don't have an ereader. Happy Holidays! lisarayns at gmail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  27. That's a really neat way to do things. I'm a bargain shopper, so I have trained my kids to really hunt for a good deal and be proud to find things cheap. Last year, my 13 yr old was so excited that he price matched and couponed down a gift and ended up turning $15 in to 3 really nice gifts that no one finished opening their gift before he told them what a deal he got.
    planterofhope at aol dot com

    ReplyDelete
  28. We are also doing a small Christmas, but BIG with family time . I too get great deals, I got over 100.00 of stuff the other day for gifts and spent 15.00

    Merry Christmas !
    ~Kym
    flwrs4ever(at)yahoo(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  29. Thanks for the giveaway. Happy Holidays!
    marlenebreakfield(at)yahoo(dot)com

    ReplyDelete
  30. I like e-book and film suggestions. The particular Van Dyke e-book seems exciting. It's my job to employ pathways from publications for you to really encourage my creating. That’s generate an income deal with writer’s prevent. They also assistance to reduce the amount of disenchantment we'd in any other case have got from selecting stuff available randomly. About the topic of suggestions, I simply said for you to Sonia on an additional website about people who by 99 dollar publications with out suggestion and usually are unhappy of which it’s not a expertly modified e-book with a well-crafted story.Seasonal Holiday Gifts

    ReplyDelete