The White Elephant Gift Exchange, December 27, 2018

I haven’t been attending the weekly meetings of my support group for people who are separated or divorced as much as I used to. It’s due partly to my ten-year-old car (I don’t drive that car very far these days because it has a lot of problems—such as a broken taillight with the electrical short that makes changing the lightbulb a waste of time because I need to spend a lot of money to get a new circuit board installed) and due partly because many of the topics that are discussed in those meetings (such as “How to Begin Your Emotional Divorce”) I have already heard before. (That’s the thing about going to weekly divorce recovery meetings—after a year or so, the topics start to repeat.)

Once a year my support group has a party instead of its regular weekly meeting that’s usually held on the Thursday after Christmas. The party is potluck so everyone is invited to bring food to share. People are also invited to take an unwanted gift that someone else had given to them, wrap it up, and bring it to the party for the White Elephant gift exchange. Those parties are always fun and lively and I decided to drive to that party because I haven’t seen many of the regular attendees in a long while.

Since I hadn’t received any gifts for Christmas I didn’t have an unwanted present to share. The party organizers said that one can opt to buy a new present just for this party as long as it doesn’t cost more than $30. With my current tight financial situation, I initially thought about shopping at Five Below. I’ve bought previous White Elephant gifts at that store. I had intended to go to Aldi first to buy some food for the party (I ended up buying some potato chips) then go on to Five Below. I made a turn into a shopping center in Bowie in an effort to go to Aldi until I found out that it was the wrong shopping center and Aldi was located in a different shopping center located just a mile away. As I was about to leave the shopping center, I saw a Tuesday Morning store so I decided to park there instead and go in.

I hit pay dirt in that store immediately. The front of the store had Christmas decorations for 50% off and I saw something that was so unusual that I thought it would be perfect for the White Elephant. It was a zebra wearing a Santa hat with a saddle full of gifts. (I later took these photos in the Market Cafe at Wegmans where I bought a soda and did some Internet web surfing before the party). I’ve seen Christmas donkeys, Christmas reindeer, and Christmas camels before but I’ve never seen a Christmas zebra until I bought it at Tuesday Morning.

Here are the price tags that were attached to the Christmas zebra that I removed before I put it in the gift bag. The left tag shows the original $25 price tag. The right tag showed the reduced price of $12.99. By the time I purchased that zebra the price had been reduced further to just $6. It wasn’t shown on either tag but it showed up when I paid for it at the cash register.

I went to Aldi where I purchased the chips. I also saw this chocolate Santa bag for $3 that I thought would be great for the gift bag as well. Here are the photos.

This bag consisted of a tall chocolate Santa Claus with smaller chocolate ornaments, all of which were made in Germany.

I arrived at the usual meeting place for the party. The group meetings are held in a hall that’s located just a few feet away from the Presbyterian Church (who rents out the facility to the group). Usually the hall tends not to be decorated at all for the holidays. (The main church building is the one that gets all of the decorations.) This year someone affiliated with the church decided to deck out that separate building as well so there was a decorated Christmas tree.

Here’s a close up of the tree showing what looks like elf legs sticking out. (LOL!)

Even the fireplace in the hall was decked out with festive Christmas decorations. (I assume that it’s a working fireplace. I’ve never seen the support group use it.)

The party had fewer people than in previous years. (I don’t know why either.) It also turned out that someone from the group had brought three presents to the party (instead of the usual one) because she thought that there’s a chance that a new person might be attending what he/she thought was the usual support group meeting when it was really a party and it would be nice for that new person to be able to participate as well. (That has actually happened in previous years.) I thought it was pretty nice of her.

Under the rules of the White Elephant, one could opt to steal a gift from someone else. What happened is the the person who picked up my gift bag thought the Christmas zebra was amusing but she balked at the chocolates because she said that it was too much sweets for her. She put my bag back on the table while she swiped someone else’s gift.

At the end of the party there were three extra gifts, including the one I had brought. Two people volunteered to take the two other presents while leaving the gift I brought behind. I thought it was a shame to leave the Christmas zebra and chocolates behind so I took it back home. The Christmas zebra was added to my Christmas decorations and it looked quite nice with the rest of them. Yesterday I packed the zebra up with the rest of the Christmas decorations and put everything back in the attic. As for the chocolates, I’ve been slowly been eating a little of the pack at a time. I found the chocolate to be quite tasty and I’ll be sad once I run out.

As for the gift I chose at the White Elephant gift exchange, I picked up a gift bag that contained two Christmas dish cloths.

I also received a pair of heavy slipper socks which will be perfect to sleep in during the cold winter nights of January and February.

I also got a photo album with a Christmas cover on it. It has been years since I ever thought about getting a photo album to store photos in because I take digital photographs all the time and I store them in my computer. It’s a nice photo album but I don’t know if I’ll ever find a use for it since I rarely print out photographs these days. I have to admit that a photo album makes the quintessential White Elephant gift. (LOL!)

A Birthday Trip to Baltimore and Glen Burnie, December 15, 2016

 

 

 

 

Last year I planned on going to Baltimore to celebrate my birthday at Christmas Village in Baltimore. I had to scuttle those plans because my birthday fell on a Tuesday and it turns out that the place was closed on certain Tuesdays including my birthday. (I ended up going to Tyson’s Corner instead and I still had fun last year.)

This year my birthday fell on a Thursday so I decided to go to Baltimore, just like I planned last year. I was determined to go there despite the fact that the Polar Vortex had just arrived in my area so the temperatures plunged to below freezing. (I basically wore a heavy winter coat and a hat so I was able to brave the deep freeze.)

On the way to Baltimore I stopped off at a local Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts store to check out the recent sales. I found a bundled pair of slipper socks. The original price was $9.99, which would’ve been a decent price for two pairs of thick socks. But they were on sale for half-price, which meant that I paid $5 for the bundle (or $2.50 per pair).

I took the light rail into the city. I initially went by Harborplace where I saw this ice skating rink.

Since my last visit to Harborplace, I found that the store It’s Sugar had moved from one pavilion to another. (It is now located next to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium.)

I purchased a few things for myself on my birthday. Here is this cute gingerbread man cookie I bought.

I purchased this Pez dispenser featuring Badtz-Maru, one of Hello Kitty’s friends.

I bought myself this Guinness Luxury Dark Chocolate Truffle Bar. It was very delicious.

I took a few photos of other items in that store but I didn’t buy any of them.

After my visit to Harborplace I took a couple of photos of the Inner Harbor area at sunset.

I eventually made my way to the Christmas Village in Baltimore.

I’ve been there other years (see the photos I took in 2013, 2014, and 2015). Some of the same vendors were there this year while there were others whom I had never seen before. I also saw some empty booths but I had no idea if fewer vendors signed up or if it was because I came on a Thursday night and some of the missing vendors only worked on the weekends. I had been looking forward to eating some bratwurst with sauerkraut for dinner followed by a Belgian waffle topped with hot fudge and whipped cream for dessert. Unfortunately the waffle place wasn’t there this year, which was a big disappointment. The German food booth was still there so at least I was still able to eat the bratwurst and sauerbraten platter.

I purchased only one item. It was a pack of incense that I got from the large Käthe Wohlfahrt booth that was located at one end of the main tent. I’ve been lighting the incense each night since then so my home can smell like Christmas. (LOL!)

On my way back to the light rail stop, I saw this homeless person laying down under a thin blanket outside the Baltimore Convention Center. Usually I wouldn’t pay this person much notice other than the fact that the Polar Vortex had arrived and the temperatures were forecasted to dip under 20 degrees Fahrenheit over night. (The following morning my AccuWeather app on my smartphone registered 18 degrees Fahrenheit.) I felt that this person should really be indoors but I didn’t know where to turn since I live 30 miles south of Baltimore.

I took the above picture and frantically did Google searches on my smartphone for homeless organizations in Baltimore. I texted the photo to a couple of organizations while indicating where the person was located. For added measure I texted the photo to the Baltimore Police Department. I even uploaded this photo on my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts using people to forward this to anyone who could help bring this person in from the cold. I don’t know if my efforts helped or not other than the fact that for the next few days I did a Google search for any recent homeless deaths in Baltimore outside the Baltimore Convention Center only to turn up empty-handed. I guess this person somehow survived the Polar Vortex but I’ll never know for sure.

Once I reached the North Linthicum Light Rail Station (where my car was parked) I drove over to Glen Burnie. Last year I found out about this overdecorated house on Delmar Avenue and I saw it for the first time on Christmas Eve. This year I decided to check it out again and, yes, it is still just as heavily decorated as it was last year.

The only difference I could tell between this year and last year is the next-door neighbor’s lighted sign that said “DITTO” with an arrow pointed to the other house. (That neighbor’s house didn’t have any outdoor lights at all other than that “DITTO” sign.)

By the way the house on Delmar Avenue has its own Facebook page that you can view to get the latest news and photos about that house.

Last year I shot a bunch of still photos of that house. This year I decided to shoot a video so you can get a sense of the flashing lights (including an animated laser display that’s shown on the garage door) and the constant Christmas music.

I headed home after visiting that house so that was it for celebrating my birthday in Baltimore and Glen Burnie.