The New Year is Underway GIVEAWAY

The last few years we have made Christmas presents for our family and friends.  It is something that I enjoy doing and something that I think about and plan for the entire year.  I am already starting to look up ideas for next year, just in case I find something that will be exceptionally time consuming or takes time to come together.  I also always make extra because I don't ever want to be empty handed.  I love to give gifts. 

This year we had to cut back, mostly because I am pretty sure that I single handedly keep my local post office in business.  I have a closet (and closet real estate is a very limited in our apartment) that has boxes of all sizes and shapes, as well as a few flat rate shipping boxes, that way they are ready to go whenever I need to mail something.  Since I am far from most of my loved ones, the USPS is my lifeline for giving.  Luckily since we've moved, the post office down the street doesn't know all that it missed out on this year since I have drastically cut back on my shipping.  This was very difficult for me, and so I think I'm having package sending withdrawals.  I am just itching to send something out. Now that Christmas is over, the New Year is underway and there are still various things taking up space on my kitchen counter, I am giving away the handmade items that have yet to find a home.   

So I have a GIVEAWAY of the homemade presents that we gave this year.  The handmade-with-love-in-our-kitchen items that may be in this giveaway:

• D'Amaretti Biscotti
• Candy Cane Biscotti with White Chocolate
• Shaving Soap
• Green Tea Body Butter
• Bath Salts/Salt Scrub
• Lip Balm
• Friendship Tea

There will be TWO lucky winners!

To enter this Giveaway, please comment on this post with a way for me to contact you (email, Facebook, etc).  I will draw the winner out of a hat (literally) next Monday, the 16th- MLK day.   Then I will contact the winners and mail your packages out next week.

Good Luck! 

In The Spirit

It's really quite crazy how before Halloween was even over Christmas was being forced into our faces.  Not to mention completely confusing small children who can hardly keep straight what tomorrow means, let alone "after Thanksgiving."  Now that Halloween is past it's ridiculous how much Christmas stuff is out there.  Tonight we were driving home from my work and the lamp posts surrounding our little town green had Christmas lights, red bows and greenery on every lamp post.  Munchkie exclaimed as she looked out the window "look Mom (this is cool now, just to say Mom) it's Christmas all over!"

Besides the fact that I really feel like we need to be thankful for all of the blessings in our lives before we start demanding of people all of the things we just "have to have," I think that Christmas being vomited all over me just makes me anxious.  It makes me realize that my time to decide upon presents, create and distribute is very rapidly dwindling.  I really enjoy creating homemade presents and I feel so much better giving someone something that I have created in love, rather than running into a store and picking up a completely impersonal gift card.  Not that there's anything wrong with gift cards, because I do appreciate them in my own life, I just feel that I get more out of giving a homemade present.  I am getting slightly stressed because I know that I need to get a move on, start creating.  My ideas just aren't panning out like I would like for them to and it's making me nervous.

This post I read tonight reminded me that the holidays are not about me.  They are about others.  It's about giving and helping those in need.  Especially as we are trying to teach our daughter the positive meaning of Christmas and encourage the giving rather than the receiving.  This post really hit me. We so often give our leftovers.  The toys we don't want anymore because they're worn or broken.  The clothes that are stretched out and fit oddly.  The random things around the house that you just don't want anymore.  Really should we be giving people our broken, misshapen, or even diseased extras?  Do people who live without really need 57 cans of potentially diseased cranberries?  How about giving something that I would feed my own family?  It really made me think, this week at Whole Foods (my fav store) whole chickens were on sale and I bought three for my family.  Maybe this is my reminder that a family in need could use an antibiotic and hormone free, vegetarian fed roasting chicken.  Maybe instead of worrying so much about more "stuff" that I can get people who have everything they need, I should worry about how much I can help meet the needs of those do don't have any "stuff"  Instead of how much can we spend per person, how much can we bless others.

This year, I won't give any BAD CRANBERRIES.  This year, we're going to do things a little differently.