Debt Dumpers - 2019

[DisneyMandC]

Good and bad for us too...the good is less than 3 weeks til DL, but the bad is that we need to let my husband's horse go before then
He's such a good old boy, but has gone downhill very fast and we can't put him through the winter...

So sorry, I know how tough that is.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Finishing up at a conference in DC today. I managed to eat pretty cheap while I was here and the conference provided breakfast both days and lunch today, which was really nice. Only spent a little over $30 in food for my other two dinners and one lunch, so I'm coming home with about $140 from my per diem! I will still get reimbursed for my mileage too, which will be about another $60.

Our horse show budget is still totally busted from DH's last minute show in October, but I am slowly working to rebuild it and pay our trainer's bills. We won't have any more horse shows until March, so no more expenses to go in for a while.

We've done a really good job about not eating out so far this month, so I'm trying to keep that up. Should be easy with Thanksgiving coming up and a lot of leftovers.

 

[barkley]

Should be easy with Thanksgiving coming up and a lot of leftovers.

i was planning on doing a much smaller thanksgiving meal since we leave that sunday for universal but when i went to the grocery store there was no way i was going to pay close to $1 a pound more to get a smaller turkey so i ended up getting a 16 pounder (still smaller than i normally do) and will plan on having turkey in the freezer for sandwiches after we get back.

 

[DisneyMandC]

i was planning on doing a much smaller thanksgiving meal since we leave that sunday for universal but when i went to the grocery store there was no way i was going to pay close to $1 a pound more to get a smaller turkey so i ended up getting a 16 pounder (still smaller than i normally do) and will plan on having turkey in the freezer for sandwiches after we get back.

I haven't bought our turkey yet, but was surprised to see that turkey breasts were $2.99 per pound whereas the whole turkeys were .39 per pound. I guess I've just never paid attention to the price of the turkey breasts since we're always cooking for a bunch of people.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Not a lot to report from here. Still swimming toward paying off our cruise at 0% and staying on task with that. I've decided that instead of just paying it down each week with my snowball funds, I'm going to put that money in my Ally savings until the expiration of the 0% BT offer which is July. Why give them $ in Dec when I've already paid the 2% fee? Paying it back super early only helps them, not me. Ally isn't the greatest rate out there but at least it's something to recover some of the fees paid. In late June I'll just plunk it all down as payment so there's no additional interest charged. Maybe I'll look for some where else that earns a higher interest rate.

I'm almost done Christmas shopping. Just need to get something for my nieces, great-nephews, and dh. Plus a few more things for our kids. I found an HP desktop computer for my dad for just $259. It's no powerhouse but it's light years ahead of the old POS he has now. It will more than cover his needs of reading email and watching youtube videos.

I'm still on the fence about doing the Panama Canal cruise that we booked onboard our last cruise. I change my mind every other week. Next year will be our 25th wedding anniversary so we feel like we should do something special but the cruise is 4 months after our actual anniversary. Part of me feels like it's time to get more serious in saving more, spending less, and paying off the mortgage. Just having that gone from our lives would be a massive lifestyle change, such a huge weight lifted from us.

To all of you with upcoming Disney trips, have a magical time!
Hugs to everyone grieving over a loss.

 

[FQLover]

For those of you who are staying home for the holidays (or are traveling to see family vs. going to WDW or other vacation destination), where do you choose to splurge financially, where do you choose to cut corners or do without, and where do you still "go for it" but try to be frugal?

Do you put money in a Christmas fund or savings account all year? I enjoy hearing about what people value most for their families in this upcoming season and, therefore, make their choices about splurging, economizing etc. based on those values. Do you set a total money figure and all gifts, travel, meals, pet boarding, decorating, cards, special clothing, etc. must come in under that amount?

For me, this is the first year I have funded a special account in my Cap One 360 savings account just for Christmas. It is at $900 right now, and that will suffice for our needs this year. I am not traveling but in hopes of enticing my sister from many states away to come, myself and another sister are offering to split the cost of a spacious AirbnB house for her and her daughter and some other folks in our family to sleep at. We did this last year because my home can't sleep everyone.

Because I didn't help pay for that last year, I bought two big catered meals for everyone over the 3-4 days they were here. I board our dog at New Years when we do travel one state over to hang with friends for 2-3 days.

I have cut down on the huge amount of gift exchanges I did with friend groups for years and years and now just exchange with family members, other than a couple of grab bag exchanges.
I enjoy shopping for my family but always try to hit a sale and have coupons. I did great last week with layering a 15% code with a $10 off of $25 code at Kohl's Veteran day sale which I heard about here on the BB. Yay! I did not pay for delivery but drove the 25 minutes to Kohl's twice to get the many orders. Good savings there. I am not done but I did get a lot bought and it is all picked up now. I hit up Old Navy and BBW a bit with that Veterans Day sale, as well.

I already have a lot of home decorations and wintry candles, so have not been buying any new ones for the last few years. I finally accepted that I mean well with Christmas cards, but I never get them out, so I don't even attempt them anymore. My job is super busy right through the end of December 23rd this year, so I just accept that I can't do everything. And I have never been one to buy new clothes for me, or my daughter since she was an adolescent and no longer into that. When she was little I would get her a new Christmas dress every year for photos, Christmas concerts, church, etc. Loved that!

How about you guys? What do you value and pay for willingly? What do you economize on, and what do you just let fall by the wayside? What are your favorite free, or nearly free, holiday activities, rituals, traditions that you like to do with your family?

And this is related to the debt-dumping board, for me, because everything must be paid for from my savings or my regular monthly budget--but not charged and paid for later on. You may do things differently, though--because some particular thing matters very much and is worth short term debt. I am not judging, for sure.

 

[barkley]

For those of you who are staying home for the holidays (or are traveling to see family vs. going to WDW or other vacation destination), where do you choose to splurge financially, where do you choose to cut corners or do without, and where do you still "go for it" but try to be frugal?

Do you put money in a Christmas fund or savings account all year? I enjoy hearing about what people value most for their families in this upcoming season and, therefore, make their choices about splurging, economizing etc. based on those values. Do you set a total money figure and all gifts, travel, meals, pet boarding, decorating, cards, special clothing, etc. must come in under that amount?

For me, this is the first year I have funded a special account in my Cap One 360 savings account just for Christmas. It is at $900 right now, and that will suffice for our needs this year. I am not traveling but in hopes of enticing my sister from many states away to come, myself and another sister are offering to split the cost of a spacious AirbnB house for her and her daughter and some other folks in our family to sleep at. We did this last year because my home can't sleep everyone.

Because I didn't help pay for that last year, I bought two big catered meals for everyone over the 3-4 days they were here. I board our dog at New Years when we do travel one state over to hang with friends for 2-3 days.

I have cut down on the huge amount of gift exchanges I did with friend groups for years and years and now just exchange with family members, other than a couple of grab bag exchanges.
I enjoy shopping for my family but always try to hit a sale and have coupons. I did great last week with layering a 15% code with a $10 off of $25 code at Kohl's Veteran day sale which I heard about here on the BB. Yay! I did not pay for delivery but drove the 25 minutes to Kohl's twice to get the many orders. Good savings there. I am not done but I did get a lot bought and it is all picked up now. I hit up Old Navy and BBW a bit with that Veterans Day sale, as well.

I already have a lot of home decorations and wintry candles, so have not been buying any new ones for the last few years. I finally accepted that I mean well with Christmas cards, but I never get them out, so I don't even attempt them anymore. My job is super busy right through the end of December 23rd this year, so I just accept that I can't do everything. And I have never been one to buy new clothes for me, or my daughter since she was an adolescent and no longer into that. When she was little I would get her a new Christmas dress every year for photos, Christmas concerts, church, etc. Loved that!

How about you guys? What do you value and pay for willingly? What do you economize on, and what do you just let fall by the wayside? What are your favorite free, or nearly free, holiday activities, rituals, traditions that you like to do with your family?

And this is related to the debt-dumping board, for me, because everything must be paid for from my savings or my regular monthly budget--but not charged and paid for later on. You may do things differently, though--because some particular thing matters very much and is worth short term debt. I am not judging, for sure.

we are doing a big trip in 2 weeks (big for us-we don't do disney or other destinations near as much now that the 'kids' are adults, got out of the habit when they were in high school and it was less easy to get away for a couple of weeks in the winter which is the only time we do orlando or other hot/humid destinations). big trip aside, we will still celebrate christmas the same as always.

-i have done my own version of a christmas club account for years by auto transferring 1/12th of my gift budget each month from checking to a savings account (it's in my monthly budget),

-food budget doesn't increase much b/c i tend to make food in november that creates leftovers i freeze to pull out in december like meatloaf, enchilada meat, pot roast, soup (habit i got into when kids were small, both of us worked and we had to deal with holiday school concerts and such). that reduces what i normally spend so splurging on a honey baked ham and a nice roast doesn't have an impact (though we end up with leftovers that we will pull out in the following months-esp. ham which i buy a larger one on so i have it for soup/beans/breakfast nights). i do splurge on some holiday goodies i can only buy at this time of year but they come in very stale resistant containers so i stock up for us to eat months on end (so i end up buying less of the snacky stuff for months which offsets the cost),

-decorations, nothing new needed we reuse the same stuff year in and out (sentimental that way),

-no special clothes except the traditional new pair of pj's gifted on christmas eve (part of the gift budget),

-we did allot more of going to see/do stuff when the kids were little. we (dh and i) will likely go to our downtown area to see the decorations but i think we will get our fill of holiday entertainment at universal this year,

-no travel (other than vacation) but that's been the norm for us since our kids were born. we told the grands that we wanted our kids to spend christmas at home and if they wanted to be there when the gifts were opened they were free to be there. we always hosted the holiday dinners back then (watched the sales religiously to meal plan around/get the best deals). for many years since the grands passed it's been just the 4 of us since we only have 1 surviving close family member who i feel is right to stay home with his wife and menagerie of animals (it takes a spectacular person and an act of god for them to go anywhere together for more than one night due to the number/variety of animals they have).

-

 

[FQLover]

@barkley Thanks for sharing your holiday routines and spending habits. Sounds like a delicious, homey time with the four of you now!

 

[StacyStrong]

I splurge on gifts. I love giving Christmas gifts. I will have $1200 in my gift fund, but my gift list looks to be closer to $1300 when I include everyone........oops. Hoping sales make up that extra $100.

I earmark money for Christmas every month so it's already "paid for" in a sense. I don't include it with my regular savings or balances.

My parents still host Christmas so I don't need to pay for anything on that front - they wouldn't accept my help anyway.

 

[jen7233]

For those of you who are staying home for the holidays (or are traveling to see family vs. going to WDW or other vacation destination), where do you choose to splurge financially, where do you choose to cut corners or do without, and where do you still "go for it" but try to be frugal?

Do you put money in a Christmas fund or savings account all year? I enjoy hearing about what people value most for their families in this upcoming season and, therefore, make their choices about splurging, economizing etc. based on those values. Do you set a total money figure and all gifts, travel, meals, pet boarding, decorating, cards, special clothing, etc. must come in under that amount?

Staying home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Going to do New Year's Eve at a hotel with events for kids. That expense and presents are the bulk of holiday expenses. I am trying to limit decorations to under $200 this year, wanting to get new LED light sets that run the length of the house exterior, we just have a bad mismatched mix of different light set types and short on extension, and also get a few Hallmark ornaments. I'd like to get more outdoor decorations, but I'll wait until another year for that so I suppose frugal on decorations, although technically we don't need lights either, we can always put up the mismatched mix again.

Yes, I budget in a separate fund money for Christmas from Jan-Nov, tried to go a little over this year in saving because what I think sounds the right amount earlier in the year, may not be what actual expenses are come the end of the season. Extra will go towards New Year's Eve, anyway, so there really won't be an extra because I'm sure it'll be spent.

We have some free/smaller expense things we do just like I'm sure many do, like I'll make Christmas cookies this year to decorate, go see holiday lights, etc.

 

[crazycatstacy]

For those of you who are staying home for the holidays (or are traveling to see family vs. going to WDW or other vacation destination), where do you choose to splurge financially, where do you choose to cut corners or do without, and where do you still "go for it" but try to be frugal?

Do you put money in a Christmas fund or savings account all year? I enjoy hearing about what people value most for their families in this upcoming season and, therefore, make their choices about splurging, economizing etc. based on those values. Do you set a total money figure and all gifts, travel, meals, pet boarding, decorating, cards, special clothing, etc. must come in under that amount?

For me, this is the first year I have funded a special account in my Cap One 360 savings account just for Christmas. It is at $900 right now, and that will suffice for our needs this year. I am not traveling but in hopes of enticing my sister from many states away to come, myself and another sister are offering to split the cost of a spacious AirbnB house for her and her daughter and some other folks in our family to sleep at. We did this last year because my home can't sleep everyone.

Because I didn't help pay for that last year, I bought two big catered meals for everyone over the 3-4 days they were here. I board our dog at New Years when we do travel one state over to hang with friends for 2-3 days.

I have cut down on the huge amount of gift exchanges I did with friend groups for years and years and now just exchange with family members, other than a couple of grab bag exchanges.
I enjoy shopping for my family but always try to hit a sale and have coupons. I did great last week with layering a 15% code with a $10 off of $25 code at Kohl's Veteran day sale which I heard about here on the BB. Yay! I did not pay for delivery but drove the 25 minutes to Kohl's twice to get the many orders. Good savings there. I am not done but I did get a lot bought and it is all picked up now. I hit up Old Navy and BBW a bit with that Veterans Day sale, as well.

I already have a lot of home decorations and wintry candles, so have not been buying any new ones for the last few years. I finally accepted that I mean well with Christmas cards, but I never get them out, so I don't even attempt them anymore. My job is super busy right through the end of December 23rd this year, so I just accept that I can't do everything. And I have never been one to buy new clothes for me, or my daughter since she was an adolescent and no longer into that. When she was little I would get her a new Christmas dress every year for photos, Christmas concerts, church, etc. Loved that!

How about you guys? What do you value and pay for willingly? What do you economize on, and what do you just let fall by the wayside? What are your favorite free, or nearly free, holiday activities, rituals, traditions that you like to do with your family?

And this is related to the debt-dumping board, for me, because everything must be paid for from my savings or my regular monthly budget--but not charged and paid for later on. You may do things differently, though--because some particular thing matters very much and is worth short term debt. I am not judging, for sure.

January-November we put in $200 a month into a Christmas account. We don't have a lot of people to buy for but we like presents. this money also includes money for my Christmas baking, Black Friday shopping (I don't typically buy a lot of gifs on black Friday, it's more clothes or household things), gifts, and shipping costs.

My husband works shift work so he is not usually off the whole day on Christmas so I try to buy food/snacks that make it more special for just me to be home. I don't have a budget for decorations- we usually use the same things every year, but we do buy a real tree.

 

[FQLover]

Thanks for sharing your strategies and holiday preferences, guys. It does sound like I am last to the party in terms of having a special savings account for holiday spending. Before, I just took it out of my general savings account, but I like the idea of saving for it particularly over the preceding year. If I know that we are going to travel out west to see my sister and family, for instance, I will need to save more. We haven't done that before, but I can see that it might happen.

I am actually hoping to have a little left over this year to jump start the account for the coming year--although I include New Years in that account, too, so there is a good chance it will go down pretty much to the bottom. Dog boarding really adds up, as I pay extra for daily cuddle time while she is there. So far, I have asked but my DD18 has not told me about any large ticket item she is interested in as a gift--which is good! I spent a LOT of money this summer and fall outfitting her for starting college. She also had high school graduation gift money and treated herself to a new phone with that back in June. So, I am buying her some fun small things and then getting gift cards for some post holiday clothes shopping.

New Years at a hotel with kid activities sounds like a great time. Plus, the pool itself is always a big draw for the kids. If they have a hot tub for the adults, even better!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

We usually go to my parent's house for Thanksgiving, but we need to stay at home this year due to our frozen embryo transfer at the beginning of December. I decided that I didn't feel like cooking, so we ordered a Thanksgiving meal from Boston Market using discounted gift cards. It is a huge meal and we plan to eat leftovers the entire weekend.

In the past, my parents would have a huge Thanksgiving gathering with whoever wanted to come, including my siblings, my grandparents, sometimes aunts and uncles or cousins. It was always my favorite holiday, but in recent years fewer people have been coming. My sister works for Amazon now and Thanksgiving time is too busy for her. And my SIL just hasn't been coming with my brother either. Last year, it was just my parents, grandparents and my family. It was still fun, but I missed hanging out with my brother and having a Star Wars or LOTR movie marathon.

For the last two years, my mom and dad have come to our house sometime in December to celebrate Hanukkah with us. They will be coming again towards the end of December. I really like that as an emerging tradition. DD is now at an age where she is understanding getting gifts, so this year should be particularly fun.

I am trying to establish new traditions around the holidays. I bought a Frozen cake pan from Target (https://www.target.com/p/frozen-2-1...wflake-cake-pan-blue-nordic-ware/-/A-76485479). It is a six-pointed star as well as a snowflake and I just love it. I plan to use that to make a cake for Hanukkah each year. We always make latkes, matzo ball soup and bake cookies as well. There is a book called, "Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas" about a little girl in a mixed Jewish/Indian family like ours. It is traditional to cook oily foods on Hanukkah. Dosas are a type of crepe that you cook in oil and eat with different fillings. In the book, the Jewish/Indian family makes dosas on Hanukkah to combine both of their cultural traditions. I love that this book even exists and I plan to make dosas part of our Hanukkah tradition as well.

I have been working slowly on my decorations. I don't decorate the whole house, just the living room. It is hard to find nice Hanukkah decorations because there isn't much selection out there and lots of it is really chintzy looking. I have ordered several things custom made on Etsy because that allows me to have more control and find better quality items. I have a "holiday" fund set aside that I contribute to monthly that goes towards things like decorations and food for various holidays.

And I saw these on the Shop Disney site the other day:
https://www.shopdisney.com/mickey-and-minnie-mouse-chanukah-pouch-banner-400909813440.html?They are sold out online, but someone from Disboards purchased 2 in the parks for me yesterday. I love this community! I love the idea of having a little gift for each night of Hanukkah in addition to all of the larger gifts that DD gets. We also do stockings, which is a carryover from my mom who had Hanukkah stockings for us when we were kids.

As far as gifts, I have gift funds for each person that we buy for each year that I contribute to monthly. I used to exchange gifts with my siblings for birthdays and Hanukkah, but 2 years ago we decided to stop that. I still get something for my parents and I buy for DH as well. This year DH's big gift will be Airpod Pros. I have been shopping for DD since July when I got a bunch of stuff on Prime Day. She actually is going to be getting pretty spoiled this year. She has 2 Little People sets, a Duplo train set with 2 extra sets of tracks, another Duplo set, an art desk and a bunch of books and smaller items for her stocking.

 

[jen7233]

Thanks for sharing your strategies and holiday preferences, guys. It does sound like I am last to the party in terms of having a special savings account for holiday spending. Before, I just took it out of my general savings account, but I like the idea of saving for it particularly over the preceding year. If I know that we are going to travel out west to see my sister and family, for instance, I will need to save more. We haven't done that before, but I can see that it might happen.

I am actually hoping to have a little left over this year to jump start the account for the coming year--although I include New Years in that account, too, so there is a good chance it will go down pretty much to the bottom. Dog boarding really adds up, as I pay extra for daily cuddle time while she is there. So far, I have asked but my DD18 has not told me about any large ticket item she is interested in as a gift--which is good! I spent a LOT of money this summer and fall outfitting her for starting college. She also had high school graduation gift money and treated herself to a new phone with that back in June. So, I am buying her some fun small things and then getting gift cards for some post holiday clothes shopping.

New Years at a hotel with kid activities sounds like a great time. Plus, the pool itself is always a big draw for the kids. If they have a hot tub for the adults, even better!

I had an actual separate account before for Christmas and also separate accounts for other goal savings. This year I closed them all and just made one savings account, deposit once a month, and run an Excel spreadsheet with column for each goal. It's a funnel in/funnel out short term savings for particular things within the year or year out, for example Christmas as mentioned, car/rental insurance, vacation, memberships/registration, car repair, etc. I started saving for Christmas each year a few years ago and really like it.

 

[pblack]

So as of today, my DH will be the new route supervisor at his job. He had been a route driver. (He works for a company that does soft water tanks and systems.) We're not sure what kind of raise this will come with yet, but we should hopefully know soon. The owner emphasized it would be a nice raise for him though. Depending on the raise we are hoping to (over time): up his retirement contributions, pay off student loans, pay off the sectional, and get a new car for me.

As far as Holiday traditions in our house: Thanksgiving is always a toss up. My parents live 1.5 hours away and my in-laws live 5 mins away. My DH always has to work the day before Thanksgiving and the day after so we don't usually go up to my parents if they do something. This year we are hosting my in-laws at our place. This is the 2nd time we've hosted Thanksgiving, but the first time i'll be cooking a turkey. The first time we hosted I bought a deep fried turkey from KFC. I went grocery shopping over the weekend and spent about ~80 on Thanksgiving foods and i'll still need to grab a few things the week of.

As far as Christmas goes, I don't have a set savings account for it yet. It'll probably be one of my goals for the new year. We buy presents for: MIL, FIL, SIL, BIL, BIL, BIL, my mom, my dad, 1 set of good friends and their 2 kids, and my best friend/her husband and now our God-daughter. Starting this year we will also be buying for our new nephew due in March 2020. I think most of our family will end up with gift cards this year except for my mom and dad who get the same things pretty much every year. (Mom - white diamonds perfume, some kind of clothing, chocolate covered cherries. Dad - slippers, pajama pants, candy of some sort, might throw in a book or a gift card instead of the candy.) We don't generally get gifts for each other since we buy what we want throughout the year anyway. If I find a good deal on something for DH i'll throw it under the tree. Last year I bought us tickets to a San Jose Sharks hockey game and that was our present.

Christmas eve is usually spent with my family, generally at my brothers, but I don't know whose planning on hosting it this year. I'd love too, but our house isn't big enough for all of my family. Christmas day is usually spent with my in-laws. Last year we hosted Christmas breakfast with them and included my parents. This year we will be doing the same and i'll be using my Mickey waffle maker that was purchased more towards the beginning of the year. My DH also has to work on Christmas eve, so I generally spend the morning making cookies and watching Christmas movies. Last year I also prepped for breakfast the next day and i'll do the same this year.

Other Christmas traditions: we go to one particular craft fair every year, it's usually the first or 2nd weekend of December. We also go to a neighborhood about 40 mins away that goes all out for Christmas. We generally grab hot chocolate and wear our mickey Santa hats while we peruse the lights. We have a smaller culdesac about 20 mins away that we try to get to that's also all decorated. My co-worker has an ornament exchange party every year that I always look forward too. There's a lot of other smaller things we do that I can't think of at the moment.

My house is mostly already decorated for Christmas. The inside is decorated, including the tree, and the outside is almost complete. We still need to put up the icicle lights on the house and put out our snowmen. Every year I buy new Hallmark ornaments. This year I actually did their wish list which was amazing since I didn't have to be up super early and in line to get the ones I wanted. I'll buy other small holiday decor if I find something I like, but for the most part I think i'm set on decorations.

 

[FQLover]

I love hearing about your holiday plans, traditions, and new rituals you want to get started. Keep them coming!

@Jen and Ashwin I love that Hanukkuh banner/pouch decoration you were able to get from Disney Board friends. It is so festive and fun. Are you into candles? Yankee Candle has a wonderful Hannukka candle in a pretty deep blue color, and the scent is called "Festival of Lights." I have bought it several times over the years just because I like the fragrance so much. I love the idea of lights (tree lights, outdoor lights, candles, etc.) filling the chilly dark skies of winter. Very cool that you were able to find a book about a Jewish/Indian family that mirrors your own.

Many years ago, I was invited to a friend's Kwanzaa celebration which occurs daily for the week between Christmas and New Years. It was really neat, and I learned a lot about that holiday and its cultural importance by being there. More recently, I haven't personally known anyone who celebrates it, so I haven't gotten a repeat of that holiday invitation.

I think I mentioned that my job is going to take me all the way up to December 23 with grades due at noon. They really are due 24 hours later this year, but that would make the poor folks in the Registrar's office have to work on Christmas Day! So, we are asked to get them done a day earlier than usual. I will already have family here when I will be holed up somewhere grading. Hate that! It means that I am going to have to be much more organized and finish all wrapping, decorating, meal planning and baking earlier, rather than later this time around. Me becoming better organized is not a bad thing, though! Haha.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Yankee Candle has a wonderful Hannukka candle in a pretty deep blue color, and the scent is called "Festival of Lights." I have bought it several times over the years just because I like the fragrance so much.

That sounds lovely, but we have a bird so we don't burn candles. It isn't good for their health.

 

[FQLover]

Oh, I didn't know that about birds! I have only had dogs, and with them the only worry is to put the candles up high enough where they can't get to them or knock them over, etc.

 

[Bamaclan4]

Well this year our Christmas decorating and festivities will be anything but traditional because my oldest son will be getting married 9 days before Christmas! With a Christmas theme, much of my decorations including my trees and garland will be used, so still trying to figure out when and how much decorating I will do.

 

[FQLover]

Wow! It won't be traditional in terms of a "Christmas budget," either!

But how festive and fun with a winter, Christmas decorated wedding--and lots of family and friends already gathered around. I am sure it will be a wonderful and memorable holiday time--albeit a little tiring or challenging, right? Congrats to you and your son and his wife-to-be!