Save on Thanksgiving Dinner: Beat The Holiday Grocery Game
During the holiday season, department stores, catalog retailers and online sellers aren't the only businesses anxiously queuing up for a slice of the fourth-quarter pie, i.e. your holiday wallet. Been grocery shopping lately?
What a difference a few days makes! By November, Halloween's candy displays have given way to a maze of buy-me buy-me holiday foodstuffs.
Clutter-Free Gift Solution: Think Consumable!
Gift-giving. Seldom do we engage in an activity that invokes so many conflicting values.
On the one hand, we hope our gift will entertain, educate, and amuse.
We dream of seeing our special gift proudly displayed in the home of the recipient.
We hunt and search and shop, trying to find just the right gift to stand for the relationship we're celebrating.
On the other hand, gift-buying brings us up against our limitations. While our emotions urge extravagance, our wallets counsel frugality.
Magic Elf Tradition: Will Santa's Magic Elf Visit Your Home?
What would happen if one of Santa's elves came to your house to visit?
He'd arrive sometime before the holidays began. Sent by Santa to check on good little girls and boys, he'd roam the house at night, popping up in the most unlikely places come morning.
Sometimes, elf mischief would take place--and he'd be caught red-handed! Finally, on Christmas Eve, he'd report to Santa and hitch a ride back to the North Pole ... until next year.
If you can imagine it, you can do it: meet Santa's Magic Elf!
Print, Cut, Celebrate: Cupcake Pan Advent Calendar
Count down the days to Christmas with this easy printable craft: a cupcake pan Advent calendar!
Using a 24-count mini-cupcake pan as a base, colorful magnets printed on inkjet magnet sheets hide a treat for each December day before Christmas.
Best, free printable magnet designs make it easy to create this holiday craft project. Choose your favorite design to create a quick family tradition!
Our photo tutorial will have you crafting your cupcake pan advent calendar in record time. Print, cut and celebrate!
Cutting Costs? Christmas Cheats For Frugal Gifts
If the local newscast (egged on by local retail merchants) tells me one more time exactly how many "shopping days" are left until Christmas, I'll scream! No matter what the count, there are never enough days to shop for/buy/craft/bake gifts for family and friends--and this year of all years, disposable income is in short supply.
Make a Jiffy Pop® Popcorn Topper for Thanksgiving
Blessings are popping up all over for Thanksgiving? Celebrate them with this free printable Thanksgiving topper for Jiffy Pop® popcorn!
Add our free printable template to a package of Jiffy Pop® brand pop-in-pan popcorn for an easy "popcorn topper" craft gift.
Shared with family, friends or co-workers, it's an inexpensive way to share the blessings of the Thanksgiving season.
Whose House for the Holidays?
Judging from my e-mail, what's the single biggest holiday family conundrum? "Whose house for the holidays?" wins, hands down.
It's a universal dilemma for young parents. It's a universal dilemma for their own parents. Where will the "children" spend the holidays?
Shiny new parents of a baby or two yearn to create their own at-home holiday. Their own parents struggle to keep the family together, and preferably at their house.
My own chair sits smack dab in the middle. My children are grown, and I'm a grandmother of teenaged grandsons.
You've Been Elf-ed! Start A Neighborhood Holiday Tradition
Have you been Elf-ed? Join the fun with this Christmas version of the Halloween BOO game.
Sometimes called "You've Been Jingled", "You've Been Elf-ed!" is easy to play.
Sometime before Christmas, one neighbor starts the game, secretly leaving a basket of treats together with an Elf sign and Elf poem explaining how to play the game.
Ring the doorbell and run! It's the best part of You've Been Elf-ed!