Lifting Spirits

Your loved ones will soon forget the monetary gifts you gave them this year.  But they will long remember the time you spent with them and the memories you created together.   If funds are tight, there are a number of low-cost ways to create memories. 

Attend church, school, and nursing home holiday programs.  Bring a box of candy canes or holiday cookies and give one to each small performer along with lavish praise for their efforts.  Drive through your neighborhood and admire the decorations.  Another low-cost adventure is to take a family hike and admire nature's decorations.  The colors of late fall and early winter are subdued but elegant. The parks and nature trails are usually abandoned at this time of year, giving you ample opportunity to enjoy.  Make some suet for the birds and bring along some peanuts - the wildlife will love you for it.

Just don't get so wrapped up in your own family that you forget to do something to lift the spirits of someone less fortunate than yourself.  Around the world there are people existing from day to day without even a place to lay their head at night.  Give a little bit of time or money to lift someone less fortunate this holiday season and you'll find that it will lift your spirits as well.

There is no better time of year to remember how one poverty-stricken and uneducated man pulled himself and others to higher ground.  That man was Booker T. Washington.  Through his own efforts, he became the first president and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), and the most influential spokesman for black Americans between the years of 1895 and 1915.

Washington was born in a slave hut.  After emancipation, he moved with his family to Malden, West Virginia. At age nine he began working, first in a salt furnace and later in a coal mine. Determined to get an education, he enrolled at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia (1872).  He worked as a janitor to help pay expenses. He graduated in 1875 and returned to Malden, where for two years he taught children in a day school and adults at night. In 1881, Washington was selected to head a newly established normal school for blacks at Tuskegee.  He began this endeavor with two small, converted buildings, no equipment, and very little money.

5 & 1/2 Ways to Enjoy December!

1)      Decorate with Nature - Skip the glittery fake stuff the stores will want to force on you and opt for a walk in the woods and around your own yard.  Evergreens boughs, holly branches, and pine cones can easily dress up your home.  And best of all, it's all FREE!!!

2)      Sensational Scents - More free and low-dollar options.  Simmer some spices instead of spending a fortune on designer candles.  Try cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, candied ginger, and cloves.

3)      Simplify - And really do it this year.  Don't waste hours untangling the lights.  Throw them into a basket and add pinecones and greens.  Plug them in and enjoy.  The kids won't care if you bake cookies from scratch or use the slice-and-bake kind from the store.  They will remember the hours you spent watching movies and hugging them.

4)      Wassail - It's a great break from eggnog and hot cocoa.  Use all the spices from item #2 and add apple, lemon, orange juice, and sugar.  Simmer all together and then strain out the spices.  It is a long-time family tradition at my house.  We drink it hot on Christmas and cold the day after. 

5)      Progressive Dinners - It's just a fancy way of calling the neighbors together for a potluck dinner.  Each family serves a course at their own house.  It's a quick and easy way to get together once over the holidays.  And you can count the walking to each other's homes as exercise!