"It's the Greatest Time of Year!"

*************************************************************************************

It is a dog wearing a bow!

Christmas was indeed in full swing by this time. (I'm speaking past tense since the Christmas season was just under 1 month ago!)

Decorations were up

The tree was picked

And up on top the Burb

(Adding "tree topped" to the list of the Burb's many adventures:)

Crazy hats were tried on

Grayson got a higher view of the store

Maddie wore this at Cosmos Pizza and heard loads of comments;)

The tree was home

Lights were FINALLY on!

(Go to this picture album to read about the tree fiasco. Twas a bear!)

Ornaments were on the tree

All the decorating was complete!

Now we could enjoy it!

You'd think Christmas shopping would be next, right?

Well, it was. Just not the way you would normally go shopping. Normal as in, actually leaving the house to go and beat someone to that last blu-ray dvd and/or player. That kinda shopping was sooo last year. See, some brilliant people created, Amazon.

Brilliant Amazon is awesome at matching competitor prices resulting in making Christmas shopping actually easy and way cheaper!

Mom got to sit at home and do ALL of her Christmas shopping! She ordered everything for everyone!

See, when we go Christmas shopping we:

• Each get $15 to spend on everyone's gift.
• All go out to the mall and try to shop , which is normally, not a good idea. You find yourself wandering into one store and accidentally bumping into a sibling who is already grasping your gift!
• You then each, have to start over.
• Chaos.

So this year, Mom brought us.....over to the computer.

She showed us what she has found for our gifts to everyone, we picked out the ones we liked, and then she ordered them.

MUCH easier! Funny? Yes. But at least we didn't all get frustrated this year.

The other funny side to shopping this way is, you will be known by every UPS man in town. You may even have your own truckload route. At the crack of dawn, all the UPS men will show up to work to get their route and this may be said:

"We got an abnormally large load to one address, and the really weird thing is, all the boxes are from Amaz-..."

"...Amazon?"

"Yea. Here, i'll give you the address."

"Nope, been there everyday this week. I know just where it is. The Mechlings."

Just a thought....

(Oh! And your closet may look like a warehouse for a bit;)

A few days before Christmas Mom and Dad cracked open the boxes and organized them into piles of who was giving those objects.

Then they packed the piles into a box or bag.

We all lined up at Mom's door to pick up our "orders".

The door would open just an inch! No one was allowed to look inside Mom and Dad's room that day.

Out came a big bag or box filled with our orders.

The door would close.

We'd go upstairs to the "wrapping station". (Whoever's room was stocked with all the gift trimmings)

Once you were finished, all the gifts went into #2+#3's big closet to await their grand opening on Christmas morning.

And that was how we shopped.

It was great fun:)

(Kasey and Grayson thought so too;)

*Favorite smell coming from ^^^^^^*

:)

*******************************************************

Next, it's time to bake some cookies for a certain guest on Christmas Eve.......

"Aprons out!"

:)