Holiday Cheer: Letters to Santa

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to tag along with my brother's family as they took their kids to the City of Mission Viejo's annual holiday fair where Santa made an appearance, on a fire engine no less. The excitement on my darling little nephew's face was just so precious.

I don't remember any of these Santa shenanigans from my childhood because I didn't grow up believing in Santa. To me, he was just another character that came about during the Christmas season, like Rudolph, or Frosty the Snowman. I was never told specifically that Santa wasn't real (or maybe I was? I don't remember) nor was I told that he was. If I am not wrong, this was a conscious decision on the part of Mama T.

When I tell some people this, they feel sad for me, thinking that I missed out on some kind of magical tradition, or right of passage that every child goes through. On the contrary, I don't feel like I missed out on anything. I mean I still grew up loving Christmas and I still enjoyed the magic of the season... just maybe in a more adult realistic way I guess.

But then again, one could counter-argue and say you don't know what you've missed.

Either way, whether you still believe in Santa, used to believe in Santa or never believed in him, you can still get in the holiday mood by writing your letter to Jolly Ole St. Nicholas- real or imagined.

Download these free templates from Martha Steward and get cracking on your wish list and mail it to the North Pole... or leave it lying around for one of his "helpers" to find! ;)

Letter to Santa from a Boy 
Letter to Santa from a Girl
Letter to Santa from an Adult 

Thanksgiving Printables

With Thanksgiving a little more than a week away, don't we all have things to be THANKFUL for?

Back in college, my coach would randomly pull out her "10 things I'm thankful for" notepad and pass it around. She would have our team fill them out individually and then we would share one item on our list with everyone. I always found I was thankful for things like "Wednesday morning off from practice." You can see my priorities were a little different back then.

Either way, taking the time out of our busy collegiate athletes schedules to be mindful of what we were thankful for always proved invaluable (and it got us out of 15 minutes of practice :D). Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to do the same and why not do it in style.

The good folks over at Silverbox Creative Studio created these beautiful Thanksgiving printables that can be downloaded and cut into strips. Strips can not only be used to jot down what we are thankful for, but can also be used as napkin rings, tags for branches of trees or even a thanksgiving paper chain.

Enjoy and Happy Wednesday!

Valentine's Day Crossword Puzzle

With Chinese New Year, Beat SC week and Valentines Day all coinciding on the same weekend, I have been entirely showing favoritism toward the first two festivities and completely ignoring v-day (my excuse is that I am currently a party of one). However, when a PR company sent some conversation hearts to my office today, it got me in the mood and I though I would share the love.

Here is a fun and creative Valentine's Day gift idea that is cheap (free) yet personal. Visit Puzzlemaker and create a customized crossword puzzle that incorporates words and clues from your relationship. For example, 5 across: Where did we first meet? Answer: College.

Coming up with the words and clues to create this crossword puzzle is half the fun, re-living them with your partner is simply icing on the cake! Enjoy!