12 Days of Christmas

This year for Christmas, I wanted to achieve two things 1) keep it simple (and relatively inexpensive) and 2) make sure that the girls got something they really wanted. Last year was kind of a bust. Even though I try, I always kind of miss the mark with their clothes and shoes. Let's face it...I'm kind of an old lady, and while I think that I'm still hip enough to pick out cool teen clothes, I'm not. So....such that neither they nor I would be disappointed, I crafted a plan. We did a 12 Days of Christmas Christmas.

The girls on Christmas morning (before the present opening began).
The 12 days of Christmas went something like this.....all neat and packaged...and painstakingly adorned with the pictures of the 12 days of Christmas on every.single.package. I printed out pages with the "clues" to the gifts on them. Mariah read each one then they opened the presents.

This gift was a "pair" of earrings.

This one was a small box of turtles (candies) and a bag of Dove candies.

This was a $5.00 McDonald's gift card so they could get their favorite meal (chicken nuggets and french fries).

This was 4 free downloads for their cell phones. We don't let them download things, so they were kind of psyched about this one. They would have been more excited about free texting, but we don't let them do that either.

This was a $15.00 gift certificate to Claire's They love buying crap from Claire's. I did, too, when I was their age.
This one was kind of hokie. I got Easter eggs and filled them with various kinds of M&Ms. Unfortunately, I could only find 12 eggs...the ones Dean got for me last Easter and hid in my office...so I gave each of the kids 4 eggs. They LOVED the candy. In fact, the next day at church, Mariah pulled out her new make up bag from her purse and it was FILLED with M&Ms! I just laughed and laughed!

I ordered rubber duckies online (24 of them). I put 7 in a box and put a $25.00 Bath and Body Works gift card in with it. I was kind of proud of the rubber duckies idea. They all bought lip gloss from BBW.

We have a cleaning lady who comes once every other week. (We DO NOT call her a maid, though.) Earlier this year I instructed her not to clean the girls' bathroom any more because they need to learn how to keep it clean on their own. They were being 1st class slobs and would say things like, "The cleaning lady will clean it." Um......I don't think so! So, now we are on a rotation....Mariah, Elle then Dom clean it...and rotate every Saturday. This gift was $20.00 (or the approximate amount that it costs to have Karen clean their bathroom). They chose to spend the cash. No surprises there!

This was a $10.00 iTunes gift card.

The younger girls have been telling me for months that they want Vans (a brand of shoe). I have been telling them for months that they are not getting Vans from me. I got Dom and Elle $30.00 gift cards to the Vans store. Riah got $30.00 to Payless (she's not as big of a fan of Vans). This was a $100.00 gift card. It can be used at Gap, Banana Republic or Old Navy. This was the BIG surprise. They got iHomes (which are devices that you can plug your ipod into so you can hear it). The only one who has an ipod is Dominique. So, Mariah and Elle were like..."uh, thanks." Then I said to Dom, "Keep looking in the box." Hidden in the bottom were the new nano slide ipods. They were quite surprised. You can see Dom's mouth agape in this picture.

It was a very good Christmas. I was worried that the hokie gifts at the beginning were not going to be received well, but they loved their 12 Days of Christmas. They have told everyone about their presents, and Dominique told me, "It was the best Christmas ever." I'm so glad! I'm so, so glad!