'Twas the Day After Christmas ....

And all through the house, was playing free music ... OH YEAH! I got 50 free songs today by a stroke of pure luck. Go get yours while the downloads are still available. The first 20 are from a sampler from iTunes made in collaboration with Starbucks, which allows users to download 20 songs for free. To download your free iTunes Starbucks Sampler go here. The offer expires 1/31/10. Just follow the directions and they'll drop right into your iTunes library.Once that finishes, click the blue box that says More Free on iTunes and you can still download the iTunes Fall 2009 Sampler ... 20 more songs! This will expire 12/31/09. The Holiday Sampler is no longer available, but there are a few other singles up for grabs on the iTunes Store homepage as well.

After you're finished snagging your new music there ... head on over to SPIN to download the 10 sons on their 2010 A Look Ahead album.Merry Christmas to me! Merry Christmas to you! Enjoy!

Merry Christmas To All

Wherever you are and whoever you're with, have a wonderful Christmas!
This is a time of remembrance and love.

Remember Him.

Love each other.

Fantastic Santa Incentive!

If you haven't been to the Portable North Pole yet, it's time you did my friend. This is the most realistic, personalized, Santa-knows-who-you-are video I've ever seen. You can make your video for a child, teen or adult. For the older kids you can even say if their naughty or nice. You can see the video I set up for my daughter here. It's a riot! How great for little kids too, to see that Santa is out there and knows personal things about them. This actor fits the part perfectly too. The costume, voice ... you name it. They really nailed it. Go make one for someone you care about now: hubby, mother, boyfriend, daughter, cousin, lots of choices here.

The Sock Partay!

Holy hoopla, this has been a busy couple of weeks. Just about every extra minute was spent either making gifts, or shuttling kids out to get their shopping done. And now ... we are kid-free. Weird. We flip holidays with the other parents so this is our 'off' year for Christmas. It's quiet. Weird. But before the children abandoned us we were able to squeeze in some good holiday memories.

Sunday night we went to check out Christmas Utah (aka the Clark Griswold of SLC). It was a riot as always. I can't imagine how long it must take to get all of those lights set up, not to mention choreographing the music and light show to go with it. The kids love it though and it really is amazing to watch the lights dance.Monday was the infamous "Sock Party" at hubby's folks' house. This is always the Monday before Christmas and the whole family comes for dinner, presents and sock stuffing. It's such a fun tradition for everyone. It's a chance for us to all get together and visit and give everyone a little something in their stocking. After dinner we set a big PVC frame over the dining room table and all the families hang their stockings up. Then we get to go around and put little goodies in them. At the end of the shindig, the families scoop up their socks and take them home to check out the loot. The kids are so cute about it. This is one tradition I will definitely carry on with our own family down the road.

Gift Tags Galore!

So apparently my patience level has bottomed out since we're just nine days from Christmas. Instead of going to buy new ink for my printers, I threw a few more designs together and just emailed the file in to Office Max for them to print. They turned out great! The nice bright colors make all the difference. Of course, the photo really doesn't do them justice, these gray days are horrible for lighting.But this time, I've included the file for you. You can download all the tags here. Just print them on white cardstock so they're nice and sturdy. Merry Christmas!