First Night as HoHo

*To start, I took a seasonal job at Lights in the Parkway dressing up as the big man of the season, Santa. Sure it is something a little out of character of me lately but there is always a reason behind something and that is my prize at the end. The pay I receive is for a new HD LCD and the rest is for carpetting the house and getting it ready to sell.

So far, there was a bunch of kids and one really hot college student. No one has peed on me and only a handful of kids cried. One litterally jumped out of his mom’s hands.

The popular toys so far is a pink Nintendo DS, Wii games, and Hannah Montanna. Who knows what tonight will bring…

Almost Done Christmas Shopping

I love getting a jump on the one holiday that just begs for you to committ suicide…Christmas. So much running around for family and friends, shopping, cold weather, relentless music piping from every store and office speakers. Tis the season of giving, giving all your money away. If the stores don’t get it, watch out for the bell ringers. The last two years I  went shopping on Christmas Eve, but not this year. Granted, the last two years on Eve was not bad. There was barely a soul out there. However, I am not running into that issue again.

This year my kids are already done minus one more online order. My cousins are done. My wife is near complete. Her parents are near complete. My parents…still up in the air.

The bad part of finishing up so early (especially for my kids) is that there are so many days ahead where we can buy this item here and that one there, oh this is a good deal. Before you know it, a scaled down Christmas turns into an onslaught of toys.

As long as they get some cool toys for me to play with. Or maybe an awesome new game.

New Vacuum Sucks More Than Old One

For Christmas, we got a new bag-less vacuum in the house.  This is to replace the old one I had when I was a mere bachelor. So it must be about 10 years old or so.  So it was time for a replacement.  We have old carpet in the house that is slowly deteriorating and will be replaced this spring.

So, we run the vacuum for the  first time shortly after Christmas. It is pretty cool to see the cyclonic power inside the cannister. It wasn’t cool when we were down with just the living room and dining room. The cannister was already full. I couldn’t belief all the stuff our old vacuum was missing. Which probably explains the respiratory problems my wife and kids were having.  Since we started using it, the coughs and sneezes are minimal.

It’s nice not to buy bags anymore but we do have to empty and clean out our filth. It’s a little more labor in the end but it is worth it.