ONE UGLY CHRISTMAS

UGLY SWEATER RESULTS

It's been 364 days since we handed out the ugliest sweaters we could find. Culled from the pristine racks of Goodwill and St. Vincent DePaul's thrift shop were eighteen  of the ugliest Holiday sweaters a buck ninety-nine could buy.To the amazement of all, not a sweater was lost or left unadorned during that one year incubation period when ideas were hatched and the birth of the ugliest of the uglies was given wings. The efforts of all were truly enormous. Where some might have failed to rise to the challenge, all eighteen competitors put on an exhibition of outstanding creativity showing you can take ugliness to an all-new level.
Here are some of the results:

WORTHY-OF-A-NOD was a tie between Maggie for wanting to get that monkey off her back

and Bonnie for showing what a nutcracker she can be.

HONORABLE MENTION has to go to Grandma, all dolled up as The Christmas Hygiene Queen. Snowy white snowmen pranced on a coif of squeaky-clean snow-white hair. Boxes of soap bubbles danced around her waist. She wore a sash proclaiming her immaculate hygiene and not a soul challenged her right to wear it. It was Christmas after all.

HONORABLE MENTION must also go to Rick for the fight he's waged all year: his dilemma of which Santa to listen to. With Good Santa on one shoulder and Bad Santa on the other it's been a struggle to do the right thing but the results are in and although it was touch and go Good Santa seems to have his ear more often then that Bad one.

SECOND PLACE, runner-up had to go Maddie. Unfortunately, there was no cash prize for this also ran but the effort and ingenuity couldn't go without notice. Having collected all the discarded items from last year's dumpster dive Maddie made something out of absolutely nothing, a baby-doll all decked out in Christmas pj's with a Seth Thomas clock right were her heart should have been. It was creative. It was smart. It was a little too "Chucky" to make it to the top.

THE WINNERS: Cody and Dylan. Their costumes might not have been the most ingenious or intellectually challenging but their courage to wear them was what won them the accolade of ugliest of the ugly. Their vests were meticulously covered in undusted plastic poinsettias petals, the height of chic. Below their vests they wore grass skirts fashioned from table skirts. dyed in festive holiday colors. Kudos to the boys for finding a way to make all of us smile.









A DUMPSTER DIVE CHALLENGE

Who knew this would be the first present picked in our dumpster dive diversion. Sandy was the luck one to have drawn the number one pick. Picking number one means you get to pick from all the gifts assembled at the end of the game but the first wrapped gift she chose to open from the pile had the enclosed note:

"To collect on the enclosed Target gift card you must put on this brassiere and be willing to be photographed wearing the brassiere knowing the photo will be posted on the Pleasant Living Home blog. If you do, the gift card is yours and the gift card is no longer in play. The gift becomes the brassiere only. If you decline the gift card remains with the gift until someone else chooses it or we come to the end of the game. If no one decides to pose the gift card comes back to me. What will you do for ten bucks?"
Happy Holidays
Sandy chose to keep the gift card so here she is.

THE PUPPET MASTER

It's now official; we've come to our one year anniversary for the Pleasant Living Home blog. We've kept to our goal of publishing once a week. We even had a couple of times when we made more than one posting in a given week. Thursdays are our weekly goal date. We've not always hit our mark. We've been known to push the posting into Friday and on a few occasions we've been as late as Saturday. We hope you all understand.
Our goal for the number of friends who've signed up didn't hit the mark we were looking for but with over 23,000 hits in one year we feel we did okay. We know we have a ways to go in getting all the bells and whistles you see on the major sites but we're working on them.
Lets all have a great 2012. We can feel it.
Happy New Year.

THE GALLERY

Snow, NYC
Ciaran Tully, Photographer
www.ciarantully.com