My take on the holidays.

I am taking the lead on this topic from my friend “Sue”.

I love the Holidays so much, I usually leave a tiny bit of decoration up throughout the year; nothing too obvious, but something that reminds me of it.
Anyway, Sue I think you are right, I agree with everything you are saying; and I quote your post:

“It seems the holidays are quickly approaching. Thanksgiving is this week. Then comes the hustle bustle of getting ready for an overly commercialized holiday... Ugh! I hate it. The gifts, the fake smiles, the small talk... It's turned into such a farce. The holidays aren't about giving gifts or finding the perfect holiday card to send or decorating your house to the nineth... Those things are all so trivial. But it seems that is what most of the folks out there focus on...the trival.To me, the true meaning of the holidays have been lost. No one seems to remember to be thankful for things. To just take time - even a minute - to think about the things they have and be thankful for them. To pause and think that the crosses that they carry with them could be worse... To sit back and think about how the past has shaped thier life and how they've grown and become stronger for enduring the hardships they've faced. To just reflect and be at peace with things.Let's all take time to thing about the things that really matter and be thankful for one another...”


I have to admit I do get suckered into the “What to give this year?” torturte. But I so love the gift wrapping and unwrapping ceremonies, I don’t really care too much what’s in the gift, I just love to give presents and be surprised. So, if I end up buying DH a whole bunch of socks and wrap them indivudually I will be happy. Sure, I admit I would never not like getting a nice gift (like my Nikon D70 a couple of years ago), but I would never ask or wish or hope for something expensive.
Well, this year we decided to not give anything to one another. First off we really don’t need to, and secondly we are putting our $$ into the remodel.
Ok, this is not completely true. We will be giving each other something, but it will be limited to what’s in our little piggy bank. I told DH last year that I wanted to start up my tradition again. I used to empty out my wallet every night and put all the “silver money” into a piggy bank. The money I saved up over the year was the money I used for buying x-mas presents and that was it! No matter how many people I wanted to give a gift for. You’ll be amazed how much one can save over a year by emptying out the wallet every day. BTW: I always kept the pennies and payed with them so I would get “silver” back for the piggy bank. Just a little trick.
So at the end of each year I usually ended up with more than a dollar a day worth ($365+) and I never really missed it in the first place. I never had to worry about having cash for presents. I think having the feeling of “Where to get the money for Christmas presents this year?” is not a very pleasant feeling and can take the joy out of everything.

I have no idea how much we have in our piggy bank this year, but I know it’s pretty full. So this year we’ll split the content of the belly in two and we are not allowed to go over.

As for finding the perfect card. Well, I love giving/getting cards, but only if I have the time to write and send them out. If I don’t, OH WELL! The last couple of years I have not send out a card, I think! I just didn’t get around it. Maybe this year I will. I do have all the cards I bought from the years before. I should use them. Plus it’s my business to create Personal Photo Greeting Cards, maybe I should make it a point of sending out some of my own creations. And then MAYBE NOT!! You just have to wait and see if you'll get one this year;)