One of my favorite bloggers of all time, Georgie, of Decisionally Challenged. sponsors a Secret Santa gift exchange. This is my second year to participate. It intimidates me. I mean these women in the exchange are great. They pick out the perfect gifts for each other and ooah and ahh all over them. I lucked out last year, I drew Baloney over at That’s Baloney. Baloney is another one of my favorite bloggers and I know her personally. She is funny, smart, sassy and keeps it real and is a good sport. So I didn’t have to worry about somebody who wanted soaps and sachets and bathing powders and all that other stuff. Or you know she might have wanted all that but that isn’t what she got.

So this year I signed up again and got scared again. Oh what am I going to do?  Then it hit me. Why should I be the one that is scared? Let the recipient be scared. So here is what I did. Before Georgie let me know who I was the Secret Santa for, I would go out and buy the stuff. Then all I would have to do is send the stuff. And then be sure to look around corners and behind my back for a time.

Now I know that I would risk getting kicked out of the exchange, because you know Georgie runs a tight ship on this affair. But I thought it would be worth the risk.

But you know I would have to keep the demographic in mind. I mean I didn’t want to alienate everybody while I was off being me. The main demographic is that all but two of the participants are women. In other words, there is me, and one other guy. Hmmm. Oh well, so off I went.

Are these not nice, a great tee shirt and a cap. I sized the t shirt such that it would fit most of the demographic. The hat should fit anybody also. I mean its not pink, yellow, or purple but they are pretty nice. I mean the way I figure it if they don’t like them they can give them to their husband, or their boyfriends, or the plumber. I mean, they have options. And if its a guy that receives this package. Well, he just wears it.

That wasn’t too bad is it?

And that is not all. I also got this.

Pretty good uh? Something is missing, oh yeah, I also got some popcorn to go along with the seasoning.

Isn’t that cool? Popcorn, but not just any popcorn but gasless popcorn. I mean keeping the demographic in mind I didn’t want anybody, especially a nice lady, because Georgie only attracts the higher class of ladies, getting embarrassed by eating the gift. Its not very ladylike to be tooting while watching White Christmas. I think it kind of ruins the mood. Don’t you agree?

I got some scientific data to back me up from the Good Book.

I can tell you that it is easier and much more convenient to take care of gas beforehand that afterward. Don’t believe me, take a look at this page from the Good Book.

Notice the heading at the top of the page. For those of you who don’t have your glasses on it says “Tail Gas Clean Up Processes.” Yup, modern science and engineering has the answer to almost anything under the sun. I mean we still haven’t figured out why people still take Rush Limbaugh seriously but we can clean up tail gas if you have enough money.

So anyways, when I got the email from Georgie about who the victim recipient was, and their likes and preferences and such. I didn’t even look. I just pulled the address and packed my stuff up and went off to the Post Office. It went out Monday so I guess that maybe today or maybe even tomorrow some lucky recipient will be receiving their Secret Santa gift, and the rest of you will just have to be jealous.

December 1964 – back cover of National Geographic

I learned and continue to learn a lot from my Dad, (aka “Gramps”). One of the most valuable things I learned from him is to do my own shopping for stocking stuffers for myself at Christmas. So over the years I have treated myself to all sorts of stuff from camo duct tape, to those nifty little Craftsman tools from Sears, CD’s, pens, notebooks, candy bars, and all sorts of other more or less useful “neat stuff.” I don’t do this selfishly. I’ve done it to take the load and worry off of Sweetie about what to get me for stocking stuffers. She has been pretty good about hiding her appreciation of my consideration.

This year though I got myself only one item. They are ice traction slip-ons that go over shoes. The way the weather has turned out this could be one of my most useful stocking stuffers ever.

So what personal holiday traditions do you have?

Merry Christmas from the Yogis. We had a White Christmas this year. I don’t know quite how much but I’m guessing that we had about 5″ or so at the house. It drifted up to maybe a foot in some places.

Lots of fun Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We got a lot of snow so we are not quite done with Christmas yet since we have not been able to get together with my favorite MIL Nana.

We’ll probably get with her tomorrow and Sweetie will cook our Christmas Dinner then.

So today is a day of shoveling snow and rest. My neighbor Mark came over and lent a hand shoveling my driveway after he did his. What a guy! Great timing. My tired was beginning to show.

I think everybody was pretty happy with the gifts. We just want to get together with Nana.

I hope that everybody is having a great day.

I’m working when I’d rather be off and spending time with the family but hey that’s life. So I went out at lunch and took some Christmas photographs. This being the kind of year it is and everything there is not too much Christmas hustle and bustle about nor are there any large displays of Christmas decorations. So I had to hunt for them.

The only outside Christmas lights I saw were at a construction site of all places.

You have to look really, really hard.

And I found some decorated trees in office building lobbies. I’m sparing you the other photographs. They were even more blurrier than this one.

One of our downtown hotels didn’t have much in the way of Christmas trees but they have a chandelier that I just love and they had some greenery and lights to go with it.

One of my favorite spots is a former ice rink converted over to a trade room for a big energy company way back in the 1990’s. It is a very nice atrium area now with a nice fountain. Somebody dropped off a couple of poinsettias to make it Christmassy.

I took my tour and I feel better about the whole deal now. I’ll have tomorrow off.

I hope that you are having a great Christmas season.