Seriously y’all, I think I need an intervention. Maybe it’s the weather? Or it could be pure procrastination in its purest form, but I have accomplished next to nothing as far as the holidays are concerned.

But, whether or not I am aboard the Polar Express the train to Christmastown keeps moving!
I’ll get on board eventually (probably somewhere around the second to last stop!) but in the meantime, here are some Christmasy things for you that will hopefully get you (and me!) in the Christmas spirit!

Blaise Alexander Christmas Coloring Contest!

The coloring contest is in full swing! We have entries coming in left and right, and our elves are hard at work. If you haven’t heard, I brought in elves, straight for the North Pole to help me out. They are helping judge the entries, along with keeping them sorted by age group and compiling the list of names to be published the week of Christmas!

I mentioned last week that little Honeycomb Icicletree has a serious issue with those Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes. It’s getting a little out of control around here. I keep finding the little wrappers everywhere and having those little cakes around all the time isn’t doing great things for my waistline either! I’m not much for running, but I’m getting a bit of a workout trying to wrangle in these elves. Turns out, Honeycomb, Frangelico, Mincepie, and Hazelnut are a bit like toddlers. They seem to have endless energy, but for some reason are also sticky all the time? It’s all very strange, and I am probably going to need a vacation after we send them home!

My point of all this, is that there is still plenty of time to get your entries for the Coloring Contest in! We have LOTS of great prizes from Flyworld, English Model Railroad, Elery Nau, Hooplas, Treasure Castle Playland, Harder Sporting Goods, Digiplex, Dairy Queen, Gustonian Gifts and Faxon Bowling! If you need another copy of the contest, check out our Facebook page. It is pinned to the top of the page so you can download and print it out if you need to! You can drop them off in the office or mail them to:
Blaise Alexander Chrismas Coloring Contest
c/o Webb Weekly
280 Kane St., S. Williamsport, PA 17702

Every year around this time I share a Facebook post that I stumbled upon a couple of years ago that says, “Just a reminder to all the parents out there to be modest with your gifts from ‘Santa’. Not all parents have a ton of cash to spend on making their kids’ Christmas special, so it doesn’t make sense to have Santa give your kid a PlayStation4, a bike and an iPad, while his best friend at school gets a new hat and mittens from Santa. Give them something small from Santa and make the more expensive presents from you. You can explain the value of money to kids, but you can’t explain Santa’s discrimination to a heartbroken kid.”

I again think this bears sharing and repeating.

I don’t have kids, but I think this is a really important thing to share and the parents on my friends list have been 100% supportive of the idea. There have been several over the years that were already doing this and several other who said that they were going to start.

Listen, if you are willing and able to give your child an iPad, diamond encrusted Beats and a Beamer for Christmas, by all means do so! However, make sure they understand those gifts are from you. Let Santa bring new PJs or books. Don’t let some other child think that Santa loves them less, or worse yet, that they were somehow ‘bad’ and less deserving than little Joey up the street. Being a kid in today’s world is hard enough without adding to it.