Collections Gone Wild

Last night MacKenzy was running a fever and having some explosive actions in her pants, so Jason stayed home with her today. She was fine when she woke up, but nonetheless he saw it as an opportunity to decorate our house even more than legally allowed...in my mind anyway.

Just before lunch I got a phone call from Jason...now mind you he's not overly sentimental, but MacKenzy had amused him to the point that he needed to share it. They were decorating the living room with my snowman collection....bottomless boxes full of snowmen! Each time MacKenzy got to something she liked she would ask, "Daddy! My room?" With in minutes of starting the decorating process, MacKenzy's room was decked out in all things snowmen! Jason finally decided that it was time to stop decorating because he wanted me to share in the hilarity.

In my husband's family if they find out you collect something they buy every cheap ass thing they can find! My mom decided about 5 years ago that I needed to collect something. I'm more of the pitch-and-throw type person. I decorate my house in practical things, not knick-knacks. But mom was having trouble buying me things, so by starting a collection she would ease her shopping stress. She started a snow man collection. I tried really hard to keep it on the down-low...only allow my mom to buy me such things, but my now mother-in-law got wind and I was ruined. That year at Christmas Jason's family went bonkers! I seriously have so much crap from that year, I have retired the collection.

Jason has been a firefighter since 1999. He too is a hard person to buy for so faster than he could throw on his turn-out gear his family was out shopping for every stupid little firetruck toy possible....he's a man in his 30's not 5!!!! He has every cheesy t-shirt and figurine they could get their paws on.

The following year, to ease our pain, we set a stipulation for Jason's family only:

Only snowman or firefighter items will will accept are Snowmen that are firefighters!! They are very hard to come buy, so we're lucky if they find one or two a year! It has proven to be a wise decision on our part!

They said they'd buy what they wanted to and we simply stated that we were making the rule to save ourselves from clutter hell...not to be mean! We made it loud and clear that if anyone broke the rule, no matter how much $$$ they spent on the item, they would be going home with it.


BTW...



What I'm thankful for:

I'm thankful for Macy's.

Yes, Macy's the department store. Last year their parent company bought out the company that owned Marshall Fields...therefore elminating Marshall Fields (which I dearly miss) and turning all of those stores into Macy's in the Minnapolis/St. Paul area.

In doing so....they have put an end to yet another collection nightmare.

My husband...all 6'7" 280+ lbs. of him collected the Marshall Fields (Dayton's) Santa Bear from when they started in 1985 (or '84?). He's only missing 3 of them. We seriously store tubs upon tubs of those damn bears only to display them from the end of November until just after New Year's.

I hate these bears.

Twenty-years of bears, and as you can see they not small bears! Talk about clutter!

Well, when Macy's took over...the bear went to teddy bear heaven!

Thank You God!!

Thank You Macy's!