Personalized Christmas Stockings

Despite an increase in the popularity of artificial trees, there are still tons of families that opt to purchase a real tree. Like me, some people love the smell of a pine tree in their home. Our family also hikes out into the woods at a tree farm and we cut down our own tree and throw it on top of the car. It’s a great tradition and a lot fun.

Whatever your preferences, here are a few safety tips for Christmas trees:

1. To ensure that the tree doesn’t dry out, cut one inch off the bottom of the trunk to enable the tree to drink better.
2. If you’re artificial tree contains metal, make sure that you aren’t using electric lights.
3. If any of your lights show wear and tear, discard them and buy new lights. Christmas lights are relatively cheap!
4. Prior to turning in for the night, it’s wise to turn off your Christmas tree lights so they aren’t on all night (this will also save energy).
5. For real trees, always make sure that you give it plenty of water – don’t let it run out and become dry.
6. Trees should be positioned away from vents, radiators or anything that could remit heat.

If you’re bored with safety tips and want to shop for personalized Christmas stockings, click here.

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Cookies and other Holiday treats are a large part of many Christmas traditions. One of the things that make these recipes taste so good is the atmosphere and all of the other activities that surround the making of these Holiday delicacies. Often not the healthiest of snacks, it’s hard not to have just a little bit of fudge or just a few Christmas cookies. Whatever your preference, here are some top Christmas recipes that we found on AllRecipes.com (our favorite receipe site).

Click on recipe name to get all the details on how to make these Holiday delicacies!

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Cranberry Orange Cookies

Molasses Sugar Cookies

Scotcharoos

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread

Banana Sour Cream Bread

My Amish Friend’s Caramel Corn

Mom’s Best Peanut Brittle

If you’re looking for a personalized christmas stockings and not cookie recipes, click underlined text…

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Each year the holiday shopping season brings new, hot gifts to the forefront of the minds of consumers. These “must have” buys such as: iPod’s, TeVo’s, PS3, etc., dominate the season. This year, we’ve highlighted 10 potential “hot buys”. Each of these has the potential to become the craze this year.

1. The #1 ranked item has to be the iPhone! This product is very popular and will certainly be a hot buy during the holiday season.

2. Hannah Montana items are still very popular worldwide. Especially for young girls this phenomenon will continue this holiday season. 

3. Nintendo Wii was popular last year but remains the gaming console that is considered a must have.

4. Anything Personalized is also a great gift. Things such as picture frames, t-shirts, etc. Personalized gifts make the recipient feel like you went the extra mile.

5. A wireless reading device is a nice popular gift this year. They are expensive but very cool and becoming popular.

6. Guitar Hero is a very popular game that everyone seems to enjoy. A great gift that has been popular for the last couple of years.

7. Pleo the dinosaur is a popular gift for kids. Apparently its some sort of robotic dinosaur…very expensive. Google the term and you’ll find a plethora of ways to purchase.

8. Digital photo frames are very popular right now. Lots of big retailers carry them or you can always search them out online. Seeing them in person at Target is better though.

9. Canon Digital Rebel is a great camera that brings the best of the digital camera features for an affordable price. Well rated camera as well.

10. Playstation 3 is available and the rage for those that don’t like the Nintendo Wii.

Of course if you are looking for a personalized christmas stocking, shop here!

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Not all Christmas stockings are as affordable as ours at Merry Stockings.  Check out this Swarovski-encrusted Christmas stocking - it retails for over $3,500!

You can save yourself a lot of money by browsing our more down to earth designs.  Plus you can actually personalize them with your name!

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It won’t be long until Christmas!  Here’s a tip if you’re planning on putting Christmas lights on your house: do it now!  It is much easier and warmer to install lights in November before the snow comes along.  That way you can take your time on your exterior illumination with feeling in your fingers.

Bonus tip: don’t over do it!

Image from uglychristmaslights.com

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Here at MerryStockings we carry several Bucilla Personalized Christmas Stockings kits. These kits are a great way to give a memorable Christmas stocking that really tells a story. Most of the Bucilla Stockings kits have a detailed scene on the stocking, such as this one that’s highlighted. These often take over 50 hours to put together but are very unique and fun.

MerryStockings.com carries several different designs. Check them out today: Bucilla Personalized Christmas Stockings Kits.

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Black Friday is a huge day for shoppers – especially those that are trying to save money. It’s a well known fact that Black Friday can yield some really great savings. Here at MerryStockings.com we celebrate Black Friday ourselves and usually get out and try to take advantage of the great deals. To honor those that do some online Black Friday shopping we’ve created a Black Friday code for use on this highly anticipated day. Check back on the 26^th for the discount code which will yield great savings on your favorite personalized Christmas stocking.

We’ve also prowled the web and found a few sites that are devoted to Black Friday and are flush with tips and ways to save money this holiday shopping season:

http://www.bfads.net - this website is a compilation portal for all things Black Friday. They say on their website that the newspaper ads are not released until a couple of days prior to Black Friday, but are released via the web weeks in advance. They also feature forums where users can interact with one another share tips on how to save money on Black Friday. Very helpful and informative site!

http://www.blackfriday.info - this is another site that aggregates Black Friday deals. They don’t have forums or a way to interact with other users. That fact aside, very helpful site devoted to Black Friday.

http://www.blackfriday.gottadeal.com/ -  very robust site that features helpful information on Black Friday. The main site (www.GottaDeal.com) looks like it features deals all year long and then the Black Friday site is a sub site. Either way, very nice interface, tons of information and tons of members. On the homepage they boast over 160K members - which if you use the forums you’ll surely find helpful information from one of these members as you hunt for the perfect deal.

Enjoy the shopping season!

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When getting friends and family together around the Holidays, there is a lot of time to hang out between meals.  For a number of American families, that means movies!  Classics like A Christmas Story and A Christmas Carol are great traditions.  But how about adding some new options to the mix?  Here is a list of movies that take place on or around Christmas, that aren’t really about Christmas.Die Hard

Family Man

Ghost Busters 2

The Ref

Donnie Brasco

The Godfather 2

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Operation Christmas Stocking is an effort to collect Christmas stockings and gifts for US troops serving in the Middle East over the Holidays.  You can get involved by donating money, putting together a Christmas stocking of your own or volunteering.  They even pay the shipping to send your donations to their warehouse.

Check out www.operationgive.org today to learn more.

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Part of the fun in decorating for Christmas is changing things up from season to season.  You could try coordinating your Christmas stockings and tree skirt in the same colors one year, then use complementary colors the next.

In that spirit, we’ve decided to change the layout of our Christmas decoration blog with a new theme.  It was designed by Design Disease; a very nice web design company.  We think it’s a clean, simple look which fits with our stockings and decor style.  What do you think?

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