Geocaching: New Year's Eve

I discovered a new hobby this year. Actually, my sister Trina introduced me to it. It's called Geocaching (pronounced Geo"cash"ing) and I've been participating since May of 2008. It's a worldwide outdoor "sport" in which one uses multi-million dollar technology in the form of a hand held GPS receiver to traipse through the woods in pursuit of tupperware or ammo cans filled with happy meal toys and other trinkets. This type of treasure is a.k.a "traditional cache". I like to compare it to a glorified Easter egg hunt. It's really loads of fun and my kiddos love opening up the boxes to find Mardi Gras beads and other items. These little boxes of trinkets are hidden EVERYWHERE! There are many variations of the game but my favorites are virtual caches and traditional caches. Oh, a virtual cache is like the traditional cache, but they don't contain a physical treasure chest such as an ammo box or tupperware container. Instead, the geocacher is treated to a special place that should be easy to recognize as the "correct location." This place might be strange, interesting, unique, or special in some way.

Me and my gang have now found 64 caches this year and we've even hidden 1 in a little park in town. I had set a personal goal of finding 100 by today but, well, fell short of that goal. So, I'm setting another personal goal of finding 100 of them in 2009. If I meet that, then I'll tack on another 50....maybe.

If you ever want to start geocaching, check out Geocaching.com to find out how to do this. I was up at midnight last night doing all my mapping and planning for today's adventure. So, this morning we left the house at around 9:30 a.m. We had to take 21 y.o. DD to work before we could start enjoying our day. If we didn't have to do that, we could've hit a lot more geos today.

Anyway, so our first geo was waaaaaay up in Greensburg, LA at an old slave cemetery. What a neat area! The following information (not the pics) comes from the site that I use to get my geocaching information.....Geocaching.com!

The cemetery.

This place dates back to way before the Civil War. Lots of graves here are marked with stones. No names at all. There is one recent marker but even that one has the name faded away. The place was once owned by a prominent local family before and after the Civil War. After the war, the owner had to set the slaves free. The majority of them chose to stay for whatever reason. The owner also gave each of the families that stayed a small piece of land and just enough lumber from his sawmill to build a small private house.

Of course, after the war, times were hard and the property was broken up and sold off piece by piece. The final blow was the Great Depression of the late 20's and early 30's. There was no money and the remainder of the property was sold to "The Company" to raise money to pay property taxes. "The Company" was Southern Timbers, which eventually became Crown Zellerbach, then Cavenham, and now Weyerhaeuser.

The gang shows off their first find of the day!

After we left this particular geocache spot, we moved on to another which was located down a hunting road. As we were driving along, awestruck by the countryside, we rounded a curve where I was so surprised by what I saw that I just slammed on my brakes and shouted, "What in the world!?" If I hadn't been out geocaching, I would never have seen this with my own two eyes. I don't know the story behind it but it sure was a funny sight to see in the middle of nowhere!

Cowfield 1942 Steam Locomotive?

Incoming!!!

The gang finds a cache!

Layne attempts to open the treasure.

Kyle says, "Lemme show ya how it's done."

This geocache also gave us our first travel bug of the day! "What's a travel bug?" you might ask. Simply put, it's a trackable tag that you attach to an item. Then the item becomes a hitchhiker that travels from cache to cache via real persons. You can track it's travels and progress on the geocaching website.

Kangaroo shows off a travel bug!

We moved on to cache #3 for the day, Camp Moore. This is the site where confederate soldiers from several states were trained, the largest camp in the confederacy. A minor engagement was fought near this location on October 5 - 9, 1864. The men who are buried in the cemetery here died of disease while in the service of their cause. The historical marker at the entrance reads, "One of the principal Louisiana Confederate induction centers and training camps during the war for Southern independence. Named for Governor Thomas Overton Moore. Over 400 soldiers buried in the camp cemetery."

Before leaving the house this morning, I was wise enough to stock a cooler with picnic items for snacks. I figured we would be looking for our treasures in locations that did not provide us with needed facilities or food. When we first arrived at Camp Moore, the place was deserted. No cars anywhere! I couldn't figure out what was going on until I found a sign that said they were closed until Friday but pedestrians were welcome to roam the grounds during daylight hours only. I figured, "Well, that's us!"

Before we could go off hunting for this cache, I needed to eat. I mentioned lunch to the kiddos and they responded by stampeding to the cooler. Very strange kids. So, I haul out the cooler, we make sandwiches, and seat ourselves in the back of the surburban (the picnic tables were too far away to haul the cooler). As it turns out, our surburban seats were the best!! A freight train came by at that very moment to amazement of the girls. We all waved at the engineer and the girls were so excited when he tooted the whistle and waved back!

The lone sentry stands guard over the fallen soldiers.

Posing with a "soldier".

Layne found it!

Sorting through the treasure.

Little Bird finds another travel bug!

Our next few caches were in the town of Amite, LA. I learned a lot about this area today. I had no idea that Amite was such a pretty little town! It's amazing what one discovers when they get away from the house!

A beautiful little church that hides a geocache.

Our last cache of the day had us enjoying nature with some cows. The smell brought back so many childhood memories! I phoned hubby and said, "Can we buy some farmland and raise some cattle?" He said, "Why would you want to do that?" I said, "For the smell!" Now, don't get me wrong, I certainly wouldn't want my home to constantly be filled with Ode de Elsie, but the scent is wonderful in it's own way.

Eat more chikin!

At any rate, we grabbed the cache for this one and headed the burb for home. I'm so excited that we found 7 out of 8 planned caches today for a total of 64 found for 2008! I really should plan another run for tomorrow and get 2009 started off with a bang!!!

Why we homeschool

We homeschool for many reasons but the most important reason is because we feel the Lord told us to. Actually, He told ME to do the homeschooling but hubby agreed. Maybe He told Hubby too but DH hasn't said anything to me about that.

How did He tell me? Did he "speak" to me? Well, I like to think that he communicated directly with me but it wasn't an audible voice or anything. Oh, gee, now I'm sounding crazy. Okay, let me just tell you what happened.

Five and a half years ago, when my Little Bird was born, homeschooling was on my heart. When Kangaroo joined our family 2 years later, the homeschooling idea demanded even more of my attention. Sometime in December of 2005, I prayed about the idea and asked the Lord to please tell me what to do. Actually what I said was, "Lord, you created me as a visual learner. You know that is the best way to communicate with me if there is something you want me to do. Please let me know if I am supposed to educate these children through homeschooling."

Between the births of the girls, I had a friend who had retired in the summer and had moved off Florida. She had homeschooled her grandchildren. Well, about a week after my prayer, she phoned me. She was coming back into town for the Christmas holidays. She asked if I still planned to homeschool the girls and if so, would I be interested in having all her leftover materials. Thinking that she had just a couple of boxes, I said sure! I planned to sort through them later to see what I could use. It still hadn't dawned on me that the Lord was answering my prayer.

We made arrangements to meet up at the storage unit where she had her stuff stored. I pulled up there in my little Chevy Venture minivan that I was driving at the time. She directed me back up to a door and out comes her husband with not 1, not 2, but 15! boxes of homeschool materials! Materials range from preschool to 7th or 8th grade! Science, history, math, reading, language, and much more! I didn't say anything to her about this at the time but my thoughts were, "Holy Moly! What am I gonna do with all this?" My next thought, was "Thank you for being so direct with me God! I get it now!"

This summer, I went through the materials looking for what was needed to coorrespond with the Easy Classical method we have chosen to use. I did find quite a bit but ended up going to Ebay.com to find some others. I offered up some of the materials that I'm not going to be using for the next 6 years, then used the money made from those sales to purchase the items needed. Basically, I just swapped them out.

We've only been actively homeschooling since September but we are having SO MUCH FUN! My Little Bird is such and easy student with Kangaroo bouncing along right behind her! I think I'm enjoying this just as much as they are! :D

Curriculum We're Using

We're currently using the Easy Classical method and Everything Homeschooling. We also do lots of lapbooks using Lapbook Lessons and Creation Kids.

Days after Christmas 2008

This is my sister Dana's beautiful tree. It looks so much better than mine!

On Saturday, my side of the family chose to celebrate our Christmas at my sister's house in Gonzales. She has a beautiful home that she and her hubby are still working on. Her house also features this really big living room that has awful accoustics for family gatherings. If it was for a music concert it might actually sound good, but when you have a bunch of loud kids, well, it's loudER! Anyway, so, we gathered together there for eats and loots. I joking told my sis, "We came, we ate, let's get our loot and go!" She just rolled her eyes at me. Here are some pics from that gathering. We, well, ONE of us, decided that we were going to have a family picture made in front of my sister's Christmas tree. Here's my sister, Dana, pointing at one of the kids, ordering them to behave. Hah!

Aaaannnnd, here are my new BIL, my ds and two nephews, oh...and there's a third nephew, trying to get in place for the picture.

I think everyone is going to make it! D and I were trying to get everyone in place, set the timers on the cameras, and then run to our spots in time for the flash!

Success! Don't we make a cute bunch? From L-R: Luke, Mason, my sister Dana, Mom, Remi, step-dad Randy, Hubby (with Kangaroo & Little bird in front of him), DS, Me, New BIL George, my other sister Trina, Layne, and my brother Alex. Family gatherings are so much fun!!!!

Christmas Teeth

This year for Christmas, my older kiddos rec’d some stupid junk in their stockings. You know….practical jokester junk. Anyway, one of the items was these silly looking Bubba Teeth. Well, my Little Bird thought they were the funniest things and she put them on. She then ran to the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror and admire her “new” teeth! About this time, my dad comes over to see the kids and spend a few minutes with them. He enjoys being around when they are learning and seeing new things for the first time. While he was here, my Kangaroo started crying.

When she cries and whines, it’s a bit hard to understand what she’s trying to say. When that happens, we tell her to calm down and use her words. We tell her that we don’t speak that language and we can’t understand it when someone else is speaking it. Then she’s usually pretty good at getting a grip and communicating what she wants or needs. So, anyway, then she says it so we can understand, "Iwannaooklikpawpabutlilbudwonshare". Us adults look at each other, with this "What did she say?" look on our faces. So we asked her repeat it, using her words. This time we heard quite clearly, "I wanna look like paw paw but Little Bird won't shaaaayer!!!"

See, my dad has this tooth…one of his front teeth….that “died” and was fixed with a root canal and then a cap. So, it looks a little funny when he smiles. It just stands out a little.

Kangaroo and her paw paw teeth!

Isn’t it funny the things children see that we grown ups can't or ....don’t wanna…..see?

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas morning dawns with me sleeping sooooooo gooooood!!! My hubby is an early bird. It doesn't matter what time he finally goes to sleep. It could be 3 a.m. It doesn't matter. He's wide awake and ready to take on the world at 5 a.m.! And so it was Christmas morning. Thankfully, he let me sleep in until 7 a.m.! Woo Hoo! But he seemed to be more excited than the kiddos. He couldn't wait to get into the girls bedroom to wake them. Little Bird contemplated staying in bed for a bit but she gave in to curiosity and crawled out of bed to see what was under (or beside) the Christmas tree. When hubby told Kangaroo, "Come see what Santa brought!" she pulled the blankie over her head, rolled over, and grumpily said, "No!" LOL She's only 3 years old! My word....what will she be like in 10 years?! But, curiosity finally got her out of bed too. They entered the living room, took a look at the stuff and promptly began playing. This year, I had decided to take certain toys out of the box and pre-load them with needed batteries. So, instead of "opening" the gifts Santa brought, the girls just started playing with them. They didn't care about the other prettily wrapped stuff under the tree. They were happy with what they had.

Little Bird shows off her little cell phone!

Kangaroo is excited about her pretty, pretty dress.

By the way, there will be another blog regarding my thoughts on Santa. Be looking for it.

Christmas Eve 2008

Okay, so here's my little days after Christmas post. We celebrate every year on Christmas Eve with my hubby's side of the family. Every year we get together at the Lion's Club and have a huge potluck dinner. He has a big family. So big, in fact, that buying gifts for everyone has become quite the challenge. There were 40 bodies in attendance at this year's get together. In the past, there has been as many as 75 people! Adult family members had once agreed that gift buying/giving would only be done for the children ages 12 and under. But most times, we don't adhere to that agreement. No body believes in drawing names in this family. That's just not the way things are done here. For my part, I'm always making goodies and stuff for all the married couples (new and old) plus for the kids. I also buy or make gifts for the other 34 out of town family members. These people are all direct descendants of my parents-in-law. I have 4 step children, 4 step children's spouses, and the 6 step grandkids. I also have 5 siblings-in-law (plus their spouses), 12 nieces & nephews (and their spouses), and all their 28 children. Now, keep in mind this is only my hubby's side of the family. I also have my 4 siblings (and S.O's & spouses) and 9 nieces and nephews. And finally, I have my own 4 children. Soooo, all that being said, every year for Christmas, I HAVE (okay, so I don't HAVE TO, no one is holding a gun to my head, but that's another blog) to purchase or make at least one little gift for each individual (except the married couples who usually recieve a couples gift from me). That's a total of 74 gifts, give or take a few. Arrrrggghhh! Tell me again.......What is Christmas? and Why do we do this to ourselves year after year? Here are a few photos of all the kids and a table full of wrapped gifts. This is Christmas Eve with hubby's family.

Doesn't my hubby look like he's having fun?

After all this, we came home, threw some reindeer food out the back door for Rudolph, put on our Christmas jammy's, and crawled into bed. At the last minute, I remembered that I had a gingerbread house that I'd forgotten to work on with the girls. Sooooo, while they slumbered, I decorated the poor thing for them to see when they woke up Christmas morning.

Then I went to bed.

Colombian Christmas Traditions

I was chatting with my step-mom the other day about the Christmas traditions in her hometown of Bogota, Colombia. I found it very interesting that the focus is on family and the Christ Child vs. Santa Claus. She was telling me that they start celebrating on Dec. 7 by honoring the Virgin Mary. They'll light 100's of candles (approximately 100 candles on the sidewalk area). During nine days beginning Dec. 16, Colombians usually gather together at night around the Nativity scenes to sing and pray to the Virgin Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. My step mom was telling me that Santa does exist in their culture and people to have Christmas trees but it's the Nativity that gets the most attention.

The focus is also more on Christmas Eve than Christmas Day and gifts are given at midnight after a long Christmas Eve party. The Christ Child brings the gifts although Santa Claus is also well known. My step mom says that the gifts are left at the child's bed so when they wake up in the morning they are surrounded by presents! When I heard that, I thought, "What a NEAT IDEA! The kids can open their gifts without waking up the sleeping parents!"

You can read more about these traditions at http://latin-caribbean-travelblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/colombia-christmas-in-bogot-1987.html and http://www.interpretermagazine.org/interior_print.asp?ptid=43&mid=11687&pagemode=print.

I had never heard of the Christ Child bringing gifts to the children. According to my stepmom, the children write letters of gift requests to the Christ Child instead of Santa. I asked her if that was to teach the children dependence of Christ for our necessities. She said she thought so but wasn't sure. All that led to even more discussion about the different traditions. Although, not one tradition is any better than another, I found it interesting that Colombian traditions are less confusing about the true meanings of Christmas.

After all, isn't the ultimate gift of Salvation brought to us by the Christ Child?

(BTW, I apologize for my writing style on this particular topic. I've been getting tugged at quite often during this post.)

Cajun Christmas Gifts, pt. 2

Continuing the Cajun Christmas Gifts...I decided to do 2 separate posts because #1: I was getting tired of all that typing and #2: separate posts make for easier reading...(you're welcome!)

Day 7: Seven Fleur De Lis...How hard is it to find THESE in Louisiana? So this is what I sent my sister to help her keep her wine glasses or water goblets from getting confused!

Day 8: Eight crabs a brewin' .... oh boy. What am I gonna give her now? Can't send her eight crabs now can I? I go back to Ebay and do a search and "to what do my wonderin' eyes do appear?" This beautiful bracelet for my sister to wear!

Day 9: Nine oysters stewin'....Well, now HERE'S a dilemma! I search and google all over for SOMETHING but I keep drawin' a blank. Finally, I find an oyster platter but it only has 6 wells for 6 oysters. I need a 9 well. Do they make those? Well, yeah, but not for cheap! In fact, after googling and ebaying, and finding everything from a 6 well to a 24 well plate, I decided that if it can't be found....then it can be made. I sent hubs out again with the chainsaw to cut a plate size piece of wood in which he can rout out 9 wells. This task turned out to be not so easy. In the end, he purchased a wood cutting board and did the routing on that. It wasn't as pretty as I would've liked but it was much less $$ than the $2000.00 I kept seeing for antique platters. In the end, I guess I could've found a 9 inch oyster!? Also, wouldn't cha know.....This is the one gift I didn't get a picture of!!! So you'll just have to picture it in your mind. Sorry! :(

Day 10: Ten pirogue paddles. Hubby easily solved this one for me. My dad has been building his house next door and doing much of the finishing and trimming work with cedar. Dad gave hubs a plank of cedar just big enough to cut some small, ornament sized, pirogue paddles out of. Then I tied a pc of red ribbon to it and stuck ten of them in a box for sister. I figured she could hang them in her closets now that she has that house full of smelly kids! (Her new hubs brought 5 children (ages 7 - 17) with him into their blended family!) This picture is of the first one. It was damaged so hubs had to start all over but you get the idea.

Day 11: Eleven duck decoys. After searching Ebay, I found some duck decoys, I but wasn't happy with sending her eleven of them. I mean, she's already picking up after seven children now....did she want to keep up with eleven duck decoys? I just couldn't do that to her. I finally ran across this beautiful print featuring a pair of children feeding a mother duck and her ten ducklings. Then I purchased a Walmart frame to put it in. I figured my sister could hang it in her bathroom or something.

Day 12: Twelve shotgun shells. Okay, well, all I could come up with here was this. I made twelve of these and sent them off to her. I'm sure there are some other really cool crafty things to do with shotgun shells, but I was at the end of my rope....not to mention DEADLINE! I needed to get this stuff packed up and shipped off to Olive Branch, MS!! This picture came from the http://www.shotgunsanta.com/ website. I didn't make mine exactly like this but it was pretty close.

So, there you are. The Cajun 12 gifts of Christmas. I did this for my sister because just love her sooooo much!!! Sadly, I can only do this for one family member at a time, so hopefully, my other sisters can be patient and know that they will get their turn eventually. Although, I'll have to change up the gifts a bit to keep the element of surprise!!!

Cajun Christmas Gifts, pt. 1

In honor of my little sister's (I have 3 little sisters) new family and her celebrating their first Christmas together, I decided I would gift them with the 12 gifts of the Cajun 12 Days of Christmas.

Day 1: A Crawfish in a fig tree.....minus the crawfish.

So, I send my sister and her new hubby a fig tree. When it arrived, my sister didn't know exactly what it was she was looking at. She called me up and asked in this accusatory tone, "You love me so much that you sent me some poison ivy? What's this about?" I just responded, "Sis, it's a FIG TREE!" Still sounding puzzled, she says, "A fig tree? What am I gonna do with a fig tree?" To which I answered the obvious, "Plant it!" Then I went on to explain that I couldn't find a crawfish to send with it (As a matter of fact, I found a crawfish TODAY at Hobby Lobby!!!) and would she just accept the little fig tree and plant the thing in her back yard. It took her a minute before she exclaimed in my ear....."Ooooooh I get it!!!" I swear, some people are just sooooo slooooow!




Day 2: Two voodoo dolls. So I sent them these in honor of their new marriage. My new brother in law phoned to say he'd never rec'd a voodoo doll from a Baptist before! LOL

Day 3: T'ree stuffed shrimp. Well, now, here I drew a blank. I had no clue what to do for 3 stuffed shrimp. I toyed with the idea of phoning a restaurant in her area and just having 3 stuffed shrimp delivered to her office for lunch. Then she went and took 10 days off from work so she could decorate her house. So much for having lunch delivered to her office....and I couldn't have it delivered to her house because I had no idea whether or not she'd even be there. Then her cat would end up eating the shrimp. Oh, yeah, she has a CAT!!....so I purchased 3 little pkgs of Meow Mix, Ocean Explosion, for my sisters kitty. I later rec'd a text that said, "You're a nut!" followed shortly after by another text telling me that she treated kitty with one of the little morsels and he was going crazy looking for the rest of them. Awww, sweet puddy tat!

Day 4: Four pousse cafe'. For this one, I had to do some internet research. I didn't even know what a pousse cafe' was! I learned that it is a sweet, striped drink made from a series of liqueurs poured in succession so that they float upon each other. It's a "chaser" to enjoy after dinner and after your last cup of coffee. I also learned that bartenders absolutely HATE to make this drink as it requires a bit of tenacity and patience. Since it's layered, the alcohol must be poured with care, the heaviest liquor first, then lighter liquors poured over the back of a spoon so it doesn't mix with the previously poured layers. The end result is a lovely looking layered cordial. Personally, I think it's too pretty to drink....not that I would or anything. However, my daughter tells me that it will knock your socks off! She also says that when she ordered an 11 layer pousse cafe, the look on the bartender's face was absolutely priceless! Anyway, the fourth gift my sister received was pousse cafe cordial glasses I found on Ebay for $10! Woo Hoo!

Day 5: Five poules d'eau....a.k.a. American Coot. Another gift I had to do some research on. This little bird looks like a cross between a chicken and a duck. It has a white, duck like bill but not webbed feet like a duck. It can also be found in stews and other southern Louisiana cuisine. On Ebay again, I found a collector's plate (Only $5!) with 5 of these critters on it. I bought it and sent it on to mah sister.....since I didn't know how else I would fulfill this particular gift.


Day 6: Six cypress knees. Now here's a little story. First of all, I don't know if there's a law against this or not, but I sent hubby out to cut the tops off some tiny cypress knees. I needed them to be about 4 to 5 inches in heighth. I wasn't sure at first what I was going to do with them. I'm not a wood carver or even a very good painter so I debated whether or not to deface these beautiful pieces of wood. Anyway, I finally decided that they'd be the perfect heighth to make unique Louisiana Christmas ornaments for her tree. I started out by boiling the cut knees in order to peel the bark off. This is my first time ever crafting with cypress knees so this entire craft was quite an experiment. To my surprise, the bark just slid right off the wood, leaving a perfectly smooth surface eliminating the need for sanding to paint or polyurethane. I sat them out in the sun for a couple of days to get good and dried out before I sealed them. Then I sat them up on my kitchen counter and..... Do you see what I see?

I see the nativity. Now the really cool thing about this is that these knees were just randomly picked and cut by my hubby down in the woods behind my house. I imagine when he was looking at them all covered in mud and bark, he didn't see the nativity. It was only after they were cleaned that the nativity was revealed. My sister thinks this is the coolest of the 12 gifts so far and instead of hanging them on her tree, she opted to set them up like in the picture.

See Cajun Christmas Gifts, pt. 2 for the rest.

My long lost little sister

Recently, I was contacted by my long lost little sister. My siblings and I have known about her since before her birth. She also has older siblings on her mom's side who knew of the circumstances and situation that prevented my dad and her mom from getting married. I won't go into all the details here. Last year, she learned about our side of the biological family tree and she made contact with us. At this time, she has no desire to meet or contact my dad. She feels that the man who raised her is her real daddy. She has stated that she knows that one day she'll need to cross that bridge, but not right now. My siblings and I are in complete agreement with her. We completely understand how she feels. I don't know HOW we understand, but we do. If someone were to come to me and tell me that my dad is not my dad, I would probably respond by shrugging my shoulders and replying, "So?"

Anyway, so my little sister is back in my life. I say "back" because as I previously mentioned, I've always known about her and have always had the desire to meet her and get to know her. This summer, when she made contact with us, that became a reality! I met her in July. This is the first Christmas that we'll get to spend with her. I got her a gift, an essay/photo book entitled, "Sisters". I am inscribing a poem in the front of it for her.

I'm posting it here because I know she doesn't read or know about my blog. So, I won't be giving away any secrets or surprises. So, here goes. If anyone has any suggestions for improvement, please feel free to say so!!!

Never will forget that day in July
You walked into my life
Wrapped your arms around me
Felt like you just come home
Couldn’t think of what to say
Didn’t want you to go away
Wanted to ask all about your life
Where you went to school
How you learned to drive
You’re always in my heart
Though miles and years apart
You mean so much to me
Your returning has made me happy
Missing puzzle piece has been found
Long lost sister
Safe and Sound

Stupid Christmas Songs

I didn't realize how long it had been since I've posted. Sorry about that. I've been busy with a Thanksgiving wedding and other Christmas activities. During my runnings around I have had my surburban radio tuned into to 96.1 for all their Christmas tunes. Last night, they played that catchy little tune "Last Christmas". My 21 y.o. daughter turned to me and said, "That is the stupidest song I think I've ever heard". I have to agree with her. If you listen to the lyrics, it's just stupid.

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day, you gave it away.
This year, to save me from tears,
I'll give it to someone special.

Ooookaaaayy, well, didn't you do that last year? Gave your heart to someone special? And then they went and gave it away.....so you're gonna do it again this year? COME ON!! This song has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Christmas spirit.

Just my little old opinion.