Happy Holidays & Giveaway Reminder

I just realized on my last post I wrote "Christmas spending money". I might have offended some of you with that because let's be honest, not everyone celebrates Christmas but if someone wants to get their panties in bunch because I wished them a HAPPY or MERRY anything they can suck it. It's not meant to be an insult or a lack of respect for others cultures, its just my way of wishing you a happy holiday season no matter what you celebrate. I hate how Merry Christmas is seen as offensive and I seriously have the term "Happy Holidays".

With that being said I realize its been a while since I last blogged. I had so much going on with my little one getting sick and me getting sick and trying to make sure I take care of all my work projects before I leave for my vacation...I've been stressed to the max!!

Anyway, for the first time in 13 years I'm spending CHRISTMAS with my PARENTS! I moved when I was 18 and although my parents come to Montreal every winter they never make it on Christmas day. They always come up on Boxing Day. Their job requires them to work on Christmas Eve and they drive up so it takes a day and a half....so I decided to put a stop to it this year. I told my husband that we were packing up and flying to Texas FOR Christmas. So we are. :) My parents are so excited to have Christmas at their house after so many years, and more than that, excited that Demi will be there for Christmas. They have this huge meal planned and my dad bought Demi a Christmas tree that is probably taller than our house!! (FYI its been so long since we've had Christmas at my parents that they threw out all their lights and ornaments and had to start buying new ones from scratch!)

My moms best friend is coming to the house, my cousin Helen is coming over...its going to be fun. :) A few days later my sister is flying in and then we all leave together on Jan 5th but its going to be great to spend Christmas AND New Years with my parents.

This is the first year I've asked for NOTHING at all, I didn't want anything, I just wanted to be with my family. Afterall, isn't that the true spirit of Christmas? Spending the day with those you love the most? I'm going to celebrate my favorite holiday with my darling daughter, my wonderful husband, and my amazing parents...the only one left out of the equation is my sister (and therefore brother in law). This will be the first time in 13 years we DON'T celebrate Christmas together but we have so many more years ahead of us. I can't wait until her little boy is born and D is a little older so we can make Christmas so magical for them. The baking, the decorating, the stories, the good deeds....just ohhh boy Christmas is my favorite holiday!

Sadly though, George's father will not be going to Florida with my brother in law as originally planned. He doesn't want to pay the crazy fee for medical insurance on him IN CASE something happens. He has to pay $1,048.57 just to be covered. If he doesn't get sick then you don't get anything back. He says its not worth it so he's spending Christmas and New Years alone which I find really sad. Especially after my whole paragraph above about how the holidays should be about being together. The guy is 84 years old and is spending the holiday alone. I even thought about offering to fly him to Texas with us but the point still remains that he'd need to buy medical insurance. I'm honestly surprised that my husband hasn't yet backed out of going to Texas yet...which he can't. He knows how much this means to me, he also needs a break, AND part of our vacation will be doing some research for a venture we are starting in Montreal.

So why don't I end this blog post on that sad thought of an old lonely man spending Christmas all by himself? Nah. I wouldn't do that to you.

I just want to remind you that there is still time to enter in the giveaway that is in my last post! QUICK! Enter to win $110!!!!!!

Not So Happy Holidays?

Hey everyone! Happy New Year! Not too shabby right? I'm blogging on Jan 2, 2010! Maybe I'll this is a sign that I will be blogging more in 2010? I guess taking mat leave in Feb will help with that. I'll be less stressed and have about 2 months before Demi gets here!

Now I'd like to start off the New Year with blogging about something positive and happy but I can't. I find myself thinking about the holidays and how low key they were and blah blah. Now I made a conscious decision to have low key holidays. I didn't want to have 800 people coming through my doors or going to visit 800 people. We wanted to take it easy because when we do our holiday parties its always huge and we don't get to enjoy them. George and I are always in the kitchen cooking something, checking on something, refilling someones beverage, making sure the bathrooms remain clean.... and it gets to be really NOT fun although everyone else enjoys their time at my house.

Now something happened during Xmas 2008 that really pissed me off. It was my first year married and I wanted to host Christmas Eve OR Christmas Day at my house. Well guess what happened? One of my cousins decided to call everyone BEFORE HALLOWEEN to invite them to her house for Christmas. Now yes, she has always hosted the holiday but thats because no one else would step up do it. I did the bigger person thing and called my cousin and said, "Hey Cousin, why don't we split the holidays? You can do either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day at your house and I'll do the day you don't want at my house." I thought it was very nice of me to put it that way and give her the choice. I even explained to her that its my first married year and I'd like to host a holiday. She was like, "Um no. I want to do both holidays because I ALWAYS do them and besides there is always so much food left over." So I said something along the line of, "Yes you always do it therefore you should SHARE the holiday and if the amount of food is an issue, just cook LESS." The bottom line is she was a stubborn bitch about it and refused to budge. She wanted to do both days at her house. Her excuse was, "You hosted Easter..." Um yeah I did do Easter because its my husbands favorite holiday and its the first holiday that came after our wedding.

So what did I do? I called my favorite aunt and explained to her the situation. I informed her that I was very well aware that my cousin called everyone to invite them to her house for Xmas Eve and Day however I was doing Xmas day at my house. I understand if they can't make it but I will be doing that. My aunt explained that she had already RSVPed to my cousin's house but she would leave early to come to my house. I did the same thing with some cousins and everyone told me the exact same thing. They would go to the cousins house because they said they would but they would go early and leave early so they could eat here. I did NOT invite the selfish cousin nor did I invite HER parents. I mean, that'd be kinda rude to tell them, "Hey I know your daughter is hosting a day at her house but why don't you come to mine instead?".

My husband and I discussed what we should do for Christmas Eve since I was only doing ONE of the two nights. We decided to be bigger people and go to that cousins house for a little bit. The only reason we went was because my sister was going to be there and Alex and I have NEVER had Xmas apart. We showed up to the cousins house with presents for the kids, a gift for the hostess, and stayed for a while (not as long as we had stayed in previous years). When we got up to leave we didn't mention the usual, "see you tomorrow" but she did ask my sister, "So will we be seeing you and Mike tomorrow" to which my sister responds, "No. My sister is doing Christmas Day and I will be there!"

Christmas Day rolls around. My hubby and I wake up early to clean the house, and start preparing our feast. When I say feast I mean a feast. We must have spent the better part of the day cooking the main meal not to mention the amount of appetizers we'd made. Everyone who came over really enjoyed it and commented on the vast difference in quality of food they were eating today compared to yesterday. It's not that my cousin cooks shitty quality food, she just isn't the best cook in the family!

My cousin didn't call me to wish me a Merry Christmas that day. I didn't really notice but of course my hubby does. He notices the strangest things!

We decided to host NYE and New Year Day at my house last year. My mom always wants to do it but she had just renovated her basement and did not want all of the cousins kids to go there and ruin it so we did it at my house. My mom paid for a lot of the dishes and even cooked a bunch of them but we just had the event at my house. My cousin didn't come. She decided her friends were more important than her family that particular day.

So now Xmas 2009 rolls around. Of course the cousin calls me to invite me over and I say, "I'm unsure of our plans. I'll have to check with my husband to see if anyone on his side is doing it since we did it last year." She said okay and to let her know. I didn't let her know but I didn't plan on going there from the get go. I had told George that I would rather stay home alone doing nothing than go there. I told him I refuse to go there for 6 years! Why six? I don't know its just a random number I came up with. In all honesty, we aren't comfortable going there. It's just that there are SOOOOO many people in such a small space that its very uncomfortable. The house gets all hot and loud. We had NYE here last year 2008/2009 and we got uncomfortable and I have 3 floors of house! My cousin has a 3 or 4 bedroom apartment. If we felt stuffy at my place imagine what you feel like there?!

My cousin told my sister that she was upset with me because I didn't call back to RSVP for Xmas. I told my sister that common sense says if one doesn't respond they aren't coming. I mean, if you don't respond to my sister's wedding shower I'm assuming you aren't coming, I don't assume you will be there.... I don't care if shes upset.

Oh, she didn't call me this Xmas or New Years in order to wish me happy holidays. Oh well, I didn't call her either. I had to call to invite her to my sisters bachelorette though. Ugh. Hated it.

Now my sister is getting married in 29 days. I discussed this with her today. Would she like to split the holidays? I realize that I will have a young child during the holiday season next year but I still want to host a holiday. My mom will go back to hosting NYE therefore its just Xmas Eve and Day that are left for us to split. She said shes interested. I told her to let me know which date she'd like and then in November of 2010 we'll call our aunts/cousins together and tell them what day they are invited to our respective homes.

What irks me is that the holidays are meant to be about family and sharing. My cousin refuses to share. It's her way or no way because she's done something for 10 years. Yes, but no one else wanted to do the holidays. Maybe they don't want to spend the money entertaining a bunch of hungry Greeks, maybe they don't want to exhaust themselves cooking and cleaning, whatever the reason may be no one but her would offer to do it. How can you be so selfish about hosting a meal at your house? My sister in law called me about 2 weeks before Xmas to ask me what I was doing. I told her I had no plans for Xmas Eve but since my mom was flying in on Xmas Day I was going to do a very small dinner. Just me, George, Alex, Mike, my father in law, and our kourbari (like bestest friends), if they'd like to come they are more than welcome. She told me that her family will come to my house after they go to HER sister's house and that we are invited to HER house on Xmas Eve since we aren't doing it. See how it works? Everyone wants to host something yet they call to find out who is doing what so that it can be shared.

Now I find myself asking this question, its a whole year later and I'm still bitter about this. Is it too long to hold a grudge? Am I blowing things out of proportion? Should I just drop this whole, "5 more years of no Xmas at cousin X's house?"

Best Buy, not Best Service!

I like Best Buy, I really do. I think they have some of the greatest prices around on electronics. They finally wised up and lowered their prices to reflect what people are selling on eBay etc. They are FINALLY competitively priced. I've never liked their service though. NEVER! I had a huge issue with them about two years ago regarding honoring the warranty on a laptop. About 3 years ago I had a problem with just getting customer service. I was wandering through the television department and there was no one there to serve me. I was annoyed. While in the store I called Best Buy and complained that I was standing there and NO ONE came by to help me. Suddenly I have 6 employees on me. UGH! So annoying!

Anyway, last night my husband asked me if I minded him using the gift card my boss gave me to Best Buy on a universal remote for the basement. We already had one for the upstairs family room but George wanted one for the basement. We went to Bestbuy.ca to see how much they cost. My boss had given me a $500 gift card and the Logitech Harmony One 1100 Universal Remote was there and on sale for $379.99. I told George that he'd have to pay a little extra out of his pocket since I did use about $120 on some Wii Games on Christmas Eve. Not a problem! Usually the website lets you click a button to see if your local store has it in stock. There was a message "During Boxing Week in-store pick up and store stock availability is unavailable until January 4th. We apologize for any inconvenience. Visit a store near you". Okay. Well we weren't in the mood to go out to Best Buy only to find out that it wasn't there so we decided to give our local store a ring...and a ring....and a ring. We tried pressing 0 to speak to customer service and no answer, we listened to the automated messages to direct us to Audio/Video Accessories including remote controls. No answer.

George was at home for about 10 minutes on hold when he decided to actually get up and go to Best Buy. He went, found the remote, and came home. He was still on hold with Best Buy (he called from his cell and took his cell with him). By the time he showed me his phone the call log was up to 48 minutes and 37 seconds on hold. I decided to hang up at this point. Not only that but while George was in the department he saw the phone ringing and asked a customer service rep "are you going to get that" to which they replied, "I'm too busy!"

I get that its a very busy time of year for stores right now. Americans have Black Friday and we have Boxing Day which has slowly become Boxing Week. It's our biggest shopping days of the year. People go insane. But why not change your automated system to reflect that of the website? How about something like, "We are sorry for any inconvenience but due to the number of in store customers at this time we are unable to answer any questions over the telephone regarding products or stock availability? Please come to your local store for any questions or call back after Jan 4, 2010?"

I mean its a really crappy thing for a customer to point out that the telephone is ringing and for the employees to just shrug it off and claim they are busy. Yes, you are busy but why can you not excuse yourself from your in-store customer for 30 seconds and pick up the phone and say "Best Buy, please hold". Finish with your customer and take a minute on the phone with the phone customer before finding the next person to hawk commission from? Believe me proper customer service goes a long way and the person who called is very likely to come into the store, into your department and ask for YOU by name to serve them to give you the commission. I know that I do that when I call a store. I ask for their name and when they are working, I especially do that if I'm doing comparison shopping in stores and have just eaten half an hour of someones time. I'll ask for their card as well as when they are working next in case we decide to come back and get the item from that particular store.

Anyway I thought that was rather crappy of them and thought I'd share. I guess its true that you always complain about bad service and never really rave about excellent service!