Free Christmas for the Sutter Family

Posted by kim on December 9, 2009

This will be the fourth year I’ve hosted the “Sutter Christmas” (my mom’s side of the family) at my house.  This will be the first year we have decided not to exchange gifts due to the economic recession.

Since I love how much fun we all have getting together and the opening of presents together, I decided to wrap up something* from my free room for everyone – all forty of us Sutter descendants – to put under the Christmas tree.**  In fact, I have collected so much free stuff that I had enough to wrap two presents for everyone and still have a good supply***.

How do I accumulate so much free stuff?
Free After Rebate Items – online and offline
Free After Coupon Items
Free Samples
Promo items collected from conferences I attend
Products sent to me to review for my websites

Most of the men will be receiving tools and car supplies from Menards free-after-rebate while others will be receiving “gag gifts” such as stress balls, dandruff shampoo and condoms.

*I have not yet decided if I’m going to say the presents are from “Santa” or from our deceased Great-Grandma Sutter. Yes, it may sound morbid, but since grandma’s passing, our family (albeit demented) has had many laughs wrapping up grandma’s trinkets to pass on as gifts, namely an ugly chicken.

**After having 12 Christmas trees last year for the Holiday Parade of Homes, we only put up two this year – one from last year that I saran-wrapped from last year (pics here) and a small pencil tree that I let the kids decorate with family ornaments (shown above).

***This was an opportune time to clean/organize my free room.  So I set up a table of free times (ie bags, koozies, keychains, tshirts and hats, shown below) that hopefully my holiday guests will snatch up.

Are you planning anything “free and fun” for your Christmas gathering?

Happy Mother’s Day!

Posted by kim on May 11, 2008

I told the kids all I wanted for Mother’s Day was for them to get along with no fighting or screaming for the day, and that lasted all of 15 minutes (history repeats itself).  But it was soon halted when a bunch of my extended family came over for a picnic lunch.  It was a beautiful day out where the men grilled hotdogs and hamburgers.  I love hosting family and friends, but I hate cleaning prior.  Luckily, I designed my house to have lots of storage and closets and a laundry room big enough to throw stuff in and shut the door. 

My aunt works part-time at a flower shop over the holidays.  She said Mother’s Day is the busiest holiday.  I had presumed it was Valentine’s Day, but she told me, “Not everyone has a valentine, but everyone has a mother.”  Good analogy. 

Hopefully soon, I’ll be able to announce our new site format! I know a lot of you are very anxious to redeem your points.  And the new site will have more point opportunities and cool prizes!  Good things come to those who wait, but as always, we still have hot, hot deals available!

Happy Mother’s Day out there to all moms, grandmothers, aunts, etc!