Ding, Fries Are Done

Last full week of work before Christmas week! Woohoo!

I have been doing lots of things to get in the Christmas spirit. I sort of have a Christmas checklist. It's malleable and I'm always open to adding more traditions. Here is a sampling of what I have done so far!

Over the weekend I made homemade marshmallows for the first time. This is something I've wanted to try for a long time. I ended up sharing and eating so many of them, I made a second batch right away!

Put them in hot chocolate, and you will never be sad again. Until you run out. Then you'll be sad. But you can make more so it's temporary.

Here is the recipe! 

I've also been making countless Christmas cookies. I love making and giving away (while taste testing, of course) cookies for the holidays!

You know that Christmas song, "It's the most wonderful time of the year"? Well, it has that line: 

There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago

This year I decided to take that to heart and I got together with my scary-movie-buddy to watch one. We watched the movie "Mama" which came out earlier this year. The premise of the movie is that at the very beginning, a man kills his wife then takes his two young daughters to a remote cabin to kill them too (no idea why). He gets stopped from killing them though by an unseen force (a ghost) who then raises the girls for 5 years. Her name? Mama. And she's a ghost. When the girls are found and given to their uncle and his girlfriend, Mama comes too. And she doesn't want anyone else to raise the girls except her.

Sounds like a good, spooky premise right? Well, it was disappointing. It started out scary but got more and more dumb as it went.

But still, I did see a "scary ghost story," so I can check that off.

Other than that one scary movie, I have watched a lot of traditional Christmas movies too, such as: Elf, The Grinch (Jim Carrey version), Mickey's Christmas Carol, Charlie Brown Christmas, Christmas Vacation, and others.

I have finished my Christmas shopping. Jealous? I'm pretty impressed with myself. In fact, I've been done for about a week. This is a record for me I think!

Things I still have to do:

Wrap presents! Rebecca from the blog "Older and Wisor" is the best wrapper around! Almost as good as Eminem. Check out her blog for creative ways to gift wrap! Here's my favorite example of her wrapping skillz:

Watch the serious Christmas movies like "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Carol," (the George C. Scott version - my favorite). I love "A Christmas Carol" but "It's a Wonderful Life" feels more like an assignment. I have to watch it every Christmas but it's hard. Especially when Uncle  Billy loses the money and George Bailey yells at him - my heart can't handle that part. It's aching just thinking about it. I do like the movie, it's just hard to watch at times. I don't want to talk about the part when the pharmacist slaps George because of the sad phone call he receives. Or the alternate reality where the pharmacist gets kicked out of Martini's and everyone laughs at him. Uuuuuggghhhh. So sad!

What do you still have to do? What are some things you HAVE to do every year or it doesn't feel like Christmas?