Amber Does Christmassy Things A Month Too Early And Has Exactly Zero Shame

The single most Pinterest-y thing I have ever done.

Today I have done only Christmas related things. I’ve purchased all of my christmas gifts from Amazon, dug out all the wrapping supplies from where they were scattered over the year, and even begun wrapping. It’s not even 10:30 yet. I just don’t care about waiting for Thanksgiving to pass before I get my Christmas shit done, ya know? Why make it so you only have one month to prepare just to protect a non sentient holiday’s feelings? I think the only non Christmas thing I have planned for today is to do laundry, but even then, I’m washing all of our winter coats and winter bedding, so basically, everything I am doing today is Christmas related.

Now, I am a terrible wrapper. Your grandpa who can barely wrap a square box without tearing the paper, or having the paper be too loose? That’s me. That picture is literally the best wrapping job I have done in my entire twenty two years on this Earth. And it’s for my stupid sister. And the kicker is that this was just a test run to make sure the pen worked, and the paper was still in good shape; I have to unwrap this and put more crap in it. Honestly though, I think I’m just going to shove the other items in her stocking and call it a day, because I would cry a little if I had to undo this masterpiece.

I had to buy presents for nine people this year. And I bought 22. Which is pretty even at first glance; 2 gifts per person, maybe the younger kids get an extra gift. Except I am a helpless favorite-haver. I have favorite relatives, and when it comes to gift buying, it certainly shows. Here’s my real gift breakdown, lol.

• 

  Sooooo frackin’ pumped for this Christmas!

  Grandma in law- one gift

• Sisters’ father- two gifts (going thirdsies with my sisters)
• Uncle- two gifts
• Aunt (whom we live with)- two gifts
• Aunt- two gifts
• Oldest sister- three gifts
• youngest sister- five gifts
• oldest cousin- two gifts
• youngest cousin- three gifts

Bet you can’t guess who my favorite is!

This app is a lifesaver.

The best part about having bought all of my presents isn’t so much the being done  a month early, or the being able to start wrapping, though. It’s getting to check everything off as ‘bought’ in my Gift List app. Which you need to go and download right now. It’s free, and it’s uber helpful. It keeps track of how many gifts you need to buy, who you have to buy for, how many gifts you’ve wrapped, everything! Without being crazy complicated, either! Do yourself a favor, go to the Playstore, and download it now.

I can’t believe how fast this year is going by though. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. But it’s still impressive. We were trick or treating like last week practically, and now it’s two weeks to Thanksgiving! My way of gauging how close Christmas is is to figure out when we are in Love Actually lol. And right now, we’re in the very beginning!

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White Chicken Chili (Also Good Enchilada filling) (Also Good Chip Dip)

So, I cook. All the time. I’ve been cooking dinner for my family since I was ten, with very few exceptions. I don’t know why, but I like doing it, and no one ever jumped in to do it instead, so here we are. This is the first recipe I’ll have posted here, and It’s super hella easy.

White Chicken Chili (Enchiladas) (Dip)

Feeds- 4-5 fairly hungry people, stuff 3 people full!

Time- 30 minutes

Ingredients:

-One can Bush’s White Chili Beans

-Two chicken legs, boneless skinless, cooked and chopped

-One cup green salsa (store bought will work okay, but don’t wuss out and get mild, kk?  Medium heat at minimum)

-One cup frozen corn, or more if you’re a weirdo, and like corn

-One diced onion

Four minced cloves garlic

-1 cup milk, any %

-One tbsp butter (or more, I never measure butter)

-Sriracha, optional

-Cheddar or Mexican blend shredded cheese, optional

-Sour cream for topping, optional

-Tortilla strips for topping, optional

-Salt and paper to taste

-You’ll also need a deep saucepan and a can opener.

1. First get all your crap together and measured out. Not really pertinent to this recipe, but it makes you look like Rachael Ray, and doesn’t everyone wanna look like Rachael Ray in the kitchen? After you’ve got all your crap in small pretty bowls and measuring cups and shit, turn your stove on to high.
2. Plop your butter, onions, and garlic into the pan. Cook until browned a bit, and smelling amazing. Turn heat down to medium. Add chicken and salsa. Stir until heat through and well incorporated.
3. Add milk, corn, and can of beans to pan, NO DRAINING. Cook it all together for about ten minutes, adding more milk if it looks too thick.
4. At this point you can add more veggies if you like, spinach, peppers, tomatoes, etc.
5. If you’re making enchiladas, This works best in like, mexican lasagna form- baking pan, layers of tortilla, cheese, and filling, repeat. Bake for a half hour at 350.  (You want it to be pretty thick for this though, just fyi)
6. If you’re making dip, mix in a shit ton of cheese, plop into a pretty bowl, and serve hot with scoopy chips.
7. This is the point where I take it off the stove and put away for lunches or easy weeknight meals, usually just as straight chili. This freezes okay, but it’s best after a couple of days in the fridge!
8. When eating, top with all your fave tasties and enjoy! Great for both cold nights and summer nights!

And there it be, Amber’s Lazy Ass Chicken Chili. Eventually I’ll figure out how to properly write a recipe, never fear. Let me know if you give this a shot! It’s really cheap and really tasty, so you won’t be sorry! (Unless you’re vegetarian. Or vegan. Then you probably don’t wanna try my White Chicken Chili. But if you figure out a way to adapt this for veggie folks, let me know, I’m always looking for more meatless monday recipes!)

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Gifts, Wrapping Paper, Opening Gifts, and People Who Need To Calm Down

I really need to find my winter jacket. Tomorrow is supposed to only get up to the 60s, and I can’t pretend a long sleeve shirt is enough to protect me from that. I really have no idea where it is though… It’s a tiny house we live in, I don’t know how I lose a big, bright blue jacket.

So I’m still looking at recipes for Thanksgiving, and I just can’t decide which ones I should attempt. Creamed corn is a given, because it’s cheap, easy, and everyone loved it last year. I really want to try making some kind of roll, but I’m not the best baker. Payday’s this Thursday though, so I’m going to do a test run for a couple recipes, see if I can actually manage something palatable.

I’m also buying my christmas gifts on Thursday, and even though it’s gonna be cold and miserable this weekend, I’m dragging my aunt and sister out to find the perfect wrapping paper to go with this awesome chalk marker I found at Target a few weeks ago. I usually go with something awful and gaudy for my personal wrapping paper (previous years have had Frozen themed, Spiderman, and Batman), though nothing will EVER top this truly cruel, super thick, glittered wrapping paper my sister got at Walmart one year. It came with special two sided tape because normal tape just picked up the glitter and couldn’t hold it down. All of her gifts were pre-opened, it looked like lol. here’s a link to a better quality version of her paper (though hers came with the fancy tape, you didn’t have to buy it separate) Bright pink glitter is still in the back of the van, and probably will be until the day it hits the trash compactor. Mind you, we have actually, actively attempted to clean the van many times since then, professionally. And no luck.

But this year I am going to be, like, an adult, I guess, and get something pretty. Because I’ve also really stepped up my gift game this year. Usually I have this little, piddly pile of like ten small gifts that looked so much better on Amazon then they do in real life. But this year I did research. I read every review, looked at every picture, inspected every comparable listing. I feel like this year I’ve actually chosen things people will not only like, but get some use out of.

The thing I’m not so great at is being fair between people I give gifts too. If you were to look at my list, you’d immediately be able to tell who my favorite relatives are, lol. (my sister is getting four things. In addition to the thing I’ve already bought her. Whoops.) I freaking love buying gifts, though. It’s probably my favorite Christmassy thing, after decorations. Watching people open you’re perfectly chosen gifts gives me a rush like nothing else.

I read this post yesterday (didn’t save the link) that said people spend an average of $1400 every Christmas. and only $400 or so of it is from gifts. The rest goes to holiday parties and clothes to wear to holiday parties. Which is weird to me. Do people actually have schedules full of parties at other people’s houses, with like, hostess gifts, and crappy party games? The only thing we do that could be considered a holiday party is Christmas dinner at my aunt’s best friend’s house, but that’s it. And if you do go to/host lots of parties, are you really spending $400 on them?? What for?? Christmas is extremely family based in our family, as you may have guessed. From Christmas Adam evening to 10 or 11 Christmas night, we’re all together, in the same place. We go out, and do lots of things, like Winterhaven, or making gingerbread houses, but it’s always just with family.Unless you’re a work friend, we probably won’t see you from December 20th til after New Year’s.

Christmas gifts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We stretch Christmas out as much as possible. In Christmas movies people are always opening presents all at the same time, no one’s paying the other people any attention. But like, we make rotations. We sit in a circle and watch one person open a gift, then another person goes, and so on, until they’re all opened. It takes hours, and it’s much more fun that way, in my opinion. Maybe that’s weird, I don’t know. I like watching people’s faces though, maybe that’s why I love it so much. Like, I just look at my Amazon shopping cart and picture their reactions to all the things I chose, and it makes me giddy.

As you can very clearly see, I have never been one of those people who get all Holden Caulfield the moment Halloween passes, as if their permanent scowls are gonna make the holidays not come. Why put so much effort into trying to make everyone miserable, with the endless complaining about things that Debbie Downers have been complaining about for decades? You’re not saying anything new or different; Christmas commercials start too early, Black Friday is Satan’s spawn, What about poor sweet Thanksgiving, etc, etc. Get some new material, guys, come on.

Commercials for every holiday start early, even non holidays, like Columbus day, or President’s day (furniture stores, anyone?), it’s almost like they want you to buy these things, and know that people like to finish gift buying early!! Crazy! Black Friday is crazy, but so long as you don’t live in the Midwest where crazy white people are trampling people, you’re fine. And I’ve worked Black Friday, in the mall. It’s really not so bad. No one is eating Thanksgiving dinner when Black Friday starts anyways, so does it really matter? And Thanksgiving is a terrible holiday, let’s be honest. It’s recreating a feast that likely didn’t happen, and glorifying genocide, so like, who cares if it gets overshadowed? I say Thanksgiving deserves a feast about as much as Columbus day does, ie, not even a bit.

And that’s just the pre Christmas bitching. It gets even worse once December hits. It’s exhausting, and I’m not even the one doing the bitching. Like, how tired must these anti-christmas-until-it’s-time-to-open-presents guys be? Poor angry lil things. They need a nap. Someone get them some eggnog and a snuggie.

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Another Way To Save On Christmas That Amber Forgot

What a disappointing breakfast cereal…

I forget things a lot. Letter in words, passwords, and the tip that spawned that last post. I’m a sad, embarrassing little egg. But whatevs, here it be.

HALFSIES

Going halfsies has been humankind’s go to way to save cash on gifts since Jesus was born. The Three Wise Men went thirdsies on the frankincense and myrrh, little known fact.

Do you have an annoying sibling or cousin who is magic at picking out perfect gifts, or are you low on cash but have a relative who’s shit at picking gifts and willing to front you the dough? Then you’re set. The act of acquiring a halfsie buddy can be a delicate one, though. Like with my sister.

We’re going halfsies on her dad’s gift. But the build up to her agreeing to go halfsies took about a week. A week of passive aggressive links to the perfect christmas gift I’d found for so and so, generous offers to help her come up with gift ideas for our family, maybe a reminder of how many weeks there are left until Christmas (6 and a half weeks sounds much scarier than 45 days). Of course, if your family isn’t built on the general distrust and irritation between siblings, you could just lay it out straight, but where’s the terror fun in that??

We’ll probably end up going halfsies on our aunt’s present too, just because that woman is the number one worst person to shop for. This year I’m taking the easy way out with a birthstone earring and necklace set, and next year’s someecards calendar.

The way this actually works out evenly for everyone is if you actually get half of the money for the gift/half of the credit for the gift, though. You can’t say you’re going halfsies, scribble your name on the gift tag, and call it a year. That’s not going halfsies, that’s being a huge dick. No one wants you to be a huge dick on Christmas. Conversely, you can’t take all the credit for the gift all like “Oh yeah, it was all my idea, and then Bill helped pay for some of it!” Again, that’s not going halfsies, but being a dick.

So yeah. There’s the actual tip that spawned the last beast of a post. Whoops.

Happy holidays, my bros, stay cheap, stay bitchin’, and don’t worry, this is not going to be my ‘sign off’ after every post. Maybe. I do like telling people to be bitchin’…

How I Buy Gifts For Nine People For Under $250

The reason Amber can even afford Christmas shopping.

So this Thursday is payday, and when I get to buy my Christmas gifts. As of right now, I have 19 items in my Amazon shopping cart, totalling $213.36, plus tax. I also have already bought three gifts from real stores for a total of $30. That’s 22 gifts for $243! Or a little over $11.04 per gift, if you wanna be that guy, I suppose.

Last year I read a post on Pinterest about this woman’s technique for spending less then $1000 for Christmas on her 8 person family. Which is insane. The only gift I have ever purchased my family that was that much was Disneyland tickets. I think the problem people face is that lots of families are so spread out across the country, they don’t know each other well enough, and so they fall back on impressively priced gifts, rather then something more personal, that that person would enjoy. And I get it, it’s hard to buy for people you only see maybe three times a year. My family all lives in the same state, in the same city, so we see each other more in one month then most extended families see each other in a year, something we’re very lucky and grateful for. Of course, even in our family there are buttheads who are impossible to shop for. Ours are married to each other.

The first thing to do is acknowledge that most of your gifts are going to be coming from Amazon, and that that’s okay. Put down the huge catalogs, close the 117 Pinterest tabs you have open (we all know you ain’t never gonna make that diy jewelry stand bruh), and take off your running shoes. Get back in bed, put on some nice Christmas music, and pull out your laptop.

Yeah, this ain’t ever gettin’ made. I did link to it anyways though. Click the pretty thing.

Tips for Shopping On Amazon

• The items in your cart that change price a lot will decide when you actually buy your gifts
• READ THE REVIEWS. Especially the ones with pictures. You can always see really easily if an item has false reviews, or if the listing is misleading in any way. I was going to buy my cousin some nail polish remover pens until I read the reviews that pointed out that you’re not paying (I think it was like $6) for the pictured set of six, but for one pen.
• Take a long time to poke at and finesse your cart. What seems like a perfect gift on Thursday can become the worst gift idea by Sunday.
• Write your cart items down. I have my Amazon cart list everywhere. I’ve got it on paper, i’ve got it on my laptop, i’ve got it in google docs, and i’ve got it in an app. This is important both because sometimes Amazon glitches and empties your cart, or logs you out. It’s also important because writing it down so many places helps you memorize your list; this way, if you find your item somewhere else, you’ll be more likely to remember the Amazon price of it, and if it’s cheaper in the store, buy it. The beer glasses I got for my uncle at Walmart were $10 cheaper then on Amazon.
• Amazon Prime. If you’re a student you can get 6 months of it for free, but if you’re not a students, you can still get a 30 free trial a think, and use that to buy your gifts. Free 2 day shipping, bro. Worth it’s weight in gold. If you’re like me and used up both of your free trials, ask a friend or relative if you can use their account to buy your gifts.

And to wrap up, just some general tips for cheap gift buying

• Don’t buy technology. If you are not an immediate blood relative of someone (like, if you didn’t contribute half of their DNA, basically), do not go and buy them a tablet or laptop. Especially kids/teenagers. It’s a surefire way to drive up your spending, and it’s not something everyone will appreciate.
• No giftcards over $25. If you want to give giftcards, that’s awesome. They’re always appreciated, and they’re easy. But if you give everyone a $50 giftcard, a $100 giftcard, the cost flies up quickly. $25 is enough to get you a couple nice things almost everywhere you can get a gift card to.
• If they liked it before they turned 12, make sure they actually still like it before you go and buy a bunch of fandom related stuff they won’t like. Last Christmas I got a bunch of Doctor Who stuff, even though I don’t watch the show anymore, or even really like it all that much.
• The problem with non specific themes like ‘Doctor Who stuff’ or ‘Marilyn Monroe stuff’ is that everyone jumps at those, because they’re not complicated, or hard to find. Say your niece said she wanted Supergirl stuff for Christmas. You go out and get her a calendar, and a mug, and some shirts, and that’s great. But so does everyone else, and now she’s completely set on Supergirl gear for her entire life. Don’t be afraid to ask her to specify, or narrow down the scope. That way maybe you can squeeze a couple of years out of ‘Supergirl stuff’.

And that’s all I’ve got! Really, the main thing is to actually know who you’re buying for. And if you don’t know them, gift cards!

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My Christmas (Religion, Santa, Giftgiving, and Traditions)

Evil, evil raisins…

So, first things first: We are not religious. The adults in my family are a varied bunch, from Atheist to what I call Lazy Christian (believes in god, but doesn’t pray, go to church, or actually follow any of the rules), to straight up everyday Christian; there’s even one case of  witchcraft (though she was seriously mentally disturbed and abandoned me and my sisters over fourteen years ago, so we don’t talk about her)! Variety is the spice of life, so as a child I went to church with my grandma, took god’s name in vain like my aunts, and believed in fairies like my mother. I read the bible, and went to church camp, and was thrilled when I got to have crackers and grape juice during church (especially since I remember eating raisins during church and dropping them, everyone silent and watching those little brown things bounce down the aisle. Haven’t been able to eat raisins since), but it never actually had any impact on my life, and even less so in my sisters’.

This blog, especially now, given the time of year, is going to be almost entirely about holidays, but I want anyone reading this to know from the get go what Christmas means for me and my family.

So to start with, we celebrate what you could call a ‘Santa Based’ Christmas. Santa brings presents for everyone (adults included), fills the stockings, and is the center of every Christmas talk we have with the younger girls. We don’t make Jesus a priority unless one of the girls bring him up (usually because of  a Christmas song), and when they do, we try to give them non biased answers that tend to boil down to either a quick summary of why Jesus was important, a Google lead explanation for why frankincense and gold were good gift ideas for an infant, or an honest ‘ I’m not sure, but VeggieTales probably knows’.

We also make sure that the girls understand what Santa means beyond the hat and the laugh and the cookies. For us, he’s the personification of generosity, to those you love and those who need love. We’re not the most well to do family (quite the opposite, in fact), but we always adopt a couple Christmas Angels from the mall, and my aunt and her family adopt a family through her work. My youngest sister gives away all of her outgrown clothes and toys. I try to always keep cash on me in case someone needs an extra quarter for the bus, or is a couple dollars short at the register. There’s no worse feeling then when your card is declined at the grocery store and you’ve got ten dollars worth of groceries that you can’t afford, and that feeling is three times as bad during the holidays. We’ve gotten lucky in the area of greed, I think. Other then my oldest sister Mercedes, we never had any victims of the I Wants.

We’re a large family, and we all buy gifts for each other, no secret Santas or gift assembly lines (parents give to their kids, no aunt/cousin/grandparent gifts) for us. And even when there is a rare case of the I Wants, it’s always a bunch of smaller items, rather then the entire Best Buy catalog with ‘Mercedes’ Christmas List’ scribbled on the front. Last year was probably the most ‘expensive’ gifts we’ve ever had, with me and my cousin getting laptops (hers for starting high school, mine for starting college), my uncle getting some fancy speaker things, and my sister getting a stereo. (Thanks to Black Friday, by the way, we got out of Walmart with all of those items for under $800.)

We just aren’t very technological people, and I think that’s really what makes it so much easier for us to afford gifts for everyone. Christmas is a lot cheaper when you’re not buying seven iPads and five iPhones and calling it done. I’ve got 18 items in my Amazon cart that total $219, and while they are not pricey gifts, they are well thought out ones that I know my family will appreciate. We’re not a family of well means at all, of course. My aunt has a safe strictly for her Christmas money, $20 from every paycheck, plus any visa giftcards and work bonuses. I save part of my financial aid for Christmas (kind of. I give it to my aunt to use for bills and such, and in return she pays for my presents). We don’t have credit cards, so we’re not spending money we don’t have.

Christmas has never been about the gifts we get, but the gifts we give. We get more pleasure out of seeing people react to our gifts by far, especially if they cry! My aunt made my sisters’ dad cry a couple years ago with some photo coasters of his kids as babies, and it was probably the highlight of that Christmas! Allergies, cliches, and the invention on Netflix have forced us to be a lot more creative in our giftgiving, which makes it more fun, in my opinion. The entire series of a show my sister likes is on Netflix, so instead of just getting her a couple of season and calling it a day, maybe I get her something related to that show, like some shirts, or artwork. It’s more personal, and a hell of a lot cheaper. Have you seen what a recent season of a tv show costs? No thank you!

But my favorite parts of Christmas don’t even happen on Christmas day, with the one exception of lamb for Christmas dinner. My favorite parts come days, weeks before.

Driving around at night eating McDonald’s dollar menu chicken sandwiches and looking at the decorations.

Walking through Winterhaven drinking hot tea and getting yelled at for walking to fast and leaving my family behind.

Failing at making cute gingerbread houses.

I wish I could make one half as nice as these, lol!

Watching those awful claymation specials on ABC Family over and over again until the only song in my head until February is the Heat Miser/Snow Miser one.

These are the things I like the most, and they have nothing to do with Santa, or Jesus, or present. Just being with my family and doing fun things.

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Amber Rambles About Christmas Traditions- Black Friday

We did get to be on the news once, doing some last minute BF shopping at Target. It was awful. It was our last shop so we were mifed and tired and a bit punch drunk.

Black Friday at May 9th 1873 at the Vienna stock exchange, wood engraving from 1873 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think our family is the only one that doesn’t dread Black Friday. It’s really not as bad as people make it out to be, as someone who has been on the other end. In a giftstore. At the mall. Sure there are the crazies who stampede people, but like, they’re always crazy Midwest people who are buying a shit ton of shit just to buy shit. Other than some unapologetic bumps, an accidental scratch on my part last year, and a couple cases of accidental shoplifting (Including, but not limited to: a necklace, an iPod, and a book [just last year]), we’ve never had any issues. We eat our Thanksgiving meal at around three, so we’re not missing out on Thanksgiving or spending time with our family when we head out at 9pm and are back home in bed by 2am. My aunt Linda is the orchestrator, and we (my aunt Ellie, me, my sister Mercedes, and my cousin Chloe) are her pawns.

We’re usually in charge of picking up two or three newspapers from the grocery store for Linda, for planning, and any last minute additions to wishlists. We sit in a big circle and just pass down each and every black Friday ad, initialing any item we’d like to get for Christmas. It’s a nice way to pass the time while the turkey is taking its revenge by taking FOREVER to cook, plus, the deals and store hours kind of get implanted into your brain, so win-win! After eating a frankly obscene amount of food, we veg out and watch the dog show they always show after the parade, and plan.

Me, Mercedes, and Chloe are normally the line standers/runners, collecting items and tickets for items like grandpas collect fishing lures. The running is the most important part though, because stores like Walmart and Target have literally the worst reception in any building ever, so calling is not an option. So much running though. Like, if I needed to train for a marathon, I’d just rerun my Back Friday routes a few times, lol!  Ellie likes to pretend she’s a co-captain, but really she’s just as much a runner as we are, though less to fetch things, and more to help us when we have problems.

Once we have a set plan, and schedule, we all pile into the truck, turn on the nonstop Christmas music local radio station, and head to Starbucks for fuel. Which is probably my favorite part, not going to lie. With Starbucks I’m pretty much Charlie from Willy Wonka, in that I only get Starbucks twice a year; Black Friday, and when we go to Winterhaven, this beautiful neighborhood that goes all out with the decorations. I’m talking snow machines and light shows. I usually get a chai latte because I never need the caffeine, but I don’t like their hot chocolate. Which you’d think is sacrilege, the look my cousin gives me when I say that, lol. The rest of the year I’m more a McDonald’s coffee kind of girl; cheap and tasty.

The mall is probably my least favorite, because the stores re so small.

Then we hit the first store. We leave around 9pm, so there’s no outside line waiting, thank God. We’ve only ever once left early enough to have to wait outside to get in a store, and decided never again. The mall is our first stop, so we can get the close-quarters hell that is Old Navy out of the way as son as possible. Shirts are a very requested gift in our family, and since Old Navy has the quality, price, and variety, t’s rarely skipped.

We used to do Toys R Us, but never have much luck there, so we haven’t done it in a couple of years. Walmart is probably where we get the most done, to be honest. The store has a bad rep, but it’s got the best prices and sales, hands down. If you’re wanting to go Black Friday shopping, but have avoided Walmart, give it a go. All the reasons you avoid it during normal circumstances (Which I get, I really do.) Don’t exist during Black Friday. There’s no half dressed, beer gutty men stopping in for a case of beer, or squealing children who’ve never been disciplined in their lives. It’s just a bunch of people who wanna buy nice things for their family, and this is the only way they can afford it.

We’ve only done Target a couple of times, just because it really is Walmart for people who’ll pay a bit more so they don’t have to go to Walmart. The deals aren’t as good or varied, and their stock is smaller. Plus they send out coupons all the time, so if you really need something from Target, just save it for another day and use a coupon; it’s the same as their black Friday deals.

`Last year we went to five stores (Walmart, Old Navy, Target, Michael’s and a different Walmart). We left at nine pm, and we were at home eating leftovers by a little before 2am.

I can’t really explain why I love Black Friday so much. It’s the first big, undeniable sign that Christmas is coming. It’s shopping, which I love an awful lot for someone with no money. It’s spending time with my family, and singing Christmas carols, and drinking warm drinks, and making friends with the slightly punch drunk shoppers. It’s sticking it to the grumps and cynics who blame greed and selfishness for the enthusiasm of Black Friday shoppers, because apparently they think we’re out there buying dozens of laptops and ipads for ourselves, not just one for a relative.

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The Neighbor Has Her Roof Done (And The Dogs Go WILD)

Another pretty but nonrelated Christmas picture!

As I type this, it is 7 am, and I have been up for an hour. I have done laundry, turned on QVC, and eaten the rest of a bag of chips. ON MY DAY OFF. Because the neighbor lady is having her roof redone, and our dogs cannot handle construction vehicles. So they’ve been barking near nonstop since about 5:30am, and will continue to do so until probably 6 or 7 tonight. Yay for me!

Today’s laundry day though, so at least I get some kind of escape from a house full of paranoid dogs!

Guess who forgot she was writing a blog post and just now remembered at 10am? This girl!

Today other than the laundry, all I’ve got planned is some couponing and grocery list planning. Because I’m a 47 year old housewife from Wisconsin, apparently, lol. And I’ve got to find a foil packet recipe that doesn’t call for either a crap ton of freaking lemon (ew) or no spices at all. Because it’s Friday, damn it, and I don’t have to put any effort into dinner if I don’t want to. Next week this blog will be much more interesting, pinky promise! It’s just that this is that awkward in between week, where you’re still kind of hungover from Halloween, but you’re also seeing Christmas and Thanksgiving commercials, and it’s also really funky weather.On Monday it was nonstop raining here, and then on Tuesday it was 80 degrees. Then yesterday and today, the high is in the 70s!

But next week is when paycheck comes, so you’ll get to see how Amber fails at grocery shopping neatly, fails at revising her Christmas gift list, fails at trying out Thanksgiving recipes, and fails at making sensible, concise blog entries! I also will probably end up writing out a super loosey goosey schedule for my holiday posts, so you know what you’re in store for, if by some mistake on your part, you’ve followed this senseless blog.

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Holidays Are Here Again!

Mutha. Frackin. Turkeh.

So, it’s November. Christmas is in fifty days, Thanksgiving in 21. Things are hectic. Apparently I’ve been turning the heater on wrong for the entire four years we’ve lived in this house, which i guess explains why I’m always freezing when I’m home alone, oops! School is… School. It’s long, and exhausting, and boring. I cannot stress how much I wish I had a time machine to 2017, I swear.

It’s finally getting cold here, in sinfully bright and sunny Arizona, I’ve gotten to wear long sleeve shirts all week! This morning if you squinted your eyes, tilted your head to the left, you could almost almost see your breath. Pretty, pretty neat. Of course, it’s going to be back up to 78 next week, because we just can’t have nice things, no we cannot.

I’ve been listening to Christmas music since Halloween, my favorite app for that is iheartradio. It’s pretty cool, because it’s online radio, but it’s not bogged down with a zillion ads per 3 minute song, and there’s like, little memories from the ‘hosts’? I don’t know, but it’s free, and it’s super cute.You should def check it out, it’s a good mix or classic Christmas songs; nothing too new or too old, lots of variety. We always seem to start listening to Christmas so much earlier then everyone else does, but I think it’s nice. It’s not so much making you want it to be Christmas, so much as it’s a way to force yourself to feel all the love and warmth and crap that the holiday season poisons people with. I’d listen to Christmas music all the time, if I could. It’s pretty, fun to sing, and just about every song has a nice memory attached to it.

I’ve been obsessively researching recipes for Thanksgiving. I forgot to pin the creamed corn recipe we used last year (Yes, this young, hip 20-something uses Pinterest. fight me.) and I think I found it, but if I’m wrong, I’m gonna get yelled at. In front of my entire family. Which is no bueno. I do think I found the right one though, because it only had like, 5 ingredients, and it was made on the stove, not in a crockpot, which eliminated most of the other contenders. Those Pinterest moms sure do love their crockpots, don’t they? (has a crockpot and a used it to death.) I’m also branching out some. And by some, I mean a lot. Like. A shit ton, pardon my swear. Not only am I making something I’ve never made, and we’ve never had at Thanksgiving (baked beans), but I, Amber McLain, the girl who cried herself to sleep after her aunt mentioned the cake she made was a little dry, am making rolls. Homemade. With fucking yeast. I’ve never even seen yeast before. And I’m not just making roll, oh no sirree. When Amber sets herself up for failure, she does it full stop. No, I am making cheddar potato rolls. Which, come on. They sound delicious as hell. But my most successful past recipes include roasting sausage, onions, and potatoes together in the oven, and putting chopped up hot dogs into a pot of baked beans from a can. So I’ll keep you updated on the inevitable failure that will be my potato rolls!

I also have to resend my sister the cranberry sauce recipe, because she does that now that she’s moved out, but she never remembers how to make it. But between our bit of the family (me, my two younger sisters, and our aunt/legal guardian/person who pays the phone bill) We’re covering creamed corn, cranberry sauce, broccoli-cauliflower casserole, and now baked beans and potato rolls. We used to just do cranberry sauce and green bean casserole, but it’s no longer just us nine, and in-laws have stolen the green bean casserole, as in-laws do. Our family has grown a lot in the last couple of years, even though we’ve had these in laws for over a decade now, after my aunt got married. That’s mostly because they, fairly recently, if I’m remembering correctly, moved down here from Minnesota.

I think the holidays are easier for us then they are for other families because we all live close to each other, so we’re always together. There’s no weirdly high expectations because we haven’t gotten together in a year, ya know? We get together for everything. Like, EV-ER-Y-THING. Fourth of July, Memorial Day, birthdays, even football games to watch my cousin cheerlead. So we know when someone’s done good, AND we know when someone’s done bad. When I got all A’s my first semester of college, or my cousin made the varsity cheer team, they all knew. When my cousin got her phone taken away from a month, or when I failed my driver’s test, they all knew. It’s kind of a double edged sword, but people never seem to feel bad for us for having our family know everything about each other, but because we have to spend so much time together. Like, why is sad that we spend time together? I think it’s more sad that some people only see their families at all because society says that’s what you must do for two days of the year! Do we always like each other? God no. I hate my oldest sister, my uncle annoys me, my youngest cousin is a spoiled brat, and my aunts are mean. But like. It’s family. It shouldn’t be an obligation to spend time with them. And if it is an obligation to spend time with them, why do it at all? I guess it’s the forced interaction that I don’t get. If your family’s abusive and cruel and mean, why are you obligated to spend time with them? And if your family is nice enough, just kind of annoying sometimes, why is it such an obligation to give them two days worth of your time?

Whatever, poorly worded, likely to be misinterpreted ramble over. Back to Christmas, yay!

I’ve got like a thousand things to try to keep me organized this season. They will all, of course, fail, but at least I’ve got some failsafes in place if I get overwhelmed. I’m buying presents for eleven people this year, and I’m giving I think five of those people multiple gifts, so my total budget is a little over $500. $260 of that is for my sister, but I didn’t actually spend it, I’m just giving her a crap ton of makeup I knew she’d like from my Boxycharm subscription. So really my budget is $340. I’ve bought four of the 18 presents I’m buying, because I’m an indecisive butt. I’ve got everything I want to buy sitting in my amazon cart until payday next week, but I also wrote out my shopping list, so if I see something better/the same/comparable, I can check real quick, and make a note to update my cart. For example, in Wal Mart last Saturday, I found a 4 piece variation of the 6 piece beer glass set I’d found on Amazon for $20, for my uncle. This set (by the same brand) was ten dollars cheaper, at a loss of two glasses. He doesn’t know he was gonna get six, but I’m too cheap to spring for that, so it’s all cool! Plus, now I can get him this funky can of beer flavored jelly bellies! Wins all around!  I’m not a talented enough online shopper to really get the full benefit of Amazon deals and stuff, but if nothing else, it’s a good starting point. I know this shirt is this much on Amazon, so if I find it cheaper at some store in person, I know I’m getting a pretty good price.

This has nothing to do with a single thing in this post, I just love these tiny Christmas villages, lol!

How do you like to do your holiday shopping? Are you a year long shopper, or a leave it to the last week kind of gal? Leave me a comment and let me know, I love to chat!

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