Quiet Time

I was given a special gift this morning and it did not cost a single cent. It was the gift of some quiet time. The sad thing is I almost refused it and ignored the gift. It has been a hectic but fun couple of weeks so I was up way before everyone else today. My first thought was to jump into the morning chores and tasks of the day. This morning, though, I stopped myself. I decided to take some time for myself. I sat and read quietly in the living room by the glow of the Christmas tree. It was very peaceful and relaxing.

Time for myself is one area I am working on trying to do better on. I tend to put myself and needs last and get caught up in the busyness that still plagues me. I find that I am a better person, parent and spouse though when I do take this time. I am also much more efficient in my tasks after a little break. I am glad I stopped today and took it. I feel refreshed and ready to start the day. The sun is shining and it is warm for a winter day.

Here is my first New Year's resolution: Take quiet time for myself each day.  

Home Again

I always enjoy visiting especially over the holidays but their is nothing like being home again. We made it home from my sister's house late this afternoon. Our cat, O"Malley greeted us at the door with complaints of leaving her here alone and our chickens were squawking for treats. Normalness on the Webb homestead. The rabbit greeted us as we came to her cage. As always, our friends took great care of our animals and house while we were gone.

We came home to 50 degree weather with all the snow melted. We unpacked the car and went for a walk to enjoy the nice break in the weather. My sister sent us home with tons of leftovers so I will not have to cook the next couple of days. Tonight, we will sit and watch Mary's favorite movie, "It's a Wonderful Life" and play games together. I love this time of year.

Happy Anniversary

Today is my parent's 48th anniversary., We get to spend it with them frequently because of how it falls around Christmas. My parents have spent 48 years together living together through good and bad times. They still support and love us as adults but expect us to be independent. We would not want it any other way. They are always there for the celebrations in life as well as the tough times. They still have many interests they share together and support each other as they age.

My parents raised three daughters. Even though we all live in different cities we continue to be very close.  We enjoy our times together especially when we are together as a family. Yesterday, we celebrated our family Christmas here. We opened presents and played games together. My sister has been a gracious hostess as we have invaded her house for a couple of days. She is a delicious cook. As is our recent tradition, we all contributed our specialities to the Christmas dinner. We had Ossian ham, cranberry sauce, brussel sprout casserole and Mom's homemade mac and cheese. Dessert was a combination of each of our homemade Christmas cookies.

I applaud my parents of their accomplishments in their 48 years of life together. Happy Anniversary!

Ronald McDonald House

As I have mentioned before, my youngest daughter has mitochondrial disease. This requires visits to Cincinnati Children's Hospital (about 1 1/2-2 hours away) and Cleveland Clinic (6-7 hours away). Sunday night we traveled to Cincinnati for my daughter to have an overnight sleep study completed. While there, I spent the night with her while my husband and other daughter spent the night across the street at the Ronald McDonald House (RMH). We have stayed at the one in Cincinnati as well as Cleveland.

Before Makenzie's illness, I had heard of RMH before. Had seen the little change donation boxes at the local McDonalds. I never realized what a huge impact on people's lives they have for families of seriously ill children. Our stays have ranged from 1 night to over a week. I have met families there who have been there for much longer periods of time due to their child's illness. While in the house, you will hear conversations in many different languages as people from all over the world come to get the care their child requires. As you can imagine having a seriously ill child can be stressful both mentally and financially. RMH helps with both of these issues.

Our stays have been wonderful. Family interaction is encouraged. Food is provided by generous donors to help with the financial strain. Rooms are comfortable but not such a heavy financial burden as the hotels many of us are forced to stay in to get the medical care our child needs. Most of all the staff and volunteers are friendly. Because of the way the house is laid out, families spend time together sharing stories and supporting each other. Most of all it keeps families together. In the 6 years this disease has been with Makenzie, our other daughter has spent many nights at friends and families houses because we needed to be with Makenzie. We have wonderful friends and family and they try to keep Mary's life as normal as possible but it still is disruptive to her life.

I right this to encourage people to support this very worthwhile charity. If you have one locally support it with your time. All kinds of volunteers are needed for various capacities. If you are involved with some kind of group, volunteer to make and serve food for a meal. You supply the food and you cook it at the house. While we were there a local high school group came and cooked brunch for the families.

Another option if you have a house locally is to organize a drive for necessary items. There is usually an item donation list online for each house. You can also call your local house and ask them what they are in special need of at that time. Organize a collection for these items with your local church or other civic group.

If you do not have a RMH locally, then support them financially. Make a donation to the charity. I know that Cleveland RMH charges families $20 per night to stay there but the actual cost to them is around $70 per night.

Your donation of time and/or money really does help families who are in very stressful situations both emotionally but especially financially.

Christmas

I have always enjoyed the holidays but Christmas by far is my favorite. Yesterday was especially good. We opened presents in the morning followed by sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast. We then took some time to pick-up a little and get Christmas dinner together.

In the late afternoon our good friends arrived for the celebration. We sat and visited around some finger foods while our meal finished cooking. We then feasted on a wonderful dinner of our Christmas food favorites-ham, homemade mac and cheese, squash from the garden, sweet potatoes, cranberries and citrus fruit salad being among our favorites. Yum! We were able to get all the children and adults at one table so it was fun to visit with all.

After eating, we adjourned to the living room. We set Christmas cookies and candy out, the birthday cake for Jesus and the cheesecake my friend brought with her. We then nibbled on those while spending the rest of the evening playing some games. The best part of the evening was a game of Mad Gab with adults against the kids. It was so much fun! Of course the adults won!

Today, we head to my side of the family to enjoy our holiday time with them.

It was a wonderful Christmas Day celebration. I hope all my readers enjoyed their times with the loved ones they were with yesterday.

Merry Christmas

It has been a good Christmas this year in spite of all the challenges. Last night, we attended our church's Christmas Eve service where my husband and I play in our praise band. It is a family centered service and the church was beautifully decorated. Afterwards, people brought finger foods so we could sit around and visit.

After church, we drove around the neighborhoods to looks at Christmas lights (our family Christmas Eve or Christmas Day Eve tradition). We then finished our drive home in fresh falling snow. It was a picture-perfect ending to a peaceful night. We nestled the children all snuggled in their beds. (Makenzie was still trying to fall asleep at 1:00 AM because she was so excited about Santa coming.) We finally convinced her that Santa could not come if she was not asleep. She finally gave it up and went to sleep. It was a wonderful evening.

This morning, Makenzie let us sleep until 7:30 AM. We then saw the wonderful presents that Santa brought for them and us in our Christmas stockings. We then opened up our family presents together. We finished the morning celebrations with everyone's favorite biscuits and gravy (very southern I sure you are thinking at this point).

Now, we do a little preparation for our guests who are coming for Christmas dinner followed by an afternoon of playing games and feasting with our friends and family. 

From all of the Webb's here in Lexington, we wish you a Merry Christmas!!!  

Commercialism

I have sat watching the late news this evening. It was interesting to me how the news of the evening revolved around how bad the traffic was at the mall today as well as other stores. What stores were staying open late all the way to late Christmas Eve evening for all those last minute shoppers. The news reporter even  reported live from a store's parking lot. I have to wonder when shopping became the true meaning of Christmas.

Advertising companies spend billions of dollars each year to get us to realize that the perfect Christmas involves the perfect, expensive gifts. People worry if there will be enough for each of the children. People go in debt over their heads each year in search of the "perfect" Christmas. The good news is participation is not mandatory.

When will we wake up and realize that money never buys happiness or love. What people really want for Christmas is your love and time. That is what truly is important. As I have said before, I am not saying you should not buy presents. What I am saying is we need to stop letting "money" define who we are and our love for someone else. .

 I really enjoy Christmas baking, gift wrapping and decorating as well as going to look at the lights and walking the neighborhood in the stillness of the night to look at our neighbors light displays.  This December has been a rough one for me mentally because I have had to be an observer of many of these things. I suffered a serious fall the first part of the month and then when I was finally starting to get up and move around I got a bad respiratory infection which kicked in my asthma. I have spent much of December on forced rest. It has given me a lot of time to think and observe. I realized that as much as I try I still was succumbing to some of the merchandising and busyness hype.

In spite of not being able to do much this month, there are Christmas presents under our tree, Christmas cookies in the kitchen and the house is decorated. I have spent a lot of time resting and deciding what really was the important things that needed to be done. My husband and daughters have done a good job of stepping in and taking care of the essentials.

I am doing better but instead of rushing around trying to get things done all day I tried to keep it simple. Tonight, my husband and I went to watch a movie at the dollar theater. Our children stayed home and enjoyed a Christmas movie here. Afterwards, my husband and I stopped at a store to pick up a few essentials. We will be hosting Christmas dinner here on the 25th in the evening. Tomorrow, my husband will go in the morning to buy the perishable items we will need. We will pick up the house, bake a few more Christmas cookies and then worship in the evening at our church. This has all been accomplished with a new attitude from me which is not stressing all the details. I am thankful for time to reflect this December. It will make me think of next December differently.

Try to take time today enjoy doing something as a family. If you have not liked how your Christmas or December has gone then take some time to decide how it will be different next year. Write it down and try to follow it. Most of all enjoy today and tomorrow. Have a blessed Christmas Eve!

Cheese Ball

I always try to have some appetizers before our Christmas dinner as we usually eat later in the day. Here is one of my favorite (and also easiest). Here is the recipe.

1-8oz brick cream cheese
8 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Juice from 1 lemon
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce (don't always use this)
2 Tbls small chopped onion 

Allow cheeses to come to room temperature. Put all ingredients in bowl and mix together with spoon. Put in bowl and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight. Serve with crackers.

You can make this lowfat by using nonfat cream cheese and 2% cheddar cheese. 

Birthday Cake for Jesus

This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions that we started when our oldest daughter, Mary, was young. We wanted a simple way to remind her that Christmas was about Jesus birth. One of our desserts for Christmas dinner each year since has been a frosted "birthday" cake. The girls decorate it ahead of time for baby Jesus.

After Christmas dinner, we put some candles on the cake. We then light them and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. The youngest child then blows out the candles. This is a simple tradition but a small one that once again reminds us the real reason for the season.

While you are making out your Christmas dinner menu this year think about including a birthday cake for Jesus. If you have children present for your meal, think about lighting some candles on it and singing Happy Birthday.

Holiday Waste-Recycling

Yesterday, I talked about ways to precycle our holiday waste. Here are some ideas for recycling.

1) Save gift bags and tissue paper for next year after the gift is unwrapped.
2) Cut out pictures on Christmas cards received this year to use as gift tags.
3) Live Christmas trees and greenery can be composted.
4) Check out your local recycling program. Most cardboard boxes and cards can be recycled.
5) Unfortunately, most gift wrap and ribbon can not be recycled. That is why precycling these items is so important.
6) Old batteries can be recycled at Batteries Plus.
7) The city of Lexington takes old Christmas lights and electronics at their Versailles Road recycling center. Check LFUCG website for times and days. Check your local area to see if they also have this service.
8) Clean styrofoam peanuts can be bagged and dropped off at most mailing services.

This year make an effort to decrease your waste stream by precycling and recycling.

Holiday Waste-Precycling

I received our waste management newsletter the other day and was reading through it this morning. Here are some statistics they listed. These are for the city of Lexington. It produces 25% more wasted between Thanksgiving and New Year's. In Lexington, if we recycled 30% of the material sent to the landfill in that period, we could recover 10,000 TONS, save $240,000 in landfill fees and earn $1 million in revenue from the sale of recyclables. This is just for the city of Lexington, imagine if we did this all over the USA and the world. Holiday waste can not only be recycled but precycled. Here are some ideas for precycling. I will talk about recycling in another post.

1) Use or make cloth gift bags for gifts. I have found them several places this year and my daughter's birthday present sent from Amazon.com by her aunt came in a large cloth gift bag.
2) Save gift bags and reuse. You can also reuse tissue paper. Just simply flatten out and fold it to be used later.
3) Wrap kid's gifts in comics from newspaper.
4) Use kitchen or bath towels as gift wrap.
5) Send e-cards versus mailed Christmas cards.
6) Cancel all those catalogs that come this time of year and you don't want anyway. Call the company directly and asked to be removed from their mailing list or sign-up for one of the many stop junk mail services on the internet.
7) Give rechargeable batteries along with that electronic toy or gift.
8) Don't use gift boxes to wrap unless absolutely necessary. Save boxes and reuse them.
9) Invest in LED lights for your Christmas lighting.
10) Buy paper and gift bags that can be recycled. Most traditional gift wrap cannot be recycled.

Be creative. There are many ways to wrap gifts besides the traditional Christmas wrap and ribbons that are still pretty. 

Old Time Fun

Friday, I went to our friends house in Richmond with the two girls. While we were there we banned the electronics for the day (normal practice). My friend, another friend and I sat and crafted all afternoon while we visited. We all worked on different projects we were working on for Christmas presents. It reminded me that this is how people in the "olden" days (not that long ago really) used to entertain themselves and make their work go faster. They would take their woodworking, knitting, quilting or other task along while they visited with a friend. We had a nice visit, got some work done and had a relaxing enjoyable afternoon.

Our children are similar ages. My oldest daughter sat and knitted with us. My youngest daughter played various imaginative play games with the peers her age. When they got tired of that they put on their coats and went outside and played in the snow. Later in the afternoon, Mary and I played a card game with them.

Last night, we visited some other friends. We ate some finger foods and sat around and visited. After a while, we pulled out a game that all ages could play. We divided into teams and all of us from the youngest to the oldest sat in the kitchen and played.

Both of these time periods reminded me the importance of intergenerational time together. All the children involved in the game will probably have lasting good memories from our game. The children on Friday will have memories of a nice relaxing time playing with friends. I came away from both experiences feeling relaxed and refreshed. Neither of these entertainment periods cost much money except for vehicle gas to get there and last night some shared food cost.

This is my challenge to you. In the "busyness" that we have turned this season into these days, block out some time this week that you are going to sit down and play a game, visit over coffee or craft with someone. Enjoy some quiet time with some family or friends.

Christmas Snickerdoodles

One of our favorite cookies here is snickerdoodles. During the Christmas season we make these more festive by dipping them in colored sugars instead of regular sugar. They make for a pretty presenting cookies and taste the same. Here is the recipe that we use. It comes from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook.

Snickerdoodles
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
red and green colored sugars

In a medium mixing bowl beat butter for 30 seconds with an electric mixer. add the regular sugar, baking soda and cream of tartar. Beat until combined. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Cover and chill dough about 1 hour or until easy to handle.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll half of balls in red sugar and other half in green sugar. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-11 minutes or until edges are golden. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Fair Trade Chocolate

One of the surprising things that I learned from Teresa Hendricks when she came to the sustainable living class to talk about fair trade was the problem with chocolate. That the harvesting of some chocolate is done by child and slave labor. This is especially true of chocolate from west Africa. Unfortunately, unless the chocolate is certified organic or fair trade, the chocolate companies have no way of knowing if the chocolate they are using to make that candy bar was not made with slave labor. Another fact about fair trade chocolate is even though we spend over 13 billion dollars a year on chocolate just here in America most small cocoa farmers are impoverished.

These facts got me thinking about my chocolate consumption. I have been doing some further research on this topic and have discovered that the chocolate I eat can be enslaving children or forcing them to work in horrible conditions. It also contributes to rainforest destruction and inhibits small farmers from breaking the cycle of poverty in third world countries. I have to think to myself, "Is that piece of chocolate worth it?"

Fortunately, I do not have to give up all my chocolate. It is fairly easy to find organic and fairtrade chocolate locally. I know for sure Whole Foods as well as Good Foods here in Lexington both carry a full line of products from candy bars, baking chocolate, cocoa and even chocolate chips. From what I have read organic is almost as good as fair trade because they have to uphold certain labor mandates. I will try to buy fair trade first but if it is not available I will look to organic. I know I will not be perfect but for now I am going to try to only buy chocolate which is certified in one of these ways.

Spend some time researching fair trade chocolate. You will be surprised what you find out. Here is a good link with which to start. Fair trade chocolate reasons

Cranberry Cookies

This recipe came from our church cookbook. If you like cranberries you will love these cookies. They make a festive presentation on a plate of cookies. Here is the recipe.

Cranberry Cookies

½-cup butter
1-cup light brown sugar
1 egg
¼-cup milk
2 Tbs lemon juice
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
3 cups cranberries, chopped

Cream butter and brown sugar. Add egg, milk and lemon juice and beat well. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; mix. Add cranberries. Bake in 375-oven .Drop by teaspoonfuls 1-inch part on greased cookie sheet. Bake 15 minutes.

If you know or are a cranberry lover, try some of these today.

Cinnamon Ornaments

These are very simple ornaments to make with always good results. I have made them with my children when they were young for teacher and relative gifts. They still have time to dry for Christmas gift giving. Just, an obvious warning, you will NOT want to eat these.

Cinnamon Ornaments
1 cup applesauce
3/4 cup cinnamon (sometimes need more)
1 Tbls allspice
1 Tbls nutmeg
2 Tbls cloves

Makes a bread dough mixture. Roll out and cut shapes with cookie cutters. Punch hole in top of ornament with straw.Don't roll too thick or thin. Flip every couple of days until dry. Takes about a week to dry. When dry, put in string and tie it. Hang on tree or wrap and give away.

These make your house smell great. Who needs store bought air fresheners when you have these in your home.

Alternative Gift Ideas-Handmade Items

What kind of skills and special talents do you have? That is a good question this time of year when it comes to alternative gift giving. Here are some homemade suggestions from the students of the sustainable class I am teaching. These range from needing special skills to ones anyone can complete.

Basket
Birdhouse, wood carving, simple piece of furniture, picture frame or any other woodworking project
Candles-you can find "how-to" instructions on the internet for these
Friendship bracelets
Handmade quilts, clothing, doll or Barbie clothes, dress-up clothes for children or any other sewing project
Tied Fleece Blankets-instructions on internet and very simple to make
Homemade bath salts (easy and great recipes on internet)
Homemade dried fruits
Homemade soaps
Jewelry
Knit/crochet sweater, scarf, hat, mittens, ornaments
Origami
Ornaments-instructions on internet (will include applesauce ornament instructions future blog)
Paint or draw a picture-have it framed
Needlepoint or embroider something
Scrapbook page or album of special time together
Transplant or divide up plants for persons garden/home, plant in pretty pots

Hope these ideas get your creative juices running. Some of these things you still have time to complete before Christmas. Others will get you thinking for next year or someones birthday or anniversary. Happy creating!

Pumpkin Bread

This is a recipe that I use for baking gifts every year. It is moist and delicious. It always gets rave reviews. You can make it in 1 loaf pan or 3 small ones. Wrap it in pretty wrap and it makes a great appreciation gift.

Here is the recipe:

 Sift together:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 2/3 cups flour
Add and mix with beater:
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup water
Add:
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Place in large loaf pan sprayed with cooking spray. Bake 50-60 mins at 350 degrees or until toothpick comes out cleaned when placed in center of bread. Cool on wire rack then remove from pan.

This bread is very moist so can be hard to cut or get out of the pan in one piece if not left to cool completely. I have also made this using 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 unbleached white flour for the total flour amount called for in the recipe. Hope you enjoy this one.

Fair Trade part 3

Below are the last 5 reasons to support fair trade from the handout I was given on Thursday.

6) Protect the environment. Fair trade supports small farmers who use land more efficiently and in a more environmentally-friendly way. It also helps farmers make the transitions to organic farming and the use of more sustainable techniques.

7) Promote democracy. Fair trade producers and workers belong to democratically-run cooperatives and community organizations. To function successfully, these cooperatives must be open and transparent in their operations. This helps foster grassroots democracy in many countries where many citizens have little experience participating in the democratic process.

8) Provide a long-term solution. One of the tenets of fair trade is that buyers and producers build long term partnerships. Unlike aid, which is dependent on donors, fair trade offers a more sustainable way for farmers, artisans, and their families to improve their livelihoods.

9) Prevent illegal drug crops. Low coffee prices mean that many coffee farmers cannot make a living on growing coffee alone. This has pushed many coffee farmers to start growing crops such as Coca and chat which are destined for the illegal drug  trade. By providing a fair price for coffee, fewer farmers need to switch to growing coca or chat.

10) Promote economic stability. In most developing countries, the majority of the workforce is engaged in agricultural activities. Buying Fair Trade Certified products helps to support small scale agriculture. This can increase a country's food security making it less dependent on foreign imports. The extra income from fair trade products can also help stimulate rural economies.

I hope after reading these 10 reasons that you will make an effort to support fair trade. It is a great way to even out the economic playing field and help decrease illegal drug production crops. Most of all every item you buy can help someone break the cycle of poverty.

Fair Trade part 2

Here are the first 5 of 10 reasons to support fair trade from a handout from Teresa Hendrick's lecture yesterday.

1) Use your consumer power to help others. By buying Fair Trade Certified products, you help reduce poverty and give farmers and artisans a fair price for their product.

2) Support education. Many farmers earn so little for their crops that they can't afford to send their children to school and their children must work to help support the family. Fair Trade Certified goods provide a living wage to farmers and artisans, helping them afford to send their children to school.

3) Empower Women. Many women in third world countries are second class citizens. Fair trade encourages women's leadership in cooperatives and supports programs that benefit women.

4) Keep families together. With today's low coffee prices, small farmers and coffee pickers not connected with fair trade are fleeing rural areas in search of work. Women and children are left behind to tend the fields and pick coffee beans and children are taken out of school. Farmers who grow fair trade products earn a living wage and keeps families together.

5) Support community development. Fair trade producers and workers belong to cooperatives and community development organizations that invest in better housing, health programs, schools, and scholarships.

I will post the rest of them later.

Fair Trade

Yesterday, Teresa Hendricks from Lucia's Boutique here in town came to the sustainable living class that I am teaching to talk about fair trade and why it is important. I have supported fair trade for many years but yesterday learned a lot of things I did not know. It makes me want to support this movement with as many of my purchases as possible.

First a little bit about Teresa. She lived in Guatemala for 18 years and her husband was born and raised in Guatemala. They own a wholesale fair trade business of Guatemalan items. Three years ago they opened up Lucia's Boutiques here in town and carry their Guatemala items plus other items from all over the world. They are part of the Fair Trade Federation. She is very passionate about what she is doing.

The fair trade movement now has its own certification. It is administered by the Fair Trade Labeling Organization (FLO) world-wide with the domestic body being TransFair USA. This label insures the consumer that strict land conservation and fair trade regulations were followed. The following link gives a good general overview of fair trade as well as current topics Fair Trade Overview

In future posts I will share Ten Reasons to Support Fair Trade from handouts she gave us. In the meantime, please check out the link above and learn more about this important movement.

Alternative Gift Ideas-Baking

One thing that I have noticed over the past couple of years is that homemade cooking is becoming a lost art. I have found that people love homemade baked goods or items they can quickly put together themselves to call homemade. The one thing people seem to love are my home canned food items especially the jams and jellies. This brings me to my next list of ideas for alternative gifts.Here are some ideas:

-your speciality homemade Christmas cookies. (I use reusable Christmas tins for this. You can find tons of them at Goodwill. I also will sometimes put in baggies and wrap in small gift bags.)
-Homemade quick breads 
-Fresh homemade loaf of bread
-homemade candies
-home canned jams, jellies, salsa, others (put a piece of Christmas material under the removable ring. Tie a ribbon around the ring.)
-jar of cookie mix with directions on how to prepare (can find tons of recipes for this on the internet)

Try some of these today. If you are giving them to a child's teacher, babysitter or other caretaker, have your child help in the preparation. As we go along I will try and include some recipes in my blog with some of the more popular items that can be made from scratch. Have fun baking.

Homeless Shelters

As I am sitting here watching the late evening news enjoying my warm house. I think about all those who have no warm house while it is so cold. It reminds me of how much extra I do have. Take a few minutes in the next couple of days. Sort out those extra warm cloths, hats, gloves, mittens, coats and blankets. Take your extras down to your local homeless shelter and donate them. People need these things this time of year to help keep them warm. Family shelters also need warm children's clothes and diapers. After you sort out your extras, maybe supplement them with buying some warm things from the store.

Alternative Gift Ideas-Charities

For the last couple years of her life my Grandmother suffered from dementia. She really had no material needs because the nursing home took care of them. Each year, I struggled with what to give her for Christmas because I wanted to do something to honor her. That is when I came upon the idea to make a contribution to a charity in her honor. I then sent her a pretty card to help decorate her room for Christmas and included a note in it describing the charity I had made a contribution to in her name.

This brings up another area of ideas for alternative gifts. Make a donation of money or time to a person's favorite charity. Here are some other ideas on this topic:

-Do locks for love in someone’s honor

-Buy an animal or animals for someone in a third world country from Heifer International or other such organization. Heifer international has a catalog for this and will give you gift tags to send in your Christmas card.
-Make a donation to someone's favorite organization in their honor
-Volunteer for a specific number of hours to someone’s favorite charitable organization in their name.

Hope this gets you started on thinking of ideas along this line.

Smelling the Roses

As my daughter has been learning how to drive the past few months, one of her favorite sayings has become "They needed to slow down and smell the roses anyways." She said this as yet another person rudely passed her because she was going too "slow" (most of the time the speed limit). Two people have even gone so far to pass her in her lane and shove her off the road. She is right in her saying in many ways. We are so busy and have to get to that next appointment that we sometimes even forget the most common courtesies. One observation our family shares with each other each year is how much more rude and pushy people get as Christmas Day closes in on them. You would think it would be the opposite in the "good will to all men" season. Yet, I too am guilty of not stopping and smelling the roses during the holiday season as well as other times of the year.

I was reminded over the weekend of how I even fall into this trap of busyness. On Thursday I tripped in the house and fell managing to bang myself up pretty good. Friday morning, I had to admit that I needed to go get checked out by a doctor. Blood work and CT scan later I was found to not have any internal injuries but had jostled my insides around to the point that I am now on doctors order to take it very easy. I wish I had a more exciting story of how I injured myself but I don't.

The point of all this is was my first thought was how am I going to get everything done before Christmas. Now, that I have had a few days to sit and think about it though I realized I had allowed myself to fall into the busyness trap. I have rethought my position and realized that the recuperation time will allow me to spend some quiet time this year. I will spend more time with the girls doing things here. I have also decided that I will take a much needed break and do some crafting and reading that I enjoy doing.

Hopefully, it will not take a fall to get you to think about what fun things you can do for yourself as well as with family and friends. I would encourage you to think of a couple of things to do that will help you "stop and smell the roses" this holiday season.

Winter

I awoke this morning to snow covering the ground. Most people think I am crazy but I love snow. I love how it blankets the ground and makes everything look new. It is almost like putting on a new coat of paint on the world around us. We don't get a lot of snow here so I enjoy our few times a year that it comes.

Snow brings back happy, childhood winter memories of when I lived in northern Indiana. I remember playing in the snow to make snow angels and forts. There was not too much sledding to be had as we lived in a very flat area of Indiana but even still I have some wonderful memories of the few times we found some big hills to sled down. My grandparents owned a lake cottage. I remember the thrill and excitement as a little girl when the lake would freeze over and we could walk out to the deep section of the lake.

The other winter sport was once a year our grade school arranged a trip about an hour north of us to Pokagon State Park. The park has a large toboggan slide there. I remember fun filled evenings of exhilarating rides down the course with family and friends. This was a double course so we would start and try to see which group could get down the hill the fastest.

My best memories, though, are the times when even my parents got snowed in and could not go to work. They would pull out a big jigsaw puzzle and we would all work on putting it together. We also would spend time together as a family playing board games. These times usually only lasted a day or two at the most but I have many cherished memories from them.

I know snow is harder to drive in and eventually gets dirty but it still brings treasured memories for me so today I will enjoy the snowfall out my window and maybe do something special with my children to celebrate it.

Alternative Gift Ideas

As I write about alternative gifts, I want people to know that buying gifts is not the problem. It is our attitude of more is better that is the problem. As a society, we think the dollar amount on the item shows how much we love someone. The idea behind alternative gift giving is not being a scrooge or miserly. If that is what we get out of it then we have missed the point. Alternative gift giving is about the attitude. Refusing to buy into the fallacy that more is better and will show how much I love you. This year, don't max out those credit cards. Better yet, don't even use those credit cards. This year set a reasonable budget and think of a gift or gifts that the person will really enjoy or appreciate. Here are some more ideas that my sustainable living class came up with the other week.

-Divide out those bulbs or special plants. Plant them in a pretty pot so they will flower around Christmas.
-Have a friend or family member who wants to learn a new skill that you know. Give them a gift certificate for free lessons wrapped up with the materials they need to get started. (knitting/crocheting, woodworking, canning, piano lessons, etc)
-Buy locally made arts and crafts, home cooked goods, soaps, jewelry from a local artisan as a gift
-Buy a fair trade item that someone needs or would enjoy.
-Make a family game night basket for the whole family include board games, snack items and drinks.
-If you can, give homemade jams and jellies along with a loaf of homemade bread to enjoy it on. Give a gift basket with some of your salsas, chips and maybe a pretty bowl to serve it in.

These will hopefully get you started. Please post comments with any other suggestions you have.

Presence Versus Presents

This year during the Advent season our church is stressing the importance of giving "presence" versus "presents". It is not to say that we should never buy any gifts for anyone but instead intentionally think about gifts for people that help build relationships. As the video from Advent Conspiracy says we spend 450 billion dollars on just Christmas gifts here in the states. We are a society addicted to busyness but in the meantime our relationships with spouses, children, family and friends suffer. Does any of this buy us the happiness that we crave?

Instead of giving the sweater they are going to return or another toy for the child who already has too many, why not think of something different this year-your time. We spend so much time running around trying to "buy" the perfect Christmas when all most people want is "you"-especially our children. So, this year think about some gifts where you can give your time. Here are some examples to get you started.

-taking an afternoon and making Christmas cookies with your child
-volunteering a specific number of hours at your friends favorite charity
-offering coupons for free babysitting to a family with young children or a special needs child (maybe even include a restaurant gift certificate so they can go on a date together)
-coupons to shovel snow, rake leaves, etc for someone who cannot do it themselves
-cook a home cooked meal once a month for a busy family  
-take your friend out for coffee, breakfast or lunch. Spend time catching up on what is going on in their lives. Better yet have them over to your house for an afternoon of catching up 
-have your friend over and bake Christmas cookies together. Split the finished product between the two of you when you are done.
-spend an afternoon creating homemade gifts with your children for their family members
-have a friend over and make some gifts together.
-buy a boardgame for a family that they can all play together and enjoy

As you can see from the examples, the emphasis is not on how much "money" but how much "time" that you spend. I hope these examples get your creative juices running. I am sure you can come up with many more. Please share your ideas in the comment section. We will all benefit from them.