I was talking with a friend the other day and telling her how my son asked me if tv’s were around when I was a kid…(HELLLOOOOOO! How old does he think I am?…..) and we started talking about how we remembered when we got our first color televisions as children.

I think I was maybe 5 or 6 years old (way back in the 70’s…) and it was either late November or early December. This was when we didn’t have dvd’s or ‘on demand’ to watch all the Christmas specials that came on only once a year. It was always SO exciting every year….we couldn’t wait for all the ’specials’ to come on.   It just so happened that Rudolph the red nose Reindeer was going to be on that night. We just went about everything as normal…had dinner, took baths, got into our pajamas….then… my parents surprised us by tellilng us we were going to go out and get our FIRST color television!!! All because they wanted us to be able to see Rudolph in color…so we could see his red nose! We just piled into the car in our pajamas and robes….I totally remember the drive there (we went to Gemco! Anyone remember those stores? There’s a Target there now)- we were SO excited!

My parents were so great about creating memories for us. I have SO many great memories of all of my Christmases growing up (even the stories about the tree falling off on the freeway….funny now, not so much then). I hope I’m doing the same thing for my kids that my parents did for me.  Considering my daughter is already making Christmas gifts while listening to Christmas music in her room…..(she’s 11), makes me think that maybe they’ll have the memories when they grow up like I do now.

No matter what type music you like, there’a a Christmas album for all. Getting into the holiday spirit is easy with Christmas music. No matter what you’re doing, you can keep the Christmas tunes in the background to stay in the mood.

Christmas brings about added chores to do such as decorating the tree, wrapping gifts and baking cookies (especially Resse’s cookies! :-)). Why not put some Christmas tunes into your cd player or ipod to help you do these tasks faster? (or at least you do them in a ‘festive’ mood).

And of course, we can’t forget Christmas music for family parties. Depending on the age group of your party goers, you can play a quantity of the compilation Christmas cd’s or some of the classics from decades ago. Even the younger members will know the older Christmas “number ones”.

For a more formal gathering or dinner party, your Christmas music should be a bit more subdued. Try Il Divo’s The Christmas Collection or Martinis and Read the rest of this entry »

So yesterday was the first Sunday that the Christmas ads have started showing up in the newspaper. I love my Sunday mornings- I have some coffee, sit with the newspaper and just read for as long as I want (my kids have gotten pretty used to this routine too and we enjoy just hanging out in our pajamas for a couple of hours). My poor daughter too- she loves looking at the ads too, but I don’t get to the ads until after I’ve read the paper, and she has to wait until I’m done.

With Halloween over, the barrage of ads has begun. It’s going to be interesting this year with the state of the economy to see what the retailers do to motivate people to come and shop. I was surprised at some of the discounts they’ve already started offering. As an example- we went to Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sitting here creating a blog about Christmas, on the night before Halloween……but what’s really crazy, is that it’s really not that far away. I feel like it was just August last week, and my kids are even saying the same thing. Oh well….

I remember shopping in Target a few weeks ago and they were setting up the Christmas lights along the wall behind the Halloween section. Here’s the thing with the retailers though- (I spent about 15 years in retail, so I feel their pain!)- it’s really the CUSTOMERS who dictate when the stores start putting merchandise out. Each year it seemed as if the Christmas merchandise was showing Read the rest of this entry »