A Hundred Dollar Holiday - How To Create a Memorable Christmas

There is no ideal Christmas;
only the one Christmas you decide
to make as a reflection
of your values, desires, affections, traditions.
Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben, author, Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case For a More Joyful Christmas says, "The Christmas we now celebrate grew up at a time when Americans were mostly poor ... mostly working with their hands and backs. If we now feel burdened and unsatisfied by the piles of gifts and over consuming, it is not because Christmas has changed all that much. It's because we have." ...read article here...

order this little gem of a book below...

Seusseville Playground

Don't do too much
Start early
Prioritize & plan ahead

Focus on the people and things that are most important to you--including yourself. Odds are against your doing everything you want to do during any one holiday season, but if you prioritize, plan ahead and start early, you're likely to get a lot more done than you will if you procrastinate and leave everything to the last minute. But more importantly, your experience of the holidays is likely to be a lot more pleasant.

Use the holidays to . . .

Take control of the holidays. Examine the role you want each holiday to play in your life and develop rituals that move you and your celebrations in that direction. Pick and choose the meaning and values you want to accentuate. If you want to use the holidays to stay in touch with family and friends, focus your energy in that direction. If you want the holidays to remind you to repent for your sins, make that your primary focus. To play, to honor, to remember, to gather, to rejoice---the choice is yours. Holidays are what we make them and mean what we choose to make them mean.

Carla B. has a great tutorial for a copper bookmark to make for the bookworm in your life...Copper Bookmark Tutorial

Her blog has other wonderful tutorials...be sure to check them out when you visit...

Making the Most of the Holiday Season . . . . .
by Renée Gilbert, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist

For many of us, the word holiday has become synonymous with paid vacations, days off from school and work, and another excuse to party. The values that the holiday season once represented are often lost in the midst of commercialism and the stress of dealing with everyday life.

If you are like most of people, your holidays are spent racing from one place to another in an effort to do more things than are humanly possible for a reasonably sane person to do. Unless you're religious and practice your faith on a regular basis or come from a family that makes a point of celebrating the holidays each year, it's easy for the meaning of the holidays to get lost in the commotion.

Holidays can be an empowering force in our lives, if we use them well. What's more, you don't have to be religious to put "holy"ness back into the holidays. Let me explain . . .

Holidays were created for a reason. They were designed to remind us of important events, rites of passage and values that guide us through life. Because many holidays are associated with religion and national events, they're rejected by people who don't share the same beliefs. Other times the values that holidays represent are clouded by commercialism that distorts their meaning in a marketing ploy, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Remember loves ones and special events...learn and grow.

Copyright © 2005, Renée Gilbert, Ph.D.. All Rights Reserved. For the complete article click here.

It is exactly what I believe and bring that makes a holiday joyful...Last year I was alone for Christmas and I started a new tradition...


St. Francis Preaching to the Birds - Giotto

The new tradition a la St. Francis of Assisi...

St. Francis loved animals because they, too, were God's creatures. He extended special kindness to animals at Christmas. He urged farmers to provide their oxen and donkeys with extra rations of corn and hay "for the reverence of the Son of God, whom on such a night the Blessed Virgin did lay down in the stall between the ox and the donkey." At Christmastide, St. Francis scattered crumbs of bread under the trees, so the tiny creatures could feast and be happy. I am going to scatter bird seed around my tiny island on Christmas eve so that the birds, too, can celebrate...

Read about other Christmas traditions here...