Christmas Presents II

My stack of presents for people has slowly been getting bigger. I leave for Norcal on Monday, so I'm "wrapping" things up. I did end up spending some money. I guess even if you make things, you usually have to buy the materials. And other things seemed so perfect for people, yet not readily home-makable.
But of the presents I did make by hand, I had a lot of fun with them, and definitely increased my own holiday spirit. Especially fun was gift wrapping with newspaper, and glitter. Glitter is just so
. . . wonderful.


7. handmaking gifts
8. glitter


(It's snowing in Portland!)

Christmas Presents I

I guess I won't go into too much detail (in case family members look at this), but Christmas present
gathering has been good so far.
I believe I have spent a total of $15 so far, and have almost everyone's ready. Although, this isn't accounting for the gifts I acquired through work.
Does this count as spending? I'm just going to take the cost out of my paycheck.

On the other hand, I have composed the rest with lots of free items, for example- used jelly jars, old yarn, and even a pretty weed I saw outside.

Last week, a friend had a Craftapalooza or Craft-tastic something-or-other, where we made crafty Christmas presents. I made some homemade wrapping paper with potato stamps. I was skeptical, but it worked out fine.

Decorations!

. . . are so much fun!
I have never bought a Christmas tree, live or artificial, so every year seems to come out different.

I was inspired by the movie Elf, which has been playing on repeat on TV for several days. Will Farrell's character (Elf?) decorates everything he comes in contact with, covering rooms with snowflakes. All he uses is plain white paper.

Here are some snowflakes made with recycled paper. Of course, not as fabulous as Will Farrel's, but holiday-like, still.









After rummaging through our recycle bin and experimenting with several materials (tin cans,
flattened cereal boxes, travel cup lids, plastic grocery bags), cardboard coffee holders turned out to make the best ornaments. I just needed scissors and masking tape.




This is a little maple tree I bought at a farmer's market in October, when it had a few, pretty red leaves. Now it's basically just a stick.
But, I have bombarded it with more recycled ornaments!
Now it is festive enough to elicit ooh's and ah's from the apartment manager's four-year-old. If that's not Christmas, what is?!







What have I learned:
1. While all the colors of the rainbow can make a really good Christmas tree, there is still something about Red and Green.
2. It does help to have cheesy Christmas music on while decorating (and it can be free, on the radio).
3. Less is more. Before the maple tree, I collected a bunch of sticks and tried to mold them into a tree shape, with yarn. It was really more spooky than festive. Meanwhile the little maple tree was waiting outside.
4. The above applies to ornament-making as well. The more simple and quick, the better. Otherwise, all December, you will be trying to admire things that were time-consuming, and probably a little frustrating.


6. Decorating with recycled stuff.

Empty streets and $200 Dollar Blu-ray Players

From the day before Thanksgiving, to the day after, I did several holiday-ie things:

1. attempted to buy flowers at a big, crowded grocery store
2. bought flowers at a smaller, less crowded grocery store
3. helped at a holiday blood drive
4. drove around the emtpy streets on Thanksgiving morning
5. watched Justin wait until 2 a.m. to see what kinds of Black Friday deals would be posted on Amazon.com

While the first three on the list were free, or fairly cheap ($7 for flowers--too bad I don't have a flower garden), the one that made me feel the most holiday spirit was number 4.

There is something nice about an almost empty street on a Thursday morning. Compared to typical weekdays--people on their way to work, lots of traffic, everyone mad--this was special and refreshing, and free.

The blood drive was a little less spirited than I'd thought it would be. But it was still good to see people up at 7 in the morning, donating blood for this particular reason- Thanksgiving. And I got to listen to people's Thanksgiving day plans, which usually led to also hearing about their crazy families.

Hanging out with Justin while he scoped out the Black Friday sales online actually brought a little bit of holiday spirit. He didn't buy anything, and neither did I, but simply watching everything go down on this momentous day is always a little exciting. On the other hand, a Walmart worker in Long Island was killed in a rampage. Maybe it's a little too crazy. I might have to re-adjust the graph.
**Initially, I put this mark fairly high on the "spirit" level, but Justin just told me that two people got shot at a Toys R Us today! So now it's on the bottom.

What did I learn?
-Being around people is free, and makes me feel celebratory.
-The best grocery store to go to the day before Thanksgiving, is probably the smaller one in the part of town where no one lives.
-Unusual circumstances that the holidays bring (empty streets) are nice, and free as well.
-As long as Black Friday remains a spectacle (where no one is killed), it is slightly enjoyable to simply observe the madness.

Today, the day before Thanksgiving, I went to my favorite coffee shop, Starbucks.
There, after reading their "Good Sheet*," I discovered that America spent $474.5 Billion dollars during the 2007 holiday season.

-$9.3 billion on jewelry
-$30 million on Christmas trees
-$5.8 billion on toys
Along with $700 million in candles and $131 million in eggnog!

Like I said, today is the day before Thanksgiving. I have not yet bought anything for the holidays.
I would like to see how much of the holidays is really based on these billions of dollars.

This year, I will be doing an experiment that compares the amount of money I spend to the level of holiday "spirit" achieved.
In other words, if I don't end up buying-
a tree, ornaments, gifts, wrapping paper, house decorations, Christmas cards, special cooking and baking ingredients, nice clothes, candles, or eggnog. . .
will I still get that magical holiday feeling???


Here is the graph I will be marking, every time I do or make something for the holidays.
My hypothesis is that most of the marks will fall where the arrow is pointing.
Please stay tuned as I post the results of my experiment.
Enjoy the holiday season, and don't spend too much!!!


*weekly series breaking down an important issue to help make sense of the world around us. exclusively available at starbucks.