Pink Christmas In July:

My family-my parents, sister and her family and I had planned to go camping this weekend. My mom had called a few days before to check and see how early we needed to get there to make sure we all had camp sites together. She also asked if they had any activities going on because when we camped there two years ago they had movie nite with free popcorn on Friday nite, Saturday-free kite making for the kids and bingo for the adults. The only thing planned was a Christmas in July event to get gift for needy children for Christmas-you had to donate a $20 toy to enter. I thought it was a neat idea but decided I didn't want to hassle with it. Friday morning came and I was packed and ready to go-just waiting on my folks to get closer to where I live. I only live about 20 minutes from this campground. Well, I ended up waiting about an 1 1/2 hours and got bored and about 2o minutes before they called to say they were where we'd planned to meet- I decided that -what they heck-I'd throw in my two pink Christmas trees. I should have know then what would happen. Anyone that knows me -know I do everything overboard-I mean really overboard-just ask my family. We get to the campground and get set up and I see 2 campers set up with a Redneck shindig. I thought they were doing the Christmas thing. They had an old junky couch(from the 70's), two recliners, a fish tank, an old radio console, and a toilet-yes a toilet. Not to mention the small stuff. Now I got into over drive mode and called my best friend Teresa- help me!!! She started planning and my sister and her twins drove back to my house to load up stuff. I already had my tent so that was a start. The redneck friends came that nite and they were dressed to the hilt(or whatever rednecks dress like) -I wish I had pictures-it was really something to see. They even all paraded(drunk) around the campground pulling a red wagon with something in it? How could I up them and all their friends in their costumes. This was Friday nite and I only got 1 1/2 hours of sleep from worry and planning. I kept the tent closed up so no one would see and begin the hours of sweat(I mean sweat-I changed my clothes at least 3 times each day) and worry. Little did I know that the Rednecks weren't even doing the Christmas thing-they just were having fun. They packed everything up Saturday afternoon.

I filled out the entry form with pink ballpoint ink and attached these cards I just happened to have and had picked up at a garage sale for $.25 in the camper-how perfect! I wrote inside-Come to campsite #44 for a Merry Pink Christmas and signed my name. I was getting my groove on to going crazy!

This was in the middle of my camp site so I decided to use it like a mascot. A pink bow and glittered Santa hat!

Here's the entire set-up. I had 4 of these suckers to give the kids. I made a pink fire in the fireplace with pink lights !

We placed pink greenery on each side at the bottom. I love my pink doll Teddy Bear(it's an old one) and my pink/black radio/CD player I use in the camper. I have an entire set like the pink stove. My sister's twin helped wrap so many presents in this cute pink paper with snowflakes!

The big pink tree -we had 2 big pink light up balls along with Victoria secret bags and a strand of colorful light up balls. The games under the tree-Babble On(one of my favorite and it comes in a pink box) and Bunco(also a pink box).

The right side of the tent -small Christmas tree-and light up vintage snowman(who had pink hat and wreath) I had 2 of them next to the fireplace.

This is one of my Ella Mae's Barn Signs that I grabbed to use. I love it in front of the beds-especially when the kids would have been sleeping in them!

My best friend Teresa(always there for help and ideas) suggested that I set the table up for a Christmas dinner. I loved that idea! Check out the fire in the background- pink Christmas lights!

Each of my sister's twins made a pillowcase snowman(also Teresa's idea). Allison wanted hers to be striped. ( I have a ton of pillowcases and sheets in the camper-we didn't even use 1/2 of them). We stuffed the pillow cases with extra blankets and sheets and proceeded to dress them up! I had only bought one scarf from home so we added this pink tinsel-I loved it. I couldn't resist adding the notes to make sure the judges understood they were snowmen.

This was Asher's snowman. He decided he wanted the rose pillowcases. I had only grabbed the one scarf and could only find the one mitten at home so his snowman got the shovel(I already had that in the camper). The sunglasses were an afterthought because Teresa wanted me to use junk jewelry for eyes and I forgot to get it. I thought the sunglasses worked out better anyway!

Here is my set up-

To the left is a table and tray for Santa with a sign saying cookies for Santa . I was just putting 3 kinds of pink cookies and all kinds of pink candy along with pink marshmallow roasting sticks(I just picked up at Target) and pink marshmallows and pink lemonade. I also had a sign saying Kids List-Toys, Adult List -70 degree weather.

To the right is 3 bed cots(which I always put up when I'm camping) for my sister's 3 wonderful kids-twins-Asher and Allison both 8 and Arabella-almost 2. They had planned on pretending to sleep until the judges got there. I had sprayed their hair pink and we had outfits for them.

This is the camp site that won 1st place - what do you think?

This is my outfit-minus any hat. We got a flood of rain about 15 minutes before the judges came around about 7:00pm (they could have checked the radar-duh!) I sprayed my pony tails with pink and my shirt I bought at Walmart within the last month for $1-it says Let It Snow with a pink flamingo with a hat and scarf. As you can see -I'm drenched-we all were. It took my whole family to help tear everything down. The back half of the tent was in several inches of water.

This is the final kicker- the certificate had white out on it with my name written on top. I don't know if I would have been 1st place or not placed at all. HOW TACKY!!!!

Needless to say-I spent two days planning and setting this all up(with my family), sweating my butt off(105 degrees index) in a hot tent(we kept it closed so no one could see until reveal day) and the winner just put up a few Walmart blow up toys and won a week of camping -did they know the judges ? Is everything rigged?