Gifts for good little girls and …

Lori Janes of Louisville and her co-workers from the Harmon Dental Center were having a white elephant gift exchange during their annual employee Christmas party. The game called ‘Yankee swap’ is a gift exchange game. In order of drawn numbers, players choose to either open a wrapped gift or ‘steal’ someone else’s that’s already been opened. The game comes to an end after everyone has had the chance to swap their gift and is satisfied with their loot. Lori wanted the $25 TJ Maxx gift card one of the girls had brought, but that card got passed by her and she was stuck with some cardboard in a wrapper. At the end of the bargaining, all the girls had opened their prizes one at a time. Somebody else got the TJ Maxx card and Lori had three kinds of scratch off lottery tickets. At first, she was disappointed, but all the girls told her to start scratching to see if she had won anything.

“Once it got to me, everyone was telling me to scratch them off,” Janes said. Lori’s first ticket put her off to a good start with a $50 prize, and the second ticket, a “$10 Hit The Jackpot” ticket, revealed a $175,000 top prize. “Everyone was going insane. People were getting their calculators out and double-checking. A couple of people even scanned the ticket on the lottery’s app, just to make sure,” Janes said. “I couldn’t believe it. It was a $25 gift exchange, and I won $175,000!” Janes called her family, but they were initially skeptical. “We figured she didn’t look at it right, but then we heard people in the background celebrating, it became real.” Lori, flanked by her family, took home a giant check for $124,250 after taxes. Lori said the prize will allow her to pay off her daughter’s student loans and her family’s cars. “This is so crazy. I am truly blessed,” she said.

Not everyone is so gracious about the presents they want. 4 year old Poppy Pike was at a restaurant in Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia, with her older sister, her mom and her step dad. While mom and dad got their table set up the girls admired all the great toys inside the claw machine in the lobby. As their lust for toys grew, the senior sister told Poppy she could never win by dropping quarters in the machine, but she could just climb up into the exit chute and grab all the stuffed toys her little heart desired. Being 4 and full of wide-eyed lust, Poppy did the deed. Once inside though, Poppy forgot how to get out. Then she got sacred, started crying and yelling at her sister on the other side of the glass. The senior sister ran to her parent’s table and explained that Poppy was captive.

The video below shows the frustrated Poppy sitting among a pile of plush toys banging furiously on the glass. “At first we just thought her arm was stuck, until we walked out and saw her fully in the machine. You wouldn’t believe it,” mom, Melanie Pike can be heard exclaiming as she struggled to contain her laughter. As they stood outside and marveled, there Poppy was crying and clutching a couple of stuffed animals. The manager explained he did not have the key to open the machine. Fortunately, dad was able to coach Poppy to sit down in the chute and wiggle around until he could pull her out with his arm. She brought her treasures with her. One witness to the excitement commented: “The only way you’d ever get one of those claw machine prizes is to steal it.” But that is not what mom and dad believed.  To teach the little girl a tearful lesson about stealing, once Poppy was freed from the machine, she was sternly told she had to return the stuffed animals to the restaurant staff.

Real Christmas Presents

My Chinese roommate and I decided to give each other homemade Christmas gifts this year!
I’m hoping for an iPad!

They’re taking “Baby It’s Cold Outside” off the radio for being offensive?
But I can’t help to think about all those poor children that lost their grandmothers in tragic reindeer accidents.

According to my kids’ Christmas lists, they think this parenting gig pays pretty well.

When you stop believing in Santa Claus, you start getting clothes for Christmas. 

December 26th Birthdays

1986 – Beth Behrs, 1961 – Tahnee Welch, 1988 – Eden Sher, 1991 – Gabriella Smith

1945 – John Walsh, 1987 – Kit Harrington, 1972 – Jared Leto, 1956 – David Sedaris

Morning Motivator:

You were given a gift of 86,400 seconds today.
Have you used one to say ‘Thank You?

It looked so easy

Be careful what you wish for: