Chatbug Karen

Many of you will begin cleaning after the holiday season ends. What better way to start off the new year with purged closets. lined up sock drawers and donations to great causes. As you prepare to wash your walls and scrub your floors, I want to tell you about two products to use to clean your floors.

Many people are familiar with Swiffer Jets but not so many know about Bona Kemi. Bona Kemi is also known as Bona K or simply Bona. Any of those names will be familiar to a retailer who knows quality floor cleaning products. Both products can be used for cleaning vinyl sheet goods, granite tile, laminate flooring and bamboo flooring. The key is to not saturate or leave standing puddles on any type of floor covering. Both Swiffer and Bona come in compact packages. Swiffer’s spray is harder to control and puddles seem to be inevitable. Be sure these are wiped up quickly. Bona sprays a fine mist in a wide area. It’s larger mop head makes a quick job go faster. Swiffer products leave a film on floors whereas Bona does not even leave water spots. The cleaning cloth from the Bona mop can be washed and reused making it a more economical choice. Many floor covering manufacturers list Bona as a suitable cleaner when you want to maintain the warranty on your floor.

Is everyone back to work at your house? We are still enjoying the holiday season with our children who arrived on the 27th and 28th of December. We opened our gifts on December 28 and had our Christmas dinner last night. Hubby cooked a turkey in the fryer. Yummm!

Friends of ours have started their college grad job search and others have started their new jobs. One friend’s daughter is relocating to San Antonio! I am envious of her chance to leave this bitter cold winter weather. I just came back from the mailbox at the end of our driveway. Brrrr! Now my nose is running and my glasses are fogged up. Ha! The only thing I like about winter is having different clothes to wear. Bring out the sweaters!

Here is my Granddog, Chandler, in his new sweater:

Here is Elsie:

and Brody:

Today will be a day to keep busy. I am finishing up laundry and hope to sew a little. Tonight we will attend our Christmas Eve service at church.

Our church is beautifully decorated and even more so when you see it in the evening light. The white lights entwined in the greenery sparkle and glow. The Christmas tree was decorated by the children of our church and is also very pretty.

Perhaps, after Christmas, we will check into Myrtle beach vacation packages but for now, I am enjoying the snow and the festivities of the holiday.

There is a house near us that has a splendid Christmas display every year. They have a circular driveway that affords everyone the chance to drive up, look into their windows and see the beautiful decorations. They have a snow village that is quite large. It even has a train that runs through it. Their yard has large nutcracker men and carolers. We always roll down our windows so we can hear the carolers sing. It is fun and amazing.

Here are a few traditions followed in different parts of the world.

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The idea that animals have the power of speech at midnight on Christmas Eve. This superstition exists in various parts of Europe, and no one can hear the beasts talk with impunity.
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There is also a French belief that on Christmas Eve, while the genealogy of Christ is being chanted at the Midnight Mass, hidden treasures are revealed.
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In Russia all sorts of buried treasures are supposed to be revealed on the evenings between Christmas and the Epiphany, and on the eves of these festivals the heavens are opened, and the waters of springs and rivers turn into wine.
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Christians in China call Christmas Sheng Dan Jieh, which means Holy Birth Festival. They decorate their homes with evergreens, posters, and bright paper chains. The family puts up a Christmas tree, called “tree of light,” and decorates it with beautiful lanterns, flowers, and red paper chains that symbolize happiness. They cut out red pagodas to paste on the windows, and they light their houses with paper lanterns, too.
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Christmas in Iceland is an interesting experience as this country has many old traditions for celebrating Christmas. Expect no fewer than 13 Icelandic Santa Clauses! In Iceland, they are called jólasveinar (“Yuletide Lads”; singular: jólasveinn). Their parents are Grýla, a mean old woman who drags off naughty children, and Leppalúði, who is not as mean. The origin of these “Santas” is centuries old, and each has its own name, character and role.
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In Congo in Africa, a group is designated just to prepare the annual Christmas pageant. In the Christmas morning, African people and groups of carolers walk around the village and sing Christmas carols. They then go to home to wear festive clothes and take love offerings for Jesus to the special service that is held at the house of worship. In the church, the birthday of Jesus is celebrated and people keep their gifts upon the raised platform near the Communion table. After the service, people invite friends to Christmas dinners arranged in front of their homes.

While visiting a friend, I noticed that all of the packages under her Christmas tree were gift bags. There were no wrapped packages at all. Do most people only use gift bags for their wrappings? I am also wondering what people use to put a tag on their packages. I ran out of sticky tags and made my own out of card stock.

Isn’t that a cute wrapper?

I am also wondering, do most people use a real live tree or an artificial one. Do they get a full size tree or a small one to put on a tv stand?

I hope you will satisfy my curiosity.

1. What type of wrapping do you use?
2. What do you use to label your gifts?
3. What type of Christmas tree do you have?
4. What size tree do you have?

It is time to make my list by checking my cupboards to see what ingredients I am missing. Then I shall have to go to the grocery, my least favorite chore. I am ready to do some baking. This is the one recipe I make every year during the holiday season.


Magic Cookie Bars

* Crisco® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray
* 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
* 1/2 cup butter, melted
* 1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
* 2 cups (12 oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
* 1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
* 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions

HEAT oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 13 x 9-inch baking pan with no-stick cooking spray.

COMBINE graham cracker crumbs and butter in small bowl. Press into bottom of prepared pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture. Layer evenly with chocolate chips, coconut and nuts. Press down firmly with fork.

BAKE 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Loosen from sides of pan while still warm; cool on wire rack. Cut into bars or diamonds.

VARIATIONS:

SUBSTITUTE chocolate chips or nuts with candy coated pieces, dried cranberries, raisins, mini-marshmallows or butterscotch chips.
Tip:

For perfectly cut cookie bars, line entire pan with foil, extending foil over edge of pan. Coat lightly with no-stick cooking spray. After bars have baked and cooled, lift up with edges of foil to remove from pan. Cut into individual bars.

We all have minor things that happen where we have to decide whether or not to do the right thing. The right thing being what we feel is the moral obligation of our conscience. It is not always what we feel is the right answer but is certainly what should be done. These minor incidents are not as difficult as the decision the man in New Bedford, Massachusetts had pondered. What would you have done?

Stanley Dudek was going through his mother’s things, she had died 10 years earlier, when he happened upon a library book. Whoa! Ten years ago? What the heck took him so long to go through his mother’s things? Was he busy installing water filters? Sounds like procrastination to me. This tells me that he did not need any money that her estate could probably afford him. So, maybe this was not a tough decision at all.

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. – The book returned to the New Bedford Public Library in Massachusetts this week wasn’t overdue by a week, a month or even a year. It was nearly a century overdue, and the fine came to $361.35.

“Facts I Ought to Know about the Government of My Country” was supposed to have been returned by May 10, 1910.

Stanley Dudek told the Standard Times newspaper he came across the book while going through things that had belonged to his mother, who died about 10 years ago. He decided that returning the book to the city was the right thing to do.

The overdue book fine was a penny a day in 1910. But Dudek wasn’t asked to pay it.

The library plans to display the book in its special collection.

Um, okay. Now for some real tough decisions.

I have a few friends who are teachers and they are looking forward to winter break. I envy them! One friend is traveling to Minnesota to visit with her husband’s family and share Christmas together. They are a very dysfunctional family and my friend always has funny stories to share.

If I had a week off, I hope I would get back into my exercise routine. I hear that the dip machine misses me. LOL Seriously, if I had a few days off from work, I think I would travel a little. Maybe visit my son or go down south to see what my sister is up to.

What are your plans this holiday season?

The theme for Heads or Tails this week is “Heads~Gone Fishin’.” Make any kind of post about anything you might see, use or do while fishing.

I was thinking about how we fish around to give ideas for what others can get us for Christmas. I also thought about cute pictures of my hubby when he was a little boy. He fished quite a bit with his dad. Then, I found this video, “Why I don’t ice fish.”

Do you need a little incentive to start your holiday decorating? I am not talking about getting text alert system messages to kick your battootie. I am telling you about the Decorating for the Holidays Blog Hop! I am excited to be a part of this hop because I have already been inspired. Check out all 23 participating blogs. You will have great fun seeing how others have celebrated.

Click on the badge to see all the participating blogs.