Christmas is fast approaching everyone! Well, as if you don’t know that. haha

Anyway, I am already thinking of gifts to our wedding godparents, our closest friends, and also the kiddos who are my baby’s friends. Or at least they became friends because their parents are friends. haha

But for those who are far away from us, I am thinking of making personalized postcards and sending them by November. Yup! It has to be November because there will be an influx of mails for Christmas so I would not want my mails to be delayed.

I will be making the design because I know how to make digital layouts and just have them photo printed. That way, it will not cost much and the designs are customized. I will be putting a family portrait there as well as some photos of my daughter. I am sure that our family and friends from all over the world will appreciate seeing photos of my daughter on print, not just on Facebook.

When I get back from our 5-day vacation, I will get to doing this already. Time flies so fast and before we will know it, it is already Christmastime! So I better start looking for photos to include in our personalized Christmas gift.

No, I am not talking of the “Beer” months, like the Oktobeerfest by San Miguel Beer. But I am talking about the -Ber months–September, October, Nobember, December! When the -Ber months come by, it would not be long for Christmas to come! After all, time flies so fast! September 1 is here!

Actually, last week, I could already get a whiff of the Christmas aroma. I don’t know about you, but I do smell Christmas. The air carries a different scent, like apples, presents, and whatever….but the fragrance of the air would remind me of Christmas.

Sometimes I get melancholic but I am also excited for Christmas. This year is my daughter’s second Christmas with us. Last year, she was 9 months old when Christmas came so we put up a small tree that her maternal grandmother (my nanay) bought, along with golden Christmas balls. Then we bought her several toys and wrapped them so that she had gifts to open on Christmas Day. Thankfully, a lot of people gave her gifts and so she had so many Christmas presents to open.

This year, I am planning to buy a Santa’s hat and Christmas stocking for her and the little boy who lives with us. Then we will hang up the Christmas stocking like a couple of days before Christmas day and tell her to wait for Christmas, as she will have something nice in there to see. I think we can do lots more things this year because she is already 1 year and 9 months old and can already appreciate more things around her.

So anyway, I just thought of coming up with a Christmas wish list for my small family.

For my daughter, I would like the following:

1. iPad because I like the applications for educational purposes.
2. Pink portable DVD player so that she can watch her videos without us having to sacrifice our laptops while she is having her video time. It has to be pink, because she is a girl and most of her stuff are pink. hihi
3. Money for her Manulife payment in February. Yeah, I would like to secure that budget by Christmastime.

For my husband:

1. An iPad, so that he will not be jealous if our daughter will have one.
2. 2TB hard drive
3. A house that we can call our own. It doesn’t have to be palatial. I really like this elegant two-storey that I found on the internet. OH well, this is my choice. haha

And for me:

1. A Botox injection, especially around my forehead. They say that Botox injections greatly minimizes the incidence of migraine attacks. Wow! That would be a great side effect! I don’t only get younger looking facial skin, I will not have migraine attacks. Great!
2. Diamond solitaire jewelry set–solo princess cut diamonds set in white gold. I just love diamonds! hihih
3. A baby boy! hihihi Not just another baby, but to be specific, a baby boy! I blot out the face in the picture because ours would look different. He will be specially made for us.

Well this is just a wishlist and I can certainly wish for anything, right? hihi

Again, my husband and I together with my 9-month-old baby traversed the traffic jam in order to get to the Midnight Sale of Gaisano City Bacolod. And why not? For a 20% discount on most items, we dared go.

Surprisingly, there are not that many shoppers tonight. Maybe it is because there is a repeat tomorrow night. But maybe it is also because people’s budgets are tighter this Christmas. Even those who shopped did not buy much. Even us. But at least, I was happy to get some budget house clothes or play clothes for my little one and still get them on 20% discount. We got a couple of toys, too. Educational, of course.

The grocery was not so bad either. What took me so long was the counters that I chose. The ones that I chose at the grocery and at the dry goods area encountered difficulties so I got delayed for like an hour in all.

But all in all, this was a good night for shopping. We went home around 8:45pm, satisfied and yet hungry, too. hehe

I know my blog is sooo gray. But today, I decided to add some color to it and found this nice Christmas countdown widget from widgetbox.com. I went to the site, found the widget that I liked and voila! I was the given the codes that I easily installed.

But I actually wanted a smaller widget, so I tried to make it smaller. Instead of scaling it down, it got cropped. So okay, I am placing it in its original size, 250 x 250 pixels.

Isn’t it nice? Christmas is just sooo near and I am sooo excited. After all, this is my first Christmas with my husband and daughter because she was born only this year. So 26 days to go and counting. I am done with my Christmas shopping and done with the gift wrapping.

Just waiting for Christmas to arrive.

Many people are running after the Black Friday Sale after Thanksgiving because it signals the traditional start of Christmas shopping.

But thankfully, we don’t have to get into the holiday rush because we are already like 75% done on our Christmas shopping. We have already bought gifts for our baby and the kids of our friends. At least, we only have a few more people to get gifts for this Christmas. We have saved ourselves the trouble of lining up behind long queues of people paying for their last-minute Christmas shopping needs.

Additionally, I have finished wrapping each and every item that I have bought. It may be too early, but I also have other things to do and I don’t want to be pressured doing it. I want the wrapping to be done leisurely, not on a panicky mode. And I really enjoyed doing it today. Actually, it is not too early to do something. The time will surely come when you need to do it anyway. Why wait the last minute?

We are already done shopping for Christmas presents for the children of friends and our godchildren. And most, as in 95% of the toys we bought, were all from Toys R Us. They have a wide assortment of toys for kids of all ages. They have branded toys as well as affordable ones.

Last October, they had a giant toy sale up to 70% off!!!! We really got great bargains from their store, especially educational toys for our baby. The last time we went there, which was just last week, we didn’t notice the time, but we actually stayed there for three hours! We were surprised to hear the mall’s announcement that they will be closing in 15 minutes. If not for that, we would not have noticed that we had been there a long time. We did not even get hungry with all the interesting finds there. Everytime we go to Robinsons Place, we really make sure that we pass by Toys R Us.

One more thing, it is really good to have a look around the aisles because sometimes, they have marked down prices that are really steals. Last time, we went there and got soft blocks made by Shelcore. The original price was P350 but we only got it for P100! The only thing about it was that the box was no longer shiny and had chips on the side. But who cares??? My daughter will be playing with the toys and not the box anyway. hehe

We also went to Toy Kingdom, the newly opened toy store at SM City Bacolod. But we did not enjoy what we found there. But we did see a robot that was on sale and that was the only thing that we bought.

Thankfully, we are almost done Christmas shopping. Just a few more for friends and family. But with the kids, we are done. And we are very pleased with what we got.