What do you want for Christmas?

There's nothing wrong with chewing ice.  Maybe it's a North Carol ina thing. 

California-born ice-chomper, here.

For Christmas, I'm buying myself a tumble dryer... have to wait till I get my Chrimbo bonus from work, so might not get it till New Year.

OH is getting me, I think, a coffee machine... like one of those Tassimo ones.  He will probably get me an Amazon voucher so I can pick which one I want.

Speaking of vouchers.... im really hating that new advert for god-knows which store (might be Boots?) where the 2 sisters are going through blah-di-blah in their lives together and at the end one says to the other 'I only got you vouchers... just kidding'.

What's wrong with vouchers?  I pure LOVE vouchers!!!

Do you think I still live in America where the standard is an ice maker in the freezer? Lol

My fridge freezer is slightly larger than university student size. We buy bags of ice daily. £30- £35 a month spent on ice.

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Omg I have died and gone to heaven my dad bought us a new fridge freezer for Christmas. I didn't realise the freezer has ice trays that you have to fill up yourself but then once frozen you turn this little handle and it dumps into an ice storage drawer. my OH didn't understand lol


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I get triple presents, anniversary is the tenth, birthday is eighteenth and Christmas. Muhaha. I actually feel a bit bad to make my husband go overload so I just asked for things I need this year, perfume,  money to keep funding my pot for doing up the house, a coffee machine lime a tassimo or something of the sorts. We've got an expensive year next year so I'm trying to be a sensible adult and play this years holidays down for myself.
 
I'd quite like a drone though I think they'd be fun and a new laptop!


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I ordered myself the Philips HD9240 air fryer just now. It will be here on Monday. Christmas for myself sorted.  I'm going to store it in the oven. (I'll turn the breaker off so we don't have any accidents. My husband doesn't know how to cook so he only uses the microwave. )

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This isn't exactly Christmas since I've been on the verge of buying it for the last few months, but yesterday I bought myself a sewing machine! It will arrive in the next week.

It's been in my sights for months now and a few days ago, it went to 25% off, so my impatient wait saved £65. DH thinks that means we've saved £65... but really, that's just £65 of fabric, notions and supplies that I can buy guilt-free.

I've got a few cake tins from John Lewis that I really like and the whole line (cake tins, flan tins, baking sheets, etc) is 20% off now, so I might stock up on different sizes.

I might have to start a proper bakery to finance/legitimise my baking accessory shopping. Anyone want to buy a pumpkin pie? I'll undercut Hummingbird Bakery and I'll only charge £30 a for a 9-inch pie!

I'll undercut Hummingbird Bakery and I'll only charge £30 a for a 9-inch pie!

JINGS!  I thought Whole Foods were bad at £12!

My husband and I made the decision to move back to England after our youngest finishes high school in June 2019. Hello Empty Nest!!

We live in a 2500 sq ft home now but we are moving to a 1300 sq ft apartment in July 2018. So, I'm in a purge mode. I'm a pretty simple person but my goodness, there's so much to get rid of and I'll admit that I'm feeling pretty brutal about our stuff. We are so consumed from releasing physical clutter, crap on our computers and really being as minimal as possible. So, I can't say I want or need anything for Christmas. It's both liberating and strange.


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My husband and I made the decision to move back to England after our youngest finishes high school in June 2019. Hello Empty Nest!!

We live in a 2500 sq ft home now but we are moving to a 1300 sq ft apartment in July 2018. So, I'm in a purge mode. I'm a pretty simple person but my goodness, there's so much to get rid of and I'll admit that I'm feeling pretty brutal about our stuff. We are so consumed from releasing physical clutter, crap on our computers and really being as minimal as possible. So, I can't say I want or need anything for Christmas. It's both liberating and strange.


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1300 sq ft is still larger than my 4 bed detached house!   

1300 sq ft is still larger than my 4 bed detached house!   

I totally understand. My three-bedroom house in Bolton, Lancs was a little over 1200 sq ft. We had more than enough room for my family of five.

2500 sq ft is pretty average for Houston but a subdivision just over the bayou, 1/4 mile away, averages 4,000. It's a little nuts. I wouldn't know how to fill the space.

I'm only getting a 1300 sq ft apartment due to three bedrooms because two of my kids are still at home but only for another year. My husband will be leaving ahead of me to settle us abroad so I get to get smaller for the last months and move into a one-bedroom apartment. Funnily enough, a one-bedroom here is still 850 sq ft.


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After the - ah - somewhat less than agreeable conversation with DH yesterday about buying a new TV, I said WTF and bought one on-line this morning. It's currently out of stock, so delivery won't be for another 3 weeks or so. DH thought a 43" would be way too large for our living room. The current nearly 9 year old TV that we brought from the US and use with a Freeview HD box is only 32". It still works more or less OK, but during the last 3 years we've had to increase the volume setting from a 2 or 3 up to 7 or 8, and it's not getting any better. OK, we are old, but not deaf - it's the TV, and one day I know I will switch it on and hear nothing. So, the new TV is my present from me to me.

Generally though we have been continuously shedding stuff since the move back here in 2011. (Except, of course for DH's tools and crap - bought a shed for that stuff, and it's also nearly filled the garage. ) Anyway, my 'words of wisdom' that I've passed to my granddaughter (or anyone else who was interested) during the past few years  - "if I had my life to live over again, I would buy less stuff".

My mother passed in 2014, and afterward I spent every visit to my father sorting stuff, donating, and tossing. My father passed in September, and my brother and I filled a huge container/skip with total crap, plus donated yet more stuff. I went back in November to tie up loose ends, and also for the auction of the furniture and personal property that was salable. A house full of antiques, lovely china, crystal, cut glass, collectibles, never mind *regular* dishes, Corning ware, pots/pans that had never been used, small electrical appliances (some new in box)....sold for less than $6K. It was heartbreaking.

So - enjoy the freedom of a smaller space that could *force* you to examine what's really important. Oh - and please, please, label any old photographs that you've kept. I had to go through a huge collection - and ultimately tossed what are likely to have been the last remaining photos of relatives, as I couldn't identify the folks and there's no one else left who could.

After the - ah - somewhat less than agreeable conversation with DH yesterday about buying a new TV, I said WTF and bought one on-line this morning. It's currently out of stock, so delivery won't be for another 3 weeks or so. DH thought a 43" would be way too large for our living room. The current nearly 9 year old TV that we brought from the US and use with a Freeview HD box is only 32". It still works more or less OK, but during the last 3 years we've had to increase the volume setting from a 2 or 3 up to 7 or 8, and it's not getting any better. OK, we are old, but not deaf - it's the TV, and one day I know I will switch it on and hear nothing. So, the new TV is my present from me to me.

Generally though we have been continuously shedding stuff since the move back here in 2011. (Except, of course for DH's tools and crap - bought a shed for that stuff, and it's also nearly filled the garage. ) Anyway, my 'words of wisdom' that I've passed to my granddaughter (or anyone else who was interested) during the past few years  - "if I had my life to live over again, I would buy less stuff".

My mother passed in 2014, and afterward I spent every visit to my father sorting stuff, donating, and tossing. My father passed in September, and my brother and I filled a huge container/skip with total crap, plus donated yet more stuff. I went back in November to tie up loose ends, and also for the auction of the furniture and personal property that was salable. A house full of antiques, lovely china, crystal, cut glass, collectibles, never mind *regular* dishes, Corning ware, pots/pans that had never been used, small electrical appliances (some new in box)....sold for less than $6K. It was heartbreaking.

So - enjoy the freedom of a smaller space that could *force* you to examine what's really important. Oh - and please, please, label any old photographs that you've kept. I had to go through a huge collection - and ultimately tossed what are likely to have been the last remaining photos of relatives, as I couldn't identify the folks and there's no one else left who could.

Yes, yes, and yes!!

My Mom died in 1981 and my Dad never remarried so he kept everything that belonged to my mother. Some stuff I totally understood like her jewelry but he kept pretty much everything that was in the house as it was back in 1981. We had a cabinet of returned checks dating back to 1972 so you can only imagine the amount of stuff that was accumulated. My husband called his home the "house that time forgot".

My Dad died in 2011 and he asked both my sister and I to sell the house immediately after his death. My sister lived across the street but couldn't get herself to clear it. I live 750 miles away and I had to keep going back and forth to clear the house and put it on the market. It was an experience that was quite difficult to do and made me realize that I would never put my own children through something like that. After all was said and done, I started to clear all the junk and clutter in my own home and started thinking about what was important to me.

You're right about the photographs, Vadio. I was lucky that I got into a scrap booking hobby back in the '90's so I was able to gather all family photos and ask my father about the people in them and document any stories. It's the only thing out of all the stuff I actually kept.




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Be careful about Ice Chewing. Old Texan here, chewed ice for years in the summer to keep from heatstroke. (Long before cars had a/c in them.)  It can lead to cracked molars, if you're not careful.

Anyway. For Christmas - what I want I can't have. That is:  an old, metal, Sunbeam mixmaster stand mixer. The kind with the glass bowls.  And an old, all-metal Wearing Blender. That you can put like concrete in and it'll pulverize it.  And a subscription to Ancestry that doesn't cost more than $50 for the year and lets me have access to everything. (Hah, on that one!)

The one I might be able to convince Santa to get me: a food dehydrator. I have found a great butcher. I know how to make jerky. I need a good dehydrator now.   But it needs to be both good and inexpensive.  I wonder if things are jettisoned here on gumtree (that's Craigslist UK, right?) after Chrismas - unwanted presents (like dehydrators?) and stuff....

My grandmother keeps emailing me asking what she can buy us for Christmas. Since I was 18 they’ve always given me cash but this year she just won’t let up. And I’d really like the cash lol my American bank is going low and I need it for student loans etc. is there a polite way of saying please give me cash, my mom can deposit it into my account for me.

My grandmother keeps emailing me asking what she can buy us for Christmas. Since I was 18 they’ve always given me cash but this year she just won’t let up. And I’d really like the cash lol my American bank is going low and I need it for student loans etc. is there a polite way of saying please give me cash, my mom can deposit it into my account for me.

Maybe your mum could have a word with her?

My grandmother keeps emailing me asking what she can buy us for Christmas. Since I was 18 they’ve always given me cash but this year she just won’t let up. And I’d really like the cash lol my American bank is going low and I need it for student loans etc. is there a polite way of saying please give me cash, my mom can deposit it into my account for me.

This doesn't solve your problem, but when my parents want to get us something other than a check, we ask them to buy us Amazon.co.uk vouchers (just be sure it's Amazon.co.uk not Amazon.com if you're in the UK).

Once we've used them, we tell them what we got.