Geraldine Ryan recently wrote a post on writing Christmas stories for magazines, Christmas Comes but Twice a Year.  Even if you’re not interested in writing, it’s interesting to see what kind of content magazines are looking for, and when they’re looking for it.

Looking for Christmas movies the whole family can enjoy?  Check out these 5 Christmas movies that are appropriate for children:

1. A Christmas Story
2. Elf
3. It’s a Wonderful Life
4. Santa Claus
5. The Muppet Christmas Carol

Danielle has made another great Christmas card from scratch…the best kind of card.

And Organized Christmas has some good advice for saving money this Christmas: Make a Holiday Budget.

Getting your Christmas shopping out of the way as early as possible is always a good idea. We’ll keep this page current with the best Christmas gifts for 2009, so check back regularly to see what’s most popular as the year progresses. As usual, Amazon has two pages you’ll probably find very valuable (and they almost always have better prices than you’ll find anywhere else): Click here to read more »

We’ve just finished updating our site with our new premium Christmas trees for 2009.  Five of these trees now come with long lasting, energy saving LED lights.  All of these trees are extremely realistic, with molded PE tips.  You have to get really close to these trees to tell they’re not real, and even up close you may have a hard time being able to tell.  So if you’re in the market for a new Christmas tree this year, be sure to check these out!

A Christmas Carol

Christmas in July came to Chicago this past weekend in the form of the Christmas Carol Train.  For anyone who hasn’t heard, Jim Carrey has a new movie coming out on November 6th.  You can see a teaser trailer here, but be warned it looks a bit scary for kids.

Life as Mom is doing Christmas in July posts this week that include giving away prizes!

Some stores have begun putting up Christmas decorations already, which seems a tad bit early…  Time has an appropriately named article: Kmart’s Christmas in July: Inspiration or Desperation Tom Barlow from Blogging Stocks also has an interesting post on Kmart’s early launch:

The campaign shows little thought or investment beyond a landing page and a few links to existing catalog items. Dare I suggest that this is typical Kmart, unimaginative and short-sighted? I haven’t even bought my Halloween costume and Thanksgiving turkey yet. Are they giving up on those holidays?

Will Kmart even be around in January to accept returns? With promotions like this, I have to wonder.

Merry Christmas in July!

LED Christmas Lights

We’ve just finished changing all the lights on our site, from a combination of incandescent and LED to all LED Christmas lights.  Over the last two years we’ve been replacing our incandescent lights with LED’s in our store, and they’ve been such a big hit that we’ve decided to quit selling incandescent lights online.  For any of you who don’t know the difference between LED and incandescent lights, here are the basics:

• LED lights last up to 10x longer than incandescent lights
• They use 80-90% less energy
• They’re better for the environment
• They don’t get hot like incandescent lights

While they are a little more expensive to purchase initially, you’ll save money through lower electric bills and not having to replace burnt out light strings and bulbs…not to mention time.  Here’s a review comparing LED to incandescent Christmas lights by Consumer Reports.

When LED lights first came onto the market, many customers didn’t like the quality of the white light.  Now, there are several different versions of LED white lights that will certainly satisfy anyone:

Above are images of LED “wide angle” and “M5″ styles, with “warm white” on the left and “pure white” on the right.  If you’re trying to replicate the look of an incandescent light, the warm white LED lights are what you should get.  However, many people do like the look of the bright, pure white lights.  Regardless of which color you choose, we’re sure you’ll also find LED lights to be superior to incandescents.

We recently came across this Christmas trivia site, and thought it would be perfect to highlight on our blog.  If you’re into Christmas trivia you’ll surely like this site, as it’s got plenty of quizzes on a wide range of topics both easy and difficult.  On that subject, this Christmas blog has lots of posts with Christmas trivia and plenty of other tidbits to keep you in the Christmas spirit.  Enjoy!

We’d like to hear your thoughts on how the economic situation is affecting your Christmas plans this year. Are you planning on purchasing less Christmas gifts and decorations this year?  Take our two minute survery on Christmas and the economy and we’ll give you $20 off any purchase over $100.

Image from Scrap 'n Stamp Canada

Here’s another excellent Christams card tutorial for making Christmas cards with glitter.  Not only is it a great tutorial, but you can also find everything you need to make Christmas cards and crafts at the Scrap ‘n Stamp online store.  Making your own Christmas cards is a great way to get into spirit of Christmas, and they’ll mean a lot more than if you had purchased them already made in a store.

Christmas Decorations in Shop Window

I recently came across a post on organizing Christmas decorations that I thought was worth sharing here.  If you’re reading this blog, it’s likely that you’ve got a lot of Christmas decorations yourself, and you know that packing and unpacking them each year can be a chore, along with finding a place to store them.  The above article has some great tips including storing ornaments in plastic containers, using labels to identify the contents of boxes, and keeping lights from getting tangled.

This post on how to organize your garage also very much applies to Christmas decorations.  Getting rid of decorations you don’t use can likely free up significant space, and there are plenty of options that don’t involve throwing your decorations in the trash.

If you’ve got any organizational tips, please leave them in the comments below!

Christmas Cookies

I know it’s only June, but anytime is a good time for Christmas cookies.  If this site doesn’t make you want to either bake or go out and get some cookies right now, I don’t know what will!  Enjoy…