One more great video for our christmas lovers. Thanks Gretchen.

Every year, my old friend Karl has a Christmas video party.  This is something like its 21st year running now!  Karl and his brother are very nostalgic about Christmas, but are also a couple of cynical wiseacres.  So the party is always a combination of people reciting along with some hilarious ridiculous SCTV sketch and one of the brothers tearing up at A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Karl has a mountain of Christmas videos, which we vote on each year (with actual ballots which he prints up).  He always makes a point of putting a new gem he has acquired on the ballot every year.  And this year it was a Sanford and Son Christmas episode that is just priceless.  Here is a little snippet for you…because whose holidays aren’t better with a little Redd Foxx?

And it’s pretty quiet here today.  Outside our office, it’s snowing (kinda like in that happy jolly winter scene above) – but without the happy jolly shoppers, sledder and plump snowman.

No one’s here in Purchasing (they’re doing inventory at the warehouse):

Downstairs is pretty quiet today too….

Art Director, Mitch Nash, isn’t in yet either…although I KNOW he’s working – already had some emails from him this morning….

No one’s in the can either.

So, in the couple of days before Christmas, I want to wish all of our readers a very nice and quiet and lovely little happy holiday.

I’ll leave you with a little love from one of our amazingly prolific designers, Roy Fox.  He sent this card.  But I’m hijacking it for now.

Lisa from next door always gives the Blue Q office the cutest little holiday gifts around the holidays.

This year it was “Santa Pants”.  Filled with….balls.  Chocolate balls.  And kisses.  And other goodies.  Here is mine.

We all have ours.  Except Jenny and Jen both took theirs home.  By the way, this isn’t Jenny and Jen.  This is Sergio and Seth.  And they can be seen here posing with their pants.

Below, allow me to show you, a’la WHERE’S WALDO, almost everyone’s Santa Pants.  But not Jenny and Jen because as I said….they took theirs home.

With a festive blow up fruitcake!

Yoga mug, natural lotion, clementine and....Santa Pants!Perched and alert. Good Santa Pants, Good.

These pants is KICKED.

Pants. Unloaded.

Refashioned for the Blue Q office chocolate of choice.

Another guest blogger today. 

Welcome Jessica Rowe (but don’t call her Jessica.  Jess is best.)  She’s Blue Q’s amazingly talented and dedicated “Purchasing and Inventory Agent I Guess and Close Out Queen and Lot’s of Other Things”.   And she’s too busy doing whatever the heck it takes 2 computer monitors to do so here’s her “talk to the hand” photo and her gorgeous miracle baby, Lylah.

Take it away Jess:

6 Blue Q Gift Suggestions for this Holiday season:

For your little nieces & nephews that you’re sick of getting monogrammed Lillian Vernon gift items for:
 
I Heart Water Water Bottles…if you don’t think these are the cutest things on the planet, you have a problem.  A gator, an octopus and a beaver (shown)?  Perfect for little girls and little boys.

Coupled with a small lunch bag such as the Dick & Jane handy tote- a perfect little preschool combo!  And you’re teaching little tykes early on how to be ‘green’.

For your divorced mother in law:
Cougar Soap…do I have to say more?  I know…it’s embarrassing seeing her at the same bar you’re at on Friday nights.

To the person who has everything and you’ve searched every corner of the web for something original:
Everyone eats & washes dishes so who wouldn’t want or need a new, fresh, crisp dishtowel?  If that person doesn’t cook and they do need a dishtowel…hello???  The Microwave Is My Friend Dish Towel would be a perfect addition to their kitchen.

To all your favorite girlfriends that discuss the best products on the market over margaritas on the weekends:
Miso Pretty Hand & Body Cream.  My favorite Blue Q item…ever.  I love this stuff!  First the presentation is a gift in itself but the cream smells amazing and it’s truly a quality product…you won’t be disappointed.  Note- it will not erase wrinkles or shave cellulite off your ass.

To my police patrolling husband -
Police Are My Favorite People Car Freshener.  Because patrol cars stink!  It’s donut scented.  But policemen really don’t eat that many donuts.  Where did this stereo type evolve from?

Editors note: Ok.  I researched the whole donut police thing.  Looks like easy answer is….donuts shops are open all the time.  But trust me, I’ve seen that hottie husband of hers and I can tell you this, I doubt he eats many Krispy Kremes.

I’m just saying.

I played around with Christmas lights last night.  It was a sort of zen-like experience.  At least that’s what I’m telling myself.  I’m better for having done it and my life has more meaning.  But it wasn’t all that fun.

I like the little Christmas tree lights.  I like the colors and I like that they aren’t so ‘in your face’ as the Christmas tree lights many of us remember from our childhood.  Back then, the lights were in two sizes – big for outside and little for on the tree.  Still little was big in comparison to what we’ve got today.

I do like the little lights that are available to us Christmas light consumers these days.  Though the changing of the bulbs is not nearly so easy.

I’m a little particular when it comes to holiday lights (many of us are).  And last night, I was re-testing all the strings that I had carefully put away from last year.  Each was bundled nicely and packed into one of two boxes:  those that had been tested and were working before being put away; and those that were tested and found to be wanting (in one way or another) before being put away.

A string of lights might ‘be wanting’ for a few reasons.  Maybe it just doesn’t light up at all.  Maybe there are a bunch of burnt out bulbs that need to be replaced.  Maybe there seems to be a short in the string and it sort of only lights up on only when you have your left foot in the air.

Sometimes you just don’t have the time to investigate or fix all the concerns before you really need to Christmas packed up and put away because you really need to bring out the bunting and flags for 4th of July.  Which, to your dismay, you discover all need to be laundered because although everything was in zip lock bags to keep them crisp from last year, you can’t be sure that you actually did launder everything.  So, what the hell, you wash everything again because, as I said earlier, I’m particular.

What?  4th of July?  NO NO NO.  I get so easily distracted.  The Changing of the Bulbs, right.

So, last night I discovered to my dismay, that I did not have a string of little blue lights.  At least not a string that worked.  I had red and gold and green and white.  But I had to have blue as well.  I had three strings of blue lights that were in the ‘be wanting’ box.  So it was time to fix them. 

Change the fuses – no luck.  Check the bulbs to make sure they are all securely in place – no luck.  Check a random sampling of bulbs in another string to make sure that they worked – yes they did.  So there was only one thing to do – replace the entire string.

Yes, you take a string that does work (in this case it was a string of green lights) and see if the lights from the blue string fit into the string that has the green bulbs.  That almost never works.  Somehow, in China, they know how to make each string just a bit ‘unique’ so that you can’t just pull out the bulbs and put them into a new string.  Those little green sleeves around each bulb don’t fit into the other receiver ends on the string itself.

So you have no choice but to pop out all the green lights from their holders.  This means that you pull them each off of the string and create a pile of green bulbs in their little green sleeves.  I then unbended the two wires and slide out each bulb.  So you have a pile of bulbs and a pile of green holders (you put the holders into a little ingredient bowl because these are the ones that do fit the string that works and you want to keep them separate from the bulb holders that fit the string that doesn’t work).

You repeat the process with the blue bulbs.  You then take too snack size ziploc bags and put the green bulbs that you won’t be using into one and put the bulb sleeves that used to house the blue light from the string that doesn’t work into another. You place both baggies into your box of light paraphernalia.

You know, it’s the box that has all the blinking light bulbs and the extra fuses, the extra lights, and little green bulb holders from previous alteration.  You know – That Box.

Anyway, now you have nekkid blue bulbs and a pile of bulbs sleeves.  After carefully straightening out the wires on each bulb, you can slide them into the bulb sleeves and then each sleeve into the receptor on the string.  and…

Voila! the green string of lights has been transformed into a blue string of lights.

That don’t light.

I like the little bulbs we have for Christmas these days.  But The Changing of the Bulbs was a lot easier when the bulbs were big and didn’t have little sleeves and everything was interchangeable.

Every year in the office we torture each other in the form of Secret Santa.  Pass around a hat, pull out a name, and try to subtly drive that person crazy till just before Christmas.  This year I passed the hat today.

Too early?  There are still inflatable turkey’s on my neighbors lawn.  Oh well….

I really like who I picked.  This person….this is an interesting person to have.  I can do interesting things.  I might torture a little.