Christmas at Petsmart

Ever since moving, we have fallen into a standard list of places that we like visit when we have nothing else to do. One of those places is Petsmart. You get to see cute dogs, birds, and cats all under one roof without feeling sad about puppy mills. What's not to love?

One of the things I never noticed until recently was that the store appears to have a working relationship with two icons of Americana. That's right.

 Martha Stewart

 Brett Michaels

It's literally almost like the people at Petsmart put a bunch of celebrities into a goldfish bowl (they have plenty on hand, you know) and drew out two. What perfection though. They have Martha to appeal to Suzie HomeMaker (who, by the way, has a family composed of only dogs/cats so she really has to work hard at this home making thing) and Brett to appeal to people who want their dogs to join biker gangs. Check out those intimidating dogs he's petting.

Let me show you my favorite pieces from their Christmas collections:

Martha's holiday picks. They are really delightful looking, actually. Just what you might expect from Martha Stewart. I actually won't taint her image by mocking any of these items... well, except, to point out my favorite one.

A Katsack! If you have never seen one of these before, they are most famous for Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs/Ford pushing Mike Rowe) making fun of them during his 90s QVC days.

This crinkle sock, as Martha calls it, serves the same purpose and function. I have a video of myself crinkling it that I shall add later. I mean, you need to know how well it works before you rush over to petsmart.com to order it, right?

The Brett Michaels collection is incredibly bizarre and leaves much more room for commentary.

I am saddened by how blurry this image turned out. Good thing I have some choice close ups!

Here we have the collection's name sake, Brett Michaels, in all his Christmas glory. If you ever wanted to watch your dog tear this man apart, this is the toy for you. If only Martha had designed a similar Martha chew toy! I am a little concerned about the safety of having that long fake hair on the toy. Here's my prediction: recalled before Christmas. Pets have enough trouble choking on their own hair! In other news,  you can also see his delightful logo designed for this collection -- a skull with a Santa hat. Nothing screams Christmas like dead bodies.

This is a gingerbread man toy with nipple rings. Not since Christmas with the Kranks has Christmas been so heavily disrespected. Who dreamed this up? I can't even imagine the thought process. "Let's make a really edgy gingerbread man. Jeans, check. Bracelet, check. Black and red Santa scarf and hat, check... It's just not enough. I want this to be PG-13. What about nipple rings? Don't invite the kids over this Christmas!"

And the winner for weirdest item in the bunch is a costume designed for the person that wants his/her dog to wear Christmas lingerie. I really wish I could find a picture of a dog wearing this. Maybe I can get the boy to do a mock-up sketch. See thru skirt? Not a classy Christmas choice.


That's all for now..

Til next time, Christmas cats and kittens...

42 days til Christmas!

Let's give this the old college try...

So this is going to be my first Christmas season away from home. Don't get me wrong, I have lived separate from my family for years now, but this time I am 5 hours away. That's about two Lifetime Holiday made for TV movies. I think this year more than ever it is important for me to share my Christmas online in as many forms as possible. So I type this on my swanky iPad and am listening to good holiday tunes on Pandora radio... And I type it with ambitious hopes of creating something that lessens the distance between my heart and yours (even if that distance is as far away as Iowa).

I wanted to hold off on decorating this year, but then we bought a new bookshelf. This is a tall type bookshelf that actually had to be anchored into the wall.... And it left an odd strap in view. (Full disclosure, I am pretty sure that it is not anchored correctly). We needed something to cover that strap, and what would be better than a tiny Christmas tree?

Isn't it beautiful?

I think my favorite thing about this picture is how violently bright the little tree looks. In fact, you may not know that is a tree up there if I didn't tell you. I think the light reflecting off of the ceiling really adds to the effect. It's Christmas time, guys. Get your jolly on.

Scrooges might say.... It is too early to celebrate Christmas. What happened to Thanksgiving? 

Well, those people are missing the beauty of it. We can have it all. This is America, after all. We can eat turkey and wear Santa hats and exchange reasons to be thankful.

Day 9 of November and I am thankful for:

1. I hate to brag so much, but I really am working at the perfect school for me.

2. My family and friends are amazing. I get to see them all soon!!

3. I have my love!

4. I have a new, beautiful car. Living the dream!

Til next time, my elves and she-elves.

45 (short) days til Christmas!!!

It's that time of year...

when the world falls in love.

I am going to try to fall back in love with blogging about Christmas. Hopefully this will come to fruition later tonight.

But until then,

Keep in mind..

Only
11
days
til
CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS 20ELEVENTEEN

Hey guys! It's time to get jolly up in this thing.

So we've thoroughly and when I say thoroughly I mean we have THOROUGHLY decked the halls at Walmart already.(This post was originally drafted in early November, when it was a wonder for us to be decked out) I am told that Christmas music was playing. Children can already take pictures with Santa in the portrait studio.

I helped unload one of our trucks tonight. Let me tell you, that is not a jolly experience. It was nothing like hot chocolate or Christmas music or putting lights on a tree. It might have been like waking up to find the Grinch had taken all of your stuff. Okay. Wait. The Whos still sing. Well... it just wasn't nice guys.

Let's take a moment to reflect on how weird the Whos look. Here's Cindy Lou.

Case closed.

Here's the case I am meaning to talk about:


I came across this big box of joy as we were unloading the truck. I want to go right out and say that I love everything about seasonally appropriate clothing for dogs. I heart it.

The things is.. I'll be a Christmas ham if there is anything in this box that represents any holiday other than Christmas.


You know what guys? After I wrote this, we put these out. And they are all green and red and white and have Santa and Christmas trees and more on them. That's not the best sentence I've ever written, but I think it does the job. If I were a good writer, I would add in a syllable rhythm to where it sounds like "It came without ribbons, it came without tags, it came without.." So on and so forth. But here's the thing(s): I am not that talented -AND- these things came with ribbons and tags and Christmas themed things. The Woo's would be singing in celebration of these holiday Christmas vestments.

There is no other holiday that these could be associated with, so why not call them Christmas clothes? I understand the whole idea of being inclusive. I get it and I respect it. I just don't understand the need to call a Christmas tree a holiday tree. No one is putting it up and thinking, "This is a perfect representation of my personal Non-Christmas holiday." Want to know why? Because people have decorations they buy for their own holidays. There are Chanukah Menorahs and I am sure Kwanza has something. I would google it, but if I lose my momentum now I'll never finish it.

The point is -- call things what they are. Pine trees with ornaments, tinsel, angels, Santa, and Baby Jesus are Christmas trees. FACT. Confirmed. Pet clothing that makes my little fat Boston terrier look like a jolly Santa Claus are Christmas pet clothing. I wonder why they don't opt for real inclusive items instead of slapping "Holiday" on the box and calling it done. If there is some way for some who celebrates Chanukah to represent that with cute pet clothing, I think that needs to happen! I genuinely hope that everyone out there enjoys whatever holiday they celebrate, and I don't want to diminish that with all of this ranting. I just think that when something clearly goes with a holiday, use the holiday name for it! This isn't a rant over "Happy holidays," which I think is a perfectly acceptable phrase.

This is not Lugs, but it could be.

JUST A THOUGHT.

Today's Official Christmas Jam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IippcraBPKA
"By the time we got to Oslo, snow was gone and we got lost. The beds were small, but we felt so young. It was just like Christmas"
When I think of Christmas as a child, I remember hiding in a bedroom with my brother waiting for our parents to go to sleep. We would talk all night almost, because were too excited to sleep. A couple of years ago, I spent the night at my Dad's for Christmas and we slept in a room with twin beds. We discussed our favorite Christmas episodes of Nicktoons. It was just like Christmas.

Today's Christmas Tip:
Try to put some thought into your gifts. That isn't to say--spend a lot of money. Not at all. Just make sure when you buy someone a gift it actually makes sense as a gift to that person. It's not out of the gift closet and could have gone to Mary-Sue but she already has a gift so I guess I'll give it to Patricia.

AND IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING
24 Days til Christmas!

Hey there, followers!

All six of you (one of which is me --- actually, turns out, two of which are Tasha).

It's only 120 days til Christmas. I am going to try to keep up a blogging schedule starting sometime.

I hope that I can be able to keep up with this blog, because (as silly as it is) thinking about Christmas really does make me happy! I hope it makes you happy too. It makes me laugh to go through and read where I am always saying that I am going to be updating my blog on such-an-such day about x-topic. Then it never rolls around.. Well, hopefully - not this year!

I just wanted Home Alone 2 this week, because it was on tv. Obviously, I am not the only one December dreaming in August. Here's the thing though - it had been a while since I have seen the Home Alone movies and I am finding myself out of my mind exhausted lately. So I ask - - What do these guys have against Kevin anyway? Did he just run into them on the streets of New York? Spoiler Alert Guys - they're the ones who attempted robbery on his house the previous movie.

Oops.

Well - here's to sugarplum dreams and sugar cookies shaped like trees.

120 Days til
CHRISTMAS

Oops.

I took a long winter's nap and forgot about my blog.

Rest assured that my rest is over. I'll try to have quality material every day til Christmas!

Til then, please enjoy X-Entertainment's 2010 Christmas Season. It really is the best Christmas blog on Internet.

Update coming tonight! If I can make it through the icey streets of Knoxville back home from work. If I am stuck at Walmart, I'll update on location, ha!

I hope you're all having a HO-HO-Holly Jolly Christmas Season!

8 days til Christmas!

Today's Christmas Jam:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjYUzpdKMZs

Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone singing Baby It's Cold Outside. If you can get over the age gap that seems to be between the two, it's one of the most lovely versions of the song. Zooey's voice is something heavenly.

Christmas Tip comes tonight!

Living with a Non-Live Tree

I have always been a big fan of live Christmas trees. Ever since I was a tot, there has been nothing but needle dropping, pine smelling trees in my house during the Holiday season (and often a bit beyond). If you are a follower of my blog, you will remember that last year I inquired the fire marshall to find out if I could have a live tree in my apartment if it was still "in-the-ball." Apparently that is the only way you are allowed to have a tree in an apartment .... otherwise you are putting lives at risk if your tree dries out and sets on fire. But honestly, I am a Christmas expert. My trees do not go unmaintained and unloved. They don't want for water or safety. That's why.. last year... I might have broken a rule or two.

However, this year.. the boy and I decided to "downgrade" to a fake tree (because he has this concern about being evicted or killing people with our tree, I mean, how ridiculous is that?). But the trouble with that had been that no fake tree could satisfy my standards. We had looked at Target and a couple of other places... but then on a late night trip to Walmart to purchase items to bake cupcakes, I wandered back into the Christmas section - drawn by its bright lights and blaring jolly music. I perused the trees, finding nothing but the averagely fake tree... then, I came across this: Box W.

It may be a bit on the thin side, but it has something that really caught my eye and made it twinkle.... LIFELIKE NEEDLES. Not those ones that look like little pieces of green paper, or those oddly long ones. These had attention to detail on every branch.

The experience of putting the lights the tree has been pretty standard, although I had to use a lot more colored lights than usual to try to offset how many white lights are built into the thing. I also had to painstakingly go through and spread out every branch.. only to every day find more to spread out. But overall, it makes me feel as magical as a real tree would and its:

1. Cheaper in the long run
2. More environmentally friendly
3. Less cleanup

However, I will be getting real trees again if I ever have a house instead of an apartment.

Here's the tree basically "right out of the box" after being set up vs "spreading the branches" and adding lights + an awesome topper.




I think it has actually turned out pretty beautiful! I am more impressed with it the more I look at it.








34 days til Christmas!

Today's Official Christmas Jam:
The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song

Today's Christmas Tip:
Don't look down on a fake tree. It doesn't make you a holiday sellout. They can be just as pretty as the real thing... but I suggest everyone experience a real tree once in their life. Some of my favorite holiday memories are going out with my parents to go get a tree from one our local nurseries (and I still get to go this year with them for theirs!). My dad gets as serious about them as the dad in A Christmas Story. Come to think... if that movie were made now, I would think they based the character on my dad.