Thursday, December 06, 2007

Christmas Dinners & Christmas Shopping

Brandon

On Monday night Brandon invited Jimmy & I to attend his troops Boy Scout Christmas & Awards Dinner. The parents & grandparents all brought their favorite homemade dishes, so everything was very good and tasty. Although Reva was there, Brian wasn't able to come join in on the festivities...He was home sick with Bronchitis.

The boys, along with several parent volunteers got up and sang the 12 days of Christmas song, and of course, boys being boys, hammed it up a bit...or maybe I should be truthful and say they hammed it up a whole lot. It's always fun to watch everyone having such a good time together and these boys are still of the age where they love having their parents & grandparents around.

Administering the Oath

Here's a group picture of the boys and their leaders. It's a small scout troop from a very small town, but the boys all possess VERY BIG HEARTS.

One of the scouts entertained us with Christmas Carole's on his guitar. He's just learning to play and was very excited about sharing the music with all of us.
Brandon was awarded a star and is on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout along with one other scout. Two other boys earned badges and received them at the ceremonial awards table lit with candles. Brandon administered oaths because, and you'll have to forgive my forgetfulness here, he was selected leader of his troop...it's called something and maybe his mom can tell us in the comments what his title is. I was so busy having fun and taking pictures that sometimes I wasn't listening when I should have been...I also should have brought a notepad with me to write the important stuff down because I knew I would be blogging about it and I would have blogged sooner, but I caught a cold and just today started feeling like my old self again...which might not be such a good thing, hehehe.

***

On another note...Last week Megan & I went shopping and I bought, her first Christmas tree to go in her first apartment. I also bought her a beautiful angel to go on top, but honestly I thought it was way too big to sit on top of her skinny 6.5 ft tree, but that was the one she liked and wanted. I also had to beg her to take home a large fluffy white battery operated reindeer, that wags it's great big snout while singing, "grandma got run over by a reindeer." She thought it was stupid looking and I told her to put him under her tree and think of me every time she saw or heard it sing...I like silly stupid looking things myself. Later Sharon & I tried to get Megan to show the reindeer to some of her mom's co-workers, but Megan said she didn't want them to know that she liked stupid looking stuff like that. We had lots of fun shopping and it was just the two of us. Afterwards we went out to eat along with Sharon and a good friend Bobby Sox.

I called Jimmy to come and join us for supper, but he doesn't like to take me to Cracker Barrel because of what comes after dinner....the stroll back out through their marvelous gift shop! It seems that I can go "in" okay, but I can't seem to get "out" without buying something or two or three. And of course, this time was no different except that I also bought some of their cute Christmas ornaments for Megan's new Christmas tree. You noticed that I said "also" didn't you? I found this cute stick moose (like a stick horse that children play with) and I just had to have it. It has great BIG teeth, sings Jingle Bell Rock and on its antlers are those round dingaling things that jingle while the moose sings and sways it long snout around. It's so goofy looking that Jimmy rolls his eyes every time I press the button to turn it on. I'll post a picture of it some time later. Cucoo has taken a liking to it and they became good buddies from the minute the stick moose walked in.

I think my Christmas shopping is done and all is ready to be wrapped. I may spend some time doing that tonight after I finish playing with the toys. I have to make sure that the toys are all in working order and nothing is broken...that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. hehehe.

I gave Jimmy his Christmas present early...like yesterday, and it was a good thing that I did because it didn't work as expected so we promptly returned it. It was an iPod docking station with FM Radio, Clock, Charger & Speakers. It was for his workshop. The speakers sounded awful...nothing nearly as good as his headset or even his bike speakers. It also required you to reset your iPod settings everytime you put it on the docking station. It seemed like a lot of trouble just to listen to good music through bad speakers.

I have always liked giving Christmas presents each day starting with the week before Christmas and ending on New Years Day, but the family has gotten so large that I have had to abandon that except that I sometimes sneak gifts along the way. Of course I always saved the big ticket items for Christmas morning. Jimmy & I have already purchased our Christmas present and it's something that he has been admiring all year...an HDTV flat screen that can be easily mounted on the wall. Our old tv was working just perfect until this month and then suddenly something happened to it...MIGHTY SUSPICIOUS don't you think??? And only the day before Jimmy & I had agreed that we would ONLY buy one WHEN our old faithful tv died. Coincidence? I don't think so! We'll never know now because Jimmy immediately sent our old tv to be crushed in a crusher for disposal within the hour that it supposedly stopped working. I wanted the repairman to take a look at it, but that didn't happen. Oh well.

I still haven't put up my Christmas tree or any Christmas decorations and pretty soon it will be time to take them down...so I'd better get on the ball. I'll get them up this week and by next week I'll start my baking and candy making. That's always fun because Jimmy gets right in there and we make the Christmas candies together...each making our favorites. Hope no one is on a diet this Christmas, and everyone comes hungry.

7 comments:

Kerri said...

You sure have been having fun!
Megan must really really love you if she let you buy her the "stupid looking" singing reindeer!
Sandy you crack me up :)
That is rather suspicious that the TV went on the blink so conveniently. Methinks somebody threw a spanner in the works.
Perhaps it was Cucoo....
I think he might enjoy a flat screen TV.

tomlaureld@yahoo.com said...

Motherktty made some Divinity but she said we will have to eat it before Christmas arrives. She also made her 4th Pumpkin pie. I do not think I have eaten anything lately that does not have 30,000 calories in it.
Take Care and enjoy
love ya

Rachel said...

Well, now I see what you have been up to!! I think those flat screen TV's are space saving if nothing else! My nephew has one and it looks nice.

Your shopping trip with Megan sounded like lots of fun! I'm sure she will think of you each time she looks at that reindeer!!

I have been having lots of calories lately. Tis the season!!!

Jamie Dawn said...

Way to go, Brandon!!

My Christmas shopping is nearly done, but I'm waiting for some things to arrive via mail or UPS or FED EX.
I'm eager to get things wrapped and mailed to family and friends.

Enjoy what remains of your weekend.
:-)

Anonymous said...

I had a good time also at the scout awards ceremony. Brandon has the title of Senior Patrol Leader which means he will be leader over all the patrols, if there were any more patrols, since it is a small group there is only one patrol right now, so Brandon will be the leader over them. Each boy takes turns with positions every 6 months. So it was Brandon's turn to become the Senior Patrol Leader. We are very proud of him!

JunieRose2005 said...

Oh! Those scouting things were fun- 2 of my grands were involved in scouts(boy and girl scouts) Zach went on to become an Eagle Scout! :)

I was always so proud to see them involved in something so worth while!
I KNOW you're proud of your grandson too!


Junie

Susie said...

Hi Sandy,
I've just been doing some catching up here on some posts I''v missed. The Scout meeting sure brought back some memories of days gone by. Making the rank of Eagle Scout is indeed an honor and Brandon should be very proud of himself!
Enjoy this wonderful Christmas season Sandy :)
xoxo