Blog — "holiday"

How do you get back into blogging after leaving your readers hanging for an entire week? By nerding it up big time and talking about cool presidents. I just can't quite help it. I teach U.S. History and get into this kind of stuff, and since I'm at home on my butt instead of teaching today I thought I'd share some silly little things about U.S. Presidents.


Bill Clinton is my favorite President from my lifetime. He may be a player, but he's a player that can reverse the national debt. And as far as smarts go, he's one of the most fascinating people to listen to talk about current day politics. I always make sure to tune in when he's got an interview somewhere on tv-- this guy still knows his stuff.


Do you know Grover Cleveland? I like this guy only because he's got a pretty neat thing to boast about. He's the only President to have had two terms that weren't back to back. That means that people must have hated him enough to give Benjamin Harrison a go, but then realized that even he wasn't as Benjamin Harrison. So they let him come back for a second term. (That's how I like to imagine it went down, but then again, I'm probably wrong.) Another interesting fact? This guy was a bachelor-- and the White House, I must say, is one pretty big bachelor pad. But not for long. He's the only President to have gotten married while in office.


How about Rutherford B. Hayes, on the grounds that he knew the beard would be in before Brett Keisel.





Without Teddy Roosevelt, we wouldn't have the National Parks we do today. So I'm pretty thankful for that considering my love for the National Parks!



And what about a shout out for James Garfield and William McKinley, the other two Presidents that were assassinated. We all know about Lincoln and JFK, but most Americans probably don't even know that these guys had a similar fate.

Happy Presidents' Day to you all! Hope you have a day off to enjoy! And P.S. don't forget to join me tomorrow for my Tuesday Music Link-up Party! The topic is favorite Grammy artists from past or present.

In Baltimore we don't light trees, we light monuments. The original Washington Monument is located in Mount Vernon park, the same place where the summer concert series First Thursday takes place. And so each year, on the first Thursday of December, the monument is lit with Christmas lights and we enjoy a display of fireworks accompanied by holiday music. Food vendors from local restaurants set up on the outskirts of the square, and various musicians from the city provide us with a pre-lighting holiday concert.


This year's event was the 40th lighting.

 

And and added bonus of lasers was part of this lighting. I have such a hard time getting into the holiday spirit in Baltimore, perhaps because cold weather and snow doesn't usually find its way here until January. But usually the monument lighting does the trick. Do you have any particular holiday traditions in your city?

One thing that I love about the upcoming holiday is wrapping gifts. A lot of people hate this task, but I always have enjoyed it. There is something super fun about making sure that each package is wrapped with nice sharp creases and that the end product looks like perfection. Maybe it is the inner nerd in me, but I just love it!

Growing up, gift wrapping was one of those things that also meant time spent with my parents. I would spend an evening wrapping gifts with either my mom or dad, while the other was out running last minute shopping errands with my sister. My dad seemed to have the knack of folding the perfect corners with wrapping paper, while my mom always used the wrapping paper itself to decorate the package, folding small lines across the front of the package.

One thing that we never had for our packages were gift tags. My mom would write names on the gifts with a pen, while my dad had an elephant's memory and remembered which package was meant for whom. This seemed to be a good system for my dad until one year, upon giving my mom and I a gift at the same time, we were disappointed when she opened a gift containing a stuffed animal and I opened one containing a sweater clearly meant for my mom. After a good laugh, we thought it may be time for a new system. From there on out we made our own gift tags, usually from leftover scraps of wrapping paper-- nothing fancy whatsoever.

So as I thought about something I would want for this holiday season to make things a bit easier, I decided gift tags would be just the thing. And as an added bonus, I figured that I would share them with you. Just click here and feel free to download them for your own personal use.






Simply cut out the tags, punch a hole on them and add your choice of ribbon or twine. And for a bit more fun, this blog post is part of the Etsy Greetings Holiday Blog Hop. So while you're at it, stop by other blogs of the Etsy Greetings Team to check out more printables and holiday traditions. Just click on the blog hop arrows below to make your way through the hop.

I just may be crazy.






It's what Etsy is marketing this month, so I went with it. And don't be surprised if you see more of this in the next few days. ;)