These are a few of my Favorite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things

I hope you sang it in your high falsetto Maria voice as well. Every year, instead of buying each other gift cards or other gifts, my sisters and I exchange our Favorite Things. It's a total knock off of Oprah, but it's become such a fun tradition and I look forward to it every Christmas. As I type this, I think it's fair to say it's become one of my favorite Christmas traditions.

So how do we do it? We set a money limit, this year, the economy was tough so we set a $50 limit. We buy duplicate gifts (since there's 3 of us and we buy for the other 2) and everything is one of our favorite things...it can be specifically from 2010 or we can do a throwback to one of our absolute favorite items.

So....here's a little taste of the 3H club Favorite Things as I list what made my list this year!

Coochy Cream....all I can say is don't knock it til you try it. My middle sister opened it and had a weird look on her face..I'm not sure if it was because my dad was looking on or if she was disgusted by the word Coochy screaming at her from the bottle. This stuff is a life saver in the summer. I spend 50% of my time in a bathing suit in the summer. There's nothing worse than seeing a chick in a bikini with red bumps on her upper and inner thighs. Razor burn sucks, it's unsightly and it's a big buzz kill on a lovely summer day at the beach. So use your Coochy Cream and razor burn no more!

Gardner's Helper Hand Cream by Crabtree and Evelyn...I think everything else in this store smells like a floral old lady, but I love this hand cream. I got it for Mr. Allan a couple years ago. The poor guy gets dry hands so bad that his knuckles crack and sometimes bleed. This beat out Kiehls' hand cream, Neutrogena hand Cream...we tried everything Walmart and Target and even Nordstrom's had to offer and this is the best. I keep a tube in my purse and use it all the time.

My Favorite Reads of 2010.. By far, my favorite books were The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and the Girl Who Played With Fire. They're the first two books in a series of 3. The first one took me a little bit to get into but once I did, I LOVED it. The second book was my absolute favorite of the three. Just watched the Swedish version of the movie and it was great as well. I'm anxiously awaiting the American version to come out.

Favorite Snacks of 2010.. I love Lara bars. why? Because they have all real ingredients in them..nothing processed and crap i can't pronounce. When I can't find a Lara bar and I'm in a pinch..I grab a luna bar! I'm also in love with Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Wedges. You can find them by the registers at Trader Joe's. They come in little wedges and 1 serving is 2 wedges. I'm a sugar junkie and could eat candy all day long..so these are perfect to curb your sweet tooth!

La Familia Limoncello..last year, my sister and I went on a Culinary Tour of Federal Hill...the Eye-talian section of Lil Rhody. We went into fabulous restaurants, bakeries, delis, and liquor stores! One extraordinary liquor store is Gasbarro's. (http://www.gasbarros.com/). They sell this fantastic Cream Limoncello. You see tons of Limoncello's in liquor stores, but never had I seen a cream one. They sell out of it like hotcakes. I called a few weeks ago and they were out. I needed one more favorite thing and on a limb during Christmas week I called. They had just gotten a case in! My boss and I flew up there and walked out with 4 bottles or so each. You store it in the freezer and it's a delectable after dinner treat. Mr. Allan and I pour a shot glass of it and sip it...more refined people might use a cordial glass...we didn't register for those!

here's the half empty bottle we tested on Christmas! Thanks Heather for the picture!

So those were my  Favorite Things for my two sisters! So much fun compiling the list and actually nabbing the items...especially that Limoncello!

Highlights of some of my sister's favorite things....Heather got us Jim Croce's Greatest Hits...I'm actually listening to it now...Season 1 of Gossip Girl, mud masks, her favorite quick shoe polisher...and the one I was most excited about...

for the ladies with larger chests...you know racer back bras don't work...but now I can be strap perfect!

Some of Heidi's favorite things...an organic scarf from Maggie's Organic & Fair Trade Clothing

We also got some probiotics and another supplement from Whole foods...hey I'm not going to knock it til I try it..just like Heidi should do with the Coochy Cream! We got some Italian coffee and a Bellini Mix from Italy that I'm dying to try as well as a marinara sauce...we're totally benefiting from her trip to Italy this year!

Enjoy...who knows maybe some of our favorite things might become yours...or maybe you can totally steal and knock off from our tradition..just as we did from Oprah!