OMG....What a surprise!

Akiss4me

You probably already guessed it, but I was the next recipient of the secret sister ornament exchange!! It couldn't have been timed any better. I was feeling down (long, long road to recovery) and managed to pick up a cold from the only venture out of my house, since surgery, to the Onc's office! That is the reason you have not seen me on here much.
My husband just stopped home to check on me and handed me a box that had come in the mail. As soon as I looked at the return address, my heart skipped a beat! I became as giddy as a school girl! It was the same excitement you get waking up Christmas morning and you get that first glimps of the once lone Christmas tree now filled with presents underneath! The excitement is hard to contain, wondering which ones Santa left for you!
I just stared at the box, frozen, wondering what was inside! I would have stayed in that capacity had my husband not ask, "well, aren't you going to open it?". My goodness! Of course! Carefully, I opened the box!
Wow! My secret sister went above and beyond what I ever expected! She really made me feel special. She found the "perfect" ornament and I will treasure it always. She even wrote me about her adventure in searching for the ornament which warmed my heart! She put alot of thought and time into making this so special.
I want to give her a heartfelt "thank you" and hope that everyones experience is as wonderful as mine has been!
Also, thank you Chenheart, for taking this project on to bring some extra joy into our lives!!
Hugs and smiles to all!
♥Pammy

jennytwist

YAY!
Glad you had a nice surprise! And hope you are feeling better and stronger every day!
-Jenny

Eil4186

Awwww Pammy, thanks for
Awwww Pammy, thanks for sharing your sweet story! You made my night!

fauxma

Eil4186 said:

Awwww Pammy, thanks for
Awwww Pammy, thanks for sharing your sweet story! You made my night!

Pammy and all the others
Pammy and all the others that have or will receive their ornaments,
I love the excitment you are all having and I love that you are receiving these, but for crying out loud can you describe the dang ornaments to us. I am living vicariously through all of you and I followed Pammy's whole story of receiving it and it ended with it was perfect. What was perfect, a glittery ice cream cone ornament, a star with diamonds encrusted, a jeweled breast cancer ribbon. Come on, gals, details. PLEEZ, PRETTY PLEEZ Color, discription, everything, spill it.
I truly do love all the excitment this is generating and I love hearing about them, I just want a little more. (Think of poor Oliver holding out his empty bowl)
Stef

chenheart

fauxma said:

Pammy and all the others
Pammy and all the others that have or will receive their ornaments,
I love the excitment you are all having and I love that you are receiving these, but for crying out loud can you describe the dang ornaments to us. I am living vicariously through all of you and I followed Pammy's whole story of receiving it and it ended with it was perfect. What was perfect, a glittery ice cream cone ornament, a star with diamonds encrusted, a jeweled breast cancer ribbon. Come on, gals, details. PLEEZ, PRETTY PLEEZ Color, discription, everything, spill it.
I truly do love all the excitment this is generating and I love hearing about them, I just want a little more. (Think of poor Oliver holding out his empty bowl)
Stef

Ok! My ornament is opaque
Ok! My ornament is opaque white, with the state of Texas delicately painted on it, looking rather like a Christmas stocking! The state is White on the top 1/3, and Red on the bottom 2/3 with a Turquoise Star on the NW corner! Painted next to, or perhaps I should say overlapping the state is also a sparkly, pretty bunch of turquoise flowers! It is inscribed with a beautiful fine script sending me Christmas Wishes from Boerne, Texas! There is also a paper label in the shape of Tx telling me that this ornament was Handpainted by a Native Texan!
I also received a sweet and comical hand drawn note, and a tiny bag called a Happiness Kit! It incuded an Eraser to make my mistakes disappear ( I need one the size of Texas to make that happen!!) A Coin so that I can never claim to be broke, a rubber band for the times when I am stretched beyond my limit, some string to hold it together when things fall apart, a marble for when I lose mine, and best of all , a HEART to remind me that love is all around me. Indeed it is, dear sisters, indeed it is.

Hug,
Chen♥

chenheart

chenheart said:

Ok! My ornament is opaque
Ok! My ornament is opaque white, with the state of Texas delicately painted on it, looking rather like a Christmas stocking! The state is White on the top 1/3, and Red on the bottom 2/3 with a Turquoise Star on the NW corner! Painted next to, or perhaps I should say overlapping the state is also a sparkly, pretty bunch of turquoise flowers! It is inscribed with a beautiful fine script sending me Christmas Wishes from Boerne, Texas! There is also a paper label in the shape of Tx telling me that this ornament was Handpainted by a Native Texan!
I also received a sweet and comical hand drawn note, and a tiny bag called a Happiness Kit! It incuded an Eraser to make my mistakes disappear ( I need one the size of Texas to make that happen!!) A Coin so that I can never claim to be broke, a rubber band for the times when I am stretched beyond my limit, some string to hold it together when things fall apart, a marble for when I lose mine, and best of all , a HEART to remind me that love is all around me. Indeed it is, dear sisters, indeed it is.

Hug,
Chen♥

I am bumping this up~ and
I am bumping this up~ and whatcha think ladies? Do we tell who our Ornament Elf was or not??? Once we receive it should we share our secret sister with the rest of the board? I am leaning toward.....YES!

Hugs,
Chen♥

Aliaslisa

chenheart said:

I am bumping this up~ and
I am bumping this up~ and whatcha think ladies? Do we tell who our Ornament Elf was or not??? Once we receive it should we share our secret sister with the rest of the board? I am leaning toward.....YES!

Hugs,
Chen♥

My Ornament
I just had a round of Chemo on Tuesday. Got a sore throat on Wed. and lost my voice on Thurs. BUT! I can still type! I got a beeeaaaauuuutiful ornament of a blond woman (like me) in a pretty, long party dress with her hands clapping to the beat of "dancing with Ned." She is dressed and coiffed as though she has a Spanish heritage (again, like me) so, she is just perfect! I don't know how I am going to top this! It was as though I was shopping with my ornament elf and she looked over my shoulder to see me admiring this one and then got it for me.

You know I will cherish this ornament from the day I got it until the day I am gone and my daughter in law and my son put it in their tree. (My 4 year old grandson just walked in and saw the ornament and said: "Is that a dancing girl?" I told him: "You bet she is dancing! For all of us! Huggs and Special Huggs for you who sent the ornament, XOXOXO. Lisa

cruf

chenheart said:

I am bumping this up~ and
I am bumping this up~ and whatcha think ladies? Do we tell who our Ornament Elf was or not??? Once we receive it should we share our secret sister with the rest of the board? I am leaning toward.....YES!

Hugs,
Chen♥

YES!
I didn't join in to the Secret Santa for no reason other than I'm lazy but I have to say, I'm so excited waiting with all of you for that special box. I would love to hear who the Secret Santa is for everybody and what the ornament looks like. How about a picture of them over the names so everyone can see them and enjoy them together. Just a suggestion. HUGS!! Cathy

chenheart

Aliaslisa said:

My Ornament
I just had a round of Chemo on Tuesday. Got a sore throat on Wed. and lost my voice on Thurs. BUT! I can still type! I got a beeeaaaauuuutiful ornament of a blond woman (like me) in a pretty, long party dress with her hands clapping to the beat of "dancing with Ned." She is dressed and coiffed as though she has a Spanish heritage (again, like me) so, she is just perfect! I don't know how I am going to top this! It was as though I was shopping with my ornament elf and she looked over my shoulder to see me admiring this one and then got it for me.

You know I will cherish this ornament from the day I got it until the day I am gone and my daughter in law and my son put it in their tree. (My 4 year old grandson just walked in and saw the ornament and said: "Is that a dancing girl?" I told him: "You bet she is dancing! For all of us! Huggs and Special Huggs for you who sent the ornament, XOXOXO. Lisa

Lisa, oh my~ your ornament
Lisa, oh my~ your ornament sounds perfect! Especially when you described yourself~ the Ornament Elf was definately there! We all especially love to be "dancing with NED", he is the absolute favorite dance partner of all of us here on the CSN! And none of our b/fs, g/f's hubby's , children, significant others is ever jealous! How nice is that??? LOL

I am really glad you were able to join in on the fun~ something to get our minds off of why we found this place!

Happy Holidays!
Chen♥

fauxma

chenheart said:

Ok! My ornament is opaque
Ok! My ornament is opaque white, with the state of Texas delicately painted on it, looking rather like a Christmas stocking! The state is White on the top 1/3, and Red on the bottom 2/3 with a Turquoise Star on the NW corner! Painted next to, or perhaps I should say overlapping the state is also a sparkly, pretty bunch of turquoise flowers! It is inscribed with a beautiful fine script sending me Christmas Wishes from Boerne, Texas! There is also a paper label in the shape of Tx telling me that this ornament was Handpainted by a Native Texan!
I also received a sweet and comical hand drawn note, and a tiny bag called a Happiness Kit! It incuded an Eraser to make my mistakes disappear ( I need one the size of Texas to make that happen!!) A Coin so that I can never claim to be broke, a rubber band for the times when I am stretched beyond my limit, some string to hold it together when things fall apart, a marble for when I lose mine, and best of all , a HEART to remind me that love is all around me. Indeed it is, dear sisters, indeed it is.

Hug,
Chen♥

Oh Chen,
I feel like I was
Oh Chen,
I feel like I was there looking at your lovely ornament. This fulfills my vicarious wishes. Thank you. ANd I hope everyone tells about their ornament and yes, I would like to know who gave to who. I am amazingly bossy for someone who didn't do this, but truth be told I was not feeling especially Christmasy. It is the one thing since my mom died that has been truly difficult for me. We spent every Christmas from the day I was born celebrating at my Mom's. I tried to take over the year after she died and my sister made it so miserable for everyone that I couldn't do it again. She and my brother have only spoken once since then. She doesn't speak to one of our nieces and has an on again, off again relationship with me, our other nephew and well everyone. Denise and Kyle go down south every other year, so we have Christmas with them when they are here and those are nice and we will build new memories, but last year was the 1st time I put up a tree after that disastor. It was for JJ because they were coming here and we needed to have a tree for him. It was nice but it was just the 6 of us. I am glad that they go to Kyle's because he has all his grandparents still living and some step-grandparents and both his mom and dad and the steps and sisters. They are all in San Diego so it truly is a fun, family Christmas. They all get along and do alot of things together. This year, Kyle and Denise are hosting our Christmas and I sense new Christmas traditions will be growing and that will be so nice. And Denise is coming up after Thanksgiving and going through all my ornaments to take her favorites. I have enough for 3 trees and many go back over 40 years.
So please, share with me your ornaments and your pleasure in this exchange. I need to bring Christmas back into my heart and this is helping more than you know.
Stef

Dawne.Hope

fauxma said:

Oh Chen,
I feel like I was
Oh Chen,
I feel like I was there looking at your lovely ornament. This fulfills my vicarious wishes. Thank you. ANd I hope everyone tells about their ornament and yes, I would like to know who gave to who. I am amazingly bossy for someone who didn't do this, but truth be told I was not feeling especially Christmasy. It is the one thing since my mom died that has been truly difficult for me. We spent every Christmas from the day I was born celebrating at my Mom's. I tried to take over the year after she died and my sister made it so miserable for everyone that I couldn't do it again. She and my brother have only spoken once since then. She doesn't speak to one of our nieces and has an on again, off again relationship with me, our other nephew and well everyone. Denise and Kyle go down south every other year, so we have Christmas with them when they are here and those are nice and we will build new memories, but last year was the 1st time I put up a tree after that disastor. It was for JJ because they were coming here and we needed to have a tree for him. It was nice but it was just the 6 of us. I am glad that they go to Kyle's because he has all his grandparents still living and some step-grandparents and both his mom and dad and the steps and sisters. They are all in San Diego so it truly is a fun, family Christmas. They all get along and do alot of things together. This year, Kyle and Denise are hosting our Christmas and I sense new Christmas traditions will be growing and that will be so nice. And Denise is coming up after Thanksgiving and going through all my ornaments to take her favorites. I have enough for 3 trees and many go back over 40 years.
So please, share with me your ornaments and your pleasure in this exchange. I need to bring Christmas back into my heart and this is helping more than you know.
Stef

My ornament
My mom is in the last days of her life. I'm helping my dad take care of her and these days are hard. As I left the office for the day, I had a grand fight with the copy machine which I finally won, but it was a nasty battle. When I arrived home, there was a priority mail box on the table waiting for me. It was from 'ornaments of love.' And I knew what it was! I had a similar moment to Pammy's ... I just sat and stared ... I didn't want to open because of the specialness of the moment, I wanted to savor it. But I was so excited to see what was inside. I sat it on the floor for a couple of hours, just because it was so special. I won't receive a Christmas gift from my mom this year ... and somehow, in some strange way ... it was like receiving a gift from her. Finally, I took it back to my home office and slowly opened the box. In it was a note from ornaments with love: "Your order was personalized by hand with pride by our skilled staff of artists." There was a small, red bag with snowflakes on it and inside was the ornament. It is a tree, and made out of that tree is a swing with three bears sitting on it. And each bear is wearing a dress one says, "Sisters" the other says, "In" and the third says "Pink." The dresses are in different colors ... the first is purple, the second is yellow, the third is pink. There is a pink basket of flowers on the far left by the trunk of the tree that says 2009. And the top of the tree among the branches it says, "Forever friends."

Thank you secret sister. And Stef ... I hope that this Christmas is a healing one and that truly there are many more blessed ones to come.


Deeply touched and thankful,
dh

p.s. Chen ... thank you so much, again, for putting this together.

fauxma

Dawne.Hope said:

My ornament
My mom is in the last days of her life. I'm helping my dad take care of her and these days are hard. As I left the office for the day, I had a grand fight with the copy machine which I finally won, but it was a nasty battle. When I arrived home, there was a priority mail box on the table waiting for me. It was from 'ornaments of love.' And I knew what it was! I had a similar moment to Pammy's ... I just sat and stared ... I didn't want to open because of the specialness of the moment, I wanted to savor it. But I was so excited to see what was inside. I sat it on the floor for a couple of hours, just because it was so special. I won't receive a Christmas gift from my mom this year ... and somehow, in some strange way ... it was like receiving a gift from her. Finally, I took it back to my home office and slowly opened the box. In it was a note from ornaments with love: "Your order was personalized by hand with pride by our skilled staff of artists." There was a small, red bag with snowflakes on it and inside was the ornament. It is a tree, and made out of that tree is a swing with three bears sitting on it. And each bear is wearing a dress one says, "Sisters" the other says, "In" and the third says "Pink." The dresses are in different colors ... the first is purple, the second is yellow, the third is pink. There is a pink basket of flowers on the far left by the trunk of the tree that says 2009. And the top of the tree among the branches it says, "Forever friends."

Thank you secret sister. And Stef ... I hope that this Christmas is a healing one and that truly there are many more blessed ones to come.


Deeply touched and thankful,
dh

p.s. Chen ... thank you so much, again, for putting this together.

Dawn
Thank you for sharing
Dawn
Thank you for sharing your moment. It is so nice to see, yes I can see it, the excitement of this exchange. My Christmas are not so much sad, because I have a wonderful daughter and son in law and grandchildren, they are just so very different and there is that empty space. I know that you know what I am saying because your mom is end stage. My heart goes out to you and yes, I think that this ornament is something that you will treasure not just from you sister here but because it is instilled with your mom as well.
My heart was just lifted by a dear guardian angel just a few moments ago. I won't go into details but for me, I feel like that little girl who wrote to The Post and I now know that Yes, Stephanie there is a Santa Claus. This angel could not have chosen a better time to bless me. I am truly a lucky, lucky woman.
You are all the bestest sisters in the whole world. Oh and one great brother as well.

Stef