christmas

It Must Be Close to the Holidays

by Brian Groce on November 21, 2007

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

Last week the Holiday season bug bit me hard, as I’m craving all of my favorite holiday foods (Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years). Thank goodness tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

Salivate with me if you will…

Snacks & Appetizers

  • Summer sausage, cheese (cheddar, swiss & mozzarella) & crackers (Keebler Club & Town House). And toss in a cheese ball for good measure.
  • Deviled eggs. Is there a more tasty, more addictive food that’s not that good for you? I could eat deviled eggs.
  • Ham roll ups. My mom has made these for years, usually on New Years Eve.
  • Ham salad on tiny pumpernickel bread. Addicting for some reason.

The Main Course

  • Turkey and dressing (and possibly stuffing if I’m in the mood). Good tender, juicy & moist turkey with that awesome aroma.
  • Spiral sliced, glazed ham. Need I say more?
  • Mashed potatoes. The real thing with plenty of butter. Topped with gravy or noodles or just plain, it’s all good.
  • Rolls. Warm and soft also with plenty of butter.
  • Cranberry Sauce. Yes, I like the stuff that comes out of a can. But if you want to whip your own up, knock me out.

Treats

  • Pumpkin pie. I’m not sure what it is about pumpkin pie, but it just hits the spot. And that’s even after being in a pumpkin pie eating contest last year.
  • Peanut butter fudge. Truly tasty.
  • Bourbon balls. For some reason Jack Daniels laced chocolate treats hit the spot, even for non-drinkers. In the “liquor foods” category these have to be right up there with rum cake and bread pudding (with rum soaked raisins).
  • Buckeyes. These aren’t something that are a common staple at functions that I attend, but when I find some you’ll know I’ll dig in.
  • Cheap “holiday cookies”. You know what I’m talking about. The box or bag of colored sugar coated cookies that you can pick up for a buck at any grocery store. These aren’t the best thing in the world, but they bring back childhood memories, as my grandma always seemed to have these around. Eat them with a cup of coffee and they suddenly seem a bit more fancy.
  • Mint M&M’s. I am so disappointed that these are a seasonal item, but rest assured, there’s an extremely good chance you’ll find a bag of these in my house well into the next fall. Last year I think I bought about a dozen bags and have just now broken into my last one since they’re on the shelves again. (Tip: store these in the refrigerator or freezer.)

So, what makes your personal favorites list? I left a lot of options off of the list, so please chime in.

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Introducing Just Not China

by Brian Groce on November 13, 2007

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

With all of the current toy recalls my wife and I have been pondering what to do about toys, and even other products, for Christmas for the kids this year.

It’s not that I’m overly paranoid that the Chinese are out to kill and/or harm us all, but it is certainly a concern. Especially since it appears that every toy that is/was made in China toy is being recalled, but they’re just taking it in stages. (Is that paranoid or make me sound like some conspiracy nut?) And who has the time to purchase toys that have to be returned? Can you even imagine how much worse the exchange lines will be after Christmas this year if this continues?

So we looked through all of the kids current toys and haven’t found much of anything that isn’t made in China (and good luck finding many “Made in the USA” toys at the major retailers). And this also includes all of the “kids meal” related toys for the various fast food restaurants.

So this has lead to the start of yet another Surge Bucket Media blog, Just Not China, which will showcase products that you can buy that are indeed, “Not Made in China”. (If someone has a positive phrasing idea for that, please let me know.) While there are a few major companies that we hope to get on board, the vast majority of the products will not be available many places beyond online websites and catalog sales. But that is great as you’ll be helping the “little man” and be purchasing products that most people don’t even know about.

We quickly put this up today, based on this blog’s theme, so bear with us as it gets built out and products are listed. It may take a few weeks to get rolling, but we hope to have some products listed well before Christmas. So please bookmark the site and subscribe to the RSS feed. And if you have anything to add, please contact us.

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Black Friday 2007 Ads

by Brian Groce on November 7, 2007

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

The “Black Friday” ads for 2007 started to show up a few weeks ago and now that it’s only a little over two weeks away the listings have really started to show up. So for those of you who are interested in this Christmas shopping craze, I’m making a list of sites where you can take a look at the goods well before Thanksgiving Day.

Here’s the list (and it’ll be updated as other sites pop up)…

If you know of any sites that I don’t have listed, please let me know.

Related, Wal-Mart has already started the “deal wars”, so it’s likely that you’ll be able to snag some good sales before the “official” Christmas shopping season.

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Halloween 2007

by Brian Groce on November 1, 2007

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

The kids took in quite a haul last night since the weather was nice and since we took them to my parents neighborhood again this year since people actually give out candy there (including full sized candy bars…and hot dogs)…for some reason most people/households in my neighborhood don’t partake in much of anything that involves decorating, landscaping, mingling, etc.  That’s fine I suppose, but it makes for a boring Halloween through New Years.

(Our first Christmas in our house I lit up the entire roof with Christmas lights…which made it easy for people to find our house (and gave me quite an electric bill)…but lately I’ve just stuck with some “icicle” lights and can tell anyone who hasn’t been to our house to look for the house with Christmas lights…and I’m not exaggerating.)

Anyway, back to Halloween for a moment…

We didn’t get started until around 7 pm (so much for the “official” trick-or-treating hours) and wrapped things up around 8:15 pm or so.  Last year it was so cold that I think the kids might have lasted 45 minutes (probably less), but last night was truly ideal…a little brisk but not too cold, on the brink of raining but not raining, with the wind howling and rustling leaves down the street.  Very ideal indeed.

But Halloween is over and now it’s time to start talking turkeys, pies, football and Christmas and New Years parties.  There are only three weeks until Thanksgiving and eight and a half weeks left in the entire year.  Where, oh where, does the time go?

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2008 Valentines Day Candy

by Brian Groce on October 15, 2007

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

So when is the 2008 Valentines Day candy going to appear? I’m having a hankering for Sweet Tart Hearts and buying over priced flowers, aren’t you?

OK, I’m being a little sarcastic (maybe not about the candy part), but is it just me or are the retailers truly pushing out the various “holiday” merchandise much quicker than before? I began to see “back-to-school” supplies in early July (presumably to make way for the upcoming “seasonal” items), Halloween costumes and candy in late August (at both Target and Wal-Mart) and Christmas merchandise in mid-September (at Target and I’d assume the same at Wal-Mart and other similar retailers). Then in yesterday’s paper I saw Halloween and Christmas items in the Kohl’s ad on the same page. (Apparently fall/harvest/Thanksgiving is all lumped together with Halloween.)

Being a “marketing type” and knowing that Halloween and Christmas merchandise are both huge money makers for retailers, I can understand why you’d want these items in front of customers as long as possible. But it’s a little creepy looking at graveyards, skeletons, zombies, mummies, witches, werewolves, vampires, bats, rats, spiders and disembodied heads in crystal balls while hearing Bing Crosby singing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” in the background. But maybe it’s just me…

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Christmas Pumpkins

by Brian Groce on December 29, 2006

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

For those of you wondering how long an uncarved pumpkin will last outside in Indiana, somewhere around Christmas is the “deflate date” given the sort of weather that we’ve had this year. (If temperatures were close to normal, that might be a little longer, as long as it’s not too cold.)

And to answer the “Why did you still have uncarved pumpkins outside at Christmastime?” question…

Short answer: Procrastination that lead to my “creative” oddness (which I don’t think anyone else was into)…and more procrastination.

Longer answer: I never got around to carving the pumpkins at Halloween this year and thought they made nice Thanksgiving decorations. I was certain that they’d be mush or some neighborhoodlums would have done something to them by Thanksgiving, but that didn’t happen. So while sitting out the Christmas decorations I thought, maybe I could carve them for Christmas (like luminaries). And of course, that didn’t take place either.

With some nudging I threw them away this morning, which was a good thing as they started to *finally* become a little mushy. But now that the idea has came and past, maybe others can run with it next year and let the new “red, green & orange” Christmas tradition take on a life of its own.

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Christmas Is Over

by Brian Groce on December 28, 2006

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

Christmas is now over and I think that my world is starting to come back into some sort of order now that I had the chance to actually sit and stare at the oodles of new toys that everyone got for the little ones…we’ve managed to get *most* of them out of their packages, which is saying something for me, because, as I stated, I tend to just stare at the things. (While some toys these days are much cooler than what I had as a kid, why have they cheapened some of the old standards like “Blocks”?)

Anyway, I am a little glad to see December coming to a close and 2007 peeking at me from around the corner. While I do like December quite a bit, it does get a little overwhelming towards the end after the umpteenth event that is squeezed in, not to mention all of the traveling. But it is good. My only real complaint is that the older I get, the less it “feels” like Christmastime. Maybe that’s just me though since I have way too much going on “upstairs” and can hardly distinguish one day from the next anymore…maybe I’ll formulate a Cyborg conspiracy later.

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Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights

by Brian Groce on December 18, 2006

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

After someone had told us it was funny, we started to watch Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights the other night. We made it about half way through and ended up turning it off because it wasn’t all that funny, a bit crass and was a bit annoying (and we love most Sandler flicks).

So for those of you who have watched it to completion, does it get better and how does it end?

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Happy Black Friday 2006

by Brian Groce on November 24, 2006

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

As tradition my brother-in-law and I got up early this morning (4:15am for me), left the ladies at home in bed and headed out for our annual early morning “Black Friday” ruckus. (I can’t recall the exact number of years, but it’s probably a good 5 years running now.) We’ve been trying to break the stereotype of guys only being dragged along with their wives, to no avail thus far. But we’re still there with the crowd, which is something for me since I *hate* crowds and lines of any sort. But we stand there and shake our heads at the crowds every year, and that’s well worth it because there’s just something about it that’s addicting…it’s like watching a good sociology/psychology experiment each and every year and that just seems amusing for some reason.

Anyway, we had our usual hit list of places to go just in case they had something we were interested in, and this year all four places we went had what we wanted…and that’s a first.

Stop 1 was Office Max at 5am. I picked up a memory card for my camera and a few small items. Small crowd of people, which was good since the sale item were not marked and for some reason checkout was a bit slow.

Stop 2 was Best Buy around 5:15am. As always, I have no idea why we go there, but we usually do and it is always your best bet for a crowd since the guys and the ladies love the place. We picked up a few DVDs and stood in the checkout line for about an hour, which was better than the hour and a half or so that we stood in line last year, but my guess is that a lot of people didn’t realize that they opened at 5am this year instead of the usual 6am in previous years.

Stop 3 was Target around 6:30am. A little busy, but not bad at all and they had the few things that we wanted. There were maybe three people in front of us in line. This was much better than previous years.

Stop 4 was Radio Shack around 6:50am. I picked up a headset to use with Skype
and a new pair of headphones for the podcast since my old ones shorted out on me. Pretty empty and no line at all.

We were on the road and headed home around 7am, just in time to beat the sun up.

The only usual stop that we didn’t make this year was Menards, but they didn’t have much of interest and there’s never much of a crowd there.

Now I need to get the kids down for a nap sometime this morning so I can get a short nap in myself. I’m so tired that I spaced the need of a coffee filter to brew a pot of coffee and had to clean that mess up and start over. And we’ve got a long night of Karnie Christmas II planning and writing in store, so the sleep will be much needed.

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Black Friday 2006 Ads

by Brian Groce on November 19, 2006

in Brian's Blogs,Never Picture Perfect

For those of you who either have money to spend on Christmas presents and want to score some “deals” or are like me and just like to get up early on Black Friday to get in other peoples’ way (it’s a fun early morning tradition of mine), here are a few places to check out before the ads are out on Thursday.

If you want to see the PDFs I’d suggest getting them now since some stores are demanding that they be removed (like Best Buy). Ah, the joys of Christmastime are lingering in the air…

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