Article and Photo Courtesy of Organized Christmas
Nearly half-way there: time to do a little status check on the progress
of the Christmas Countdown.
I hope that most of us feel a bit more prepared, a bit better
organized. We've met together for three weeks, and we've covered a lot of
ground.
Still, it's natural to feel a bit of panic today. From here on out,
time will fly with a vengeance. Rehearsals, parties, holiday activities will
rain down upon us.
During the next three weeks, the Countdown slows the pace to match the
season. Because we're doing more in other areas of our life, the Countdown will
lighten the load.
Ahead lies Get Cooking Week, appropriately so as America begins to
prepare for Thanksgiving Day. Beyond that, we'll Decorate, then prepare to
Celebrate ... an organized Christmas.
Get ready to settle into a slower rhythm! Because ready or not, the
holidays are nearly here. This year, though, we are riding relaxed and in
control, prepared and ready for the best holiday season ever!
To Do This Week
To Do Today
Print Holiday Menu Planner
Prepare for Thanksgiving dinner
Plan Thanksgiving Dinner using the Holiday Menu Planner. Select dishes
for each category, and consider family favorites if adding new recipes.
Simplify the holiday by delegating to family and friends.
Order turkey.
Check serving pieces, and write the contents on a Post-it note. Placed
inside the dish on the holiday table, it'll make it easy for others to help!
Cutting Costs? Christmas Cheats for Frugal Gifts
So you want to celebrate Christmas ... without busting the budget? Try
these frugal "Christmas cheats: to have a bountiful holiday season without
going into debt to do it:
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!
For busy home managers, 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 for many of us.
Solution: Christmas Cheats. These spending short-cuts save time, money,
energy and aggravation during the holiday season. With clever solutions for
gift-giving, they're the frugal way to celebrate like Santa but spend like
Scrooge.
Ready to outwit that old Christmas shopping demon? Try these strategies
to get the most delight from your holiday spending dollar:
Back to Basics
Some basic principles underlie the concept of a Christmas Cheat. First
and foremost:"special" means more than "expensive." Better
a tiny, beloved jewel than a big, costly item that'll end up in the recipient's
next yard sale.
[Rule of thumb: avoid all gift items displayed on red-covered tables
that block every aisle at the department store. Nine times out of ten, you're
looking at Yard Sale Inventory, come July.]
Second concept: consider time, not just money. The classic Christmas
Cheat is both inexpensive and quick to produce. You'll have to get over the
idea of hand-embroidered guest towels, plastic-canvas tree ornaments, and
crocheted anything. Ditto hand-iced and decorated cookies, elaborate multi-step
fruitcakes, and anything requiring a pastry tube.
The obvious corollary: think multiple! What you do for a Christmas
Cheat, do a lot!
Last point: presentation is everything. This does not mean investing a
fortune in overpriced holiday-colored this and holiday-decorated that, or sweet
little baskets that cost more than the gift inside. Even simple drop cookies
have more impact presented nestled in a foil-covered candy box than a zipper
food storage bag!
Cheat Central: Catalogs
How do we put these principles to work? For inspiration and guidance,
go to the source, the fountainhead, the wellspring of the Christmas Cheat: mail
order catalogs. Preferably from Gumps, Neiman Marcus, or tiny over-priced
boutiques.
No, we're not going to buy from these fine commercial entities! As
Cheaters, we're here to rip off ideas, plain and simple.
Take a perfect Christmas Cheat: pint-sized canning jars filled with
colorful layers of dried beans. The lid's been embellished with a simple cut
circle of Christmas fabric and tied with a bow. A gift tag lists the recipe for
"15-bean soup"--and the catalog price--$5.95 plus shipping, handling
and sales tax.
So we'll make our own! You'll need a case of half-pint jelly canning
jars (and do get the decorated jelly jars), a half-yard of Christmas fabric,
two rounds of inexpensive Christmas ribbon from the craft store, and 10 to 15
bags of dried beans. Choose the beans by the color, including yellow and green
split-peas, white kidney beans, red kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans--as
wide a selection as you can obtain at the super-market. Add a jar of beef
bouillon cubes to the shopping cart, and you're ready to Cheat.
Open the jars, and fill them in layers: a half-inch of green split
peas, a half-inch of red kidneys, and so on. Choose the most colorful beans for
the bottom layers, as they'll show the most. Toss any leftovers in a zipper
storage bag for your family's 15 bean soup! Toss two foil-wrapped bouillon
cubes on top of each jar of beans.
Lay the inner lid on top of the jar. Cut 12 6-inch circles from the
Christmas fabric and place one fabric circle over each jar. Screw the outer lid
over the fabric
Now to apply Cheat Concept Three: presentation is everything! Go to
your computer, and use any word processor to make small gift tags. Include a
basic recipe for bean soup, but be sure to name it after yourself! Add a nice
little graphic and use your fanciest font. (Or print out our own Confetti Bean
Soup Gift Tag to save even more time!)
Punch a hole in the corner of the tag, and tie to the jars with a
ribbon. Voila! Christmas Cheat: twelve gifts you can give anyone, teachers to
neighbors, with a minimal investment of money, time and effort. A classic!
The same catalog that led to the Bean Soup Cheat also featured--for
$12.95!!!--quart canning jars containing oatmeal and chocolate chip cookie
ingredients. Also prettily layered. Also topped with holiday fabric and clever
gift tag. Also a perfect candidate for the Christmas Cheat!
Find more recipes and printable gift tags for gifts in a jar here.
Banish Baking Blues
Are you baking this year? Don't fall for the iced sugar cookie routine!
Unless you schedule cookie-baking as a child-centered activity, frosted sugar
cookies violate principle two: they take too much time. Ditto the
more-is-merrier idea--baking tons of different kinds of cookies. Long hours on
weary feet, and have you priced nuts this year? Yikes!
Perusing our catalogs, though, we can identify two Christmas Cheats for
baked gifts. First recommendation: biscotti. Now, I thought everyone knew that
biscuit are twice-baked Italian cookies, made for dipping in coffee or
chocolate. Wrong
So I will tell you: these easy-to-make, cheap to bake goodies are hot,
hot, hot. Biscotti have an espresso/cool quality that makes them suitable
candidates for a Cheat. Pair them with a bag of good coffee beans, and you've
created the ultimate--and desirable--Christmas cheat.
Check any recent Christmas cookie magazine for recipes.? You'll make
dough, shape it in a single big flattened log shape, and bake it once. Then
you'll cool your log of dough, cut it into 1/2-inch slices, and bake again
until the slices are dry and crisp, but not hard.
Applying "Presentation is Everything", you'll stand eight or
nine biscotti on end in an inexpensive coffee mug and wrap with plastic wrap or
cellophane. Stop there for a modest gift, or add a half-pound of gourmet coffee
beans for a heftier treat. Result: a city-chic Christmas Cheat!
Here's Baking Cheat Number Two: dip things in melted chocolate chips.
Christmas cookie magazines are full of dipped goodies this year, but I'll share
the secret.
Use 1/2 cup of white chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate or milk chocolate
chips. Place them in a Pyrex measuring cup or small batter bowl. Add one
teaspoon solid shortening, no substitutions! Microwave for 30 seconds on high,
stir, and repeat the cycle until the mixture is melted and smooth. Dip away!
Short, sweet, and you'll look like Cordon Bleu material.
Dip one end of biscotti in melted white chocolate chips for a fancy
touch. Pedestrian oatmeal cookies turn Gourmet Snob Cookies when they've stuck
their toes in some melted chocolate. Add some dried apricots half-dipped in
white chocolate, line both cookies and apricots up in rows on a foil-covered
piece of shirt cardboard, and top with plastic wrap. If Presentation is
Everything, this cookie plate is mega-everything--and quick, and cheap!
Get the Goods on Gift Wrap
A confession here: I hate gift wrap. It's expensive and it's wasteful
and it takes too much time and it's just thrown away and if I could do without
it, I would. But I can't. So here are some hints for getting your time and
money's worth out of gift wrap
First, keep it simple. Why buy a box, fancy printed tissue for the
inside of the box, fancy printed paper for the outside of the box, a cardboard
mailing carton, and separate gift cards?
Check into the U.S. Postal Service's new innovation: decorated mailing
containers. Buy white tissue paper, wrap it around the gift, plunk the gift in
the decorated mailing box: an instant Christmas Cheat!
When you do have to buy paper and tissue, stick with solid colors. A
thick package of white tissue will cushion birthday, wedding, and baby gifts
all year long, but you can't get away with that Cheat if your tissue says
"Merry Christmas!"
Ditto wrapping paper. Solid red can be used throughout the year with
different-colored ribbons. Mickey Mouse in a Santa hat just doesn't have the
same universal appeal.? Slickest Cheat I found this year: nicely printed gift
boxes, 3- and 4-for-a-dollar. Wrapping couldn't be easier!
With bows, you're on your own. At most, I wrap glossy gold ribbon (also
multi-occasion; red ribbon is just too saved-from-Christmas for me) once or
twice around the box. But I acknowledge that others may be of a different bow
persuasion--so do your best to get the most dash from your ribbon purchases!
Stretch-Tite(tm) Saves the Day
Here is my number one packaging Cheat: Stretch-Tite brand plastic wrap.
It's hard to find, and costs about $4 a roll, but Stretch-Tite is the best
single food wrap going. (It's also designed for the microwave, but that's
another article.)
Use Stretch-Tite to wrap stacks of cookies. Stretch it over baskets.
Tape it to food plates. It has an elastic quality that looks almost
professional, doesn't tear, and won't wrinkle or shift. Pedestrian cookie
plates will look professionally shrink-wrapped. Bonzer stuff!
Look for Stretch-Tite at warehouse stores like Sam's Club and Costco,
or ask your grocery store manager to add it to the plastic wrap and bags
section.
Packaging Cheat number two: "foil" gift wrap works for baked
goods as well as holiday gifts.
Buy several rolls and use the foil to wrap hunks of cardboard for cookie
trays.
Tuck pieces of fudge or Aunt Bill's Brown Candy in small squares of
foil gift wrap, and they'll keep nicely, yet add a gala Christmas flair to
gifts and candy dishes.
Who said you had to buy metal tins and fancy "goodie" boxes
for your baked goods?
Today's Recipe
candy cane reindeer
Simple to make, this little Candy Cane Reindeer does holiday duty
decorating packages or peeping from a stocking.
With materials available at craft stores or discount houses, Candy Cane
Reindeer are ideal for classroom projects, Secret Santa presents or little
"just because" gifts!
Candy Cane Reindeer
He's sweet, sassy, and easy enough for children to make: a Candy Cane
Reindeer!
Our little Candy Cane Reindeer makes a great craft project for school,
scouts, church groups or Secret Santa gifts.
Using candy canes, chenille stems and google eyes from the craft store,
Candy Cane Reindeer make great stocking stuffers--or add them to holiday gift
wrap for a sweet touch!
Materials
For each reindeer, you'll need:
candy cane
small pompon for nose
two "google" eyes
brown chenille stem for antlers
green chenille stem for bow-tie
small jingle bell
non-toxic craft glue
Directions
Leave the wrapper on the candy cane.
Wrap the brown chenille stem around the top of the candy cane and
twist. Separate the ends and twist into antler shapes. [Hint: the letter
"W" makes a great model for an antler!]
Thread the "jingle bell" onto the green chenille stem. Twist
the green chenille stem around the body of the candy cane with the bell in the
center. Fold back the stem ends to resemble a bow or a bow-tie.
Place small dots of glue on google eyes, and apply them to the front of
the candy cane.
Place a larger dot of glue on the pompom, and apply it to the front of
the candy cane to form the reindeer's nose.
Candy Cane Reindeer may be used to decorate gift packages, as party
favors, or hung on a Christmas tree as ornaments.
