Weekend Kindness
Reaching Others Through Kindness

I have not yet heard whether she will be returning to Weekend Kindness, but Veiled Glory has returned on her blog, so go give her a welcome back!

Christmas is one of my favorite holidays!

Here is an idea for a frugal Christmas gift – Hot Cocoa in a jar! I’ve received several over the years and each one is uniquely created and warms the heart. The directions are simple:

Ingredients:

6 1/2 cups powdered milk
1 (5 ounce) package non-instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup powdered chocolate drink mix
1/2 cup powdered non-dairy creamer
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine powdered milk, chocolate pudding mix, chocolate drink mix powder, creamer, confectioners’ sugar, and cocoa. Divide the mixture between two 1 quart jars. Seal, and decorate as desired. These can be stored in a dry area for up to 3 months.

Attach a tag with the following instructions: Hot Cocoa: Dissolve 1/3 cup cocoa mix in 1 cup boiling water (taken from allrecipes.com)

The great thing about this gift is it can be adapted to various holidays, birthday and other gift-giving opportunities without breaking the bank!

You can tell a lot about what people value by the place that items are given.  This year, as you get down your Christmas decorations, where will you put different items and what will draw the attention of guests to your house?

I’m certain that many of us will have a tree, gifts around it, lights inside or outside and probably a nativity of some kind.  Some of us will have the three wise men in the nativity,and some will have them in another room to symbolize the fact that they didn’t show up in Bethlehem until Jesus was no longer a baby and was about two years old.

But what will your display this year say about you, about who you are and about your faith?

Personally, I think this task goes one step too far:

Prepare a surprise candle light gourmet low-calorie dinner for two.

I mean, come on.  It’s one thing to plan a surprise dinner.  That’s hard enough when you have a hard time finding a babysitter!  But then add to that a gourmet dinner for two– and LOW CALORIE!

In any case, this will definitely be easier for those of you that are of the female persuasion ladies– us guys may have to actually take you out to dinner because the two of you may not survive our cooking! 

And even if we are good cooks, that doesn’t mean that we can make sure it’s low-calorie.  I mean, mashed potatoes, toast, and PB & J only be made so many ways you know…

Here’s a tough question.  I don’t know about you, but it seems that Christmas has become (especially now that I’m older) all about telling people what they can get me so that they get me something I want rather than what I remember it as a child– a time of surprises.

Now, granted, I’m not sure that many children actually look forward to getting something that they don’t want.  One of my worst memories of Christmas centers around this very thing.

I was at my grandparent’s house for the usual Saturday Christmas time get together and I don’t know where everyone else was, but it was just my family and I still there and I opened a gift that was a backpack– something that I really wanted– but I thought it was clothing so I said “Not more clothes!”  Needless to say, this embarrassed my parents and they took me aside to tell me how wrong my reaction was.

But all this to say ask, have we strayed so far away from what Christmas is that we now judge gifts by how they compare to what we really want?  Is it wrong to do returns to get what we really want?  And how does that show kindness to the one doing the giving?

For the first time that I can remember, we did Christmas on Thanksgiving.  Well, not totally.  Just my brother and his wife.  And they didn’t give us any advanced warning, so they gave us gifts for Christmas and my oldest son’s birthday (somehow they missed my wife’s birthday?) and didn’t really have any good ideas to give us about what to get them.

But anyway, I’m not sure what to think of this concept.  On the one hand it sounds like a great idea.  The holidays are stressed as it is, and one of the biggest stresses is where you will end up for which holiday.  If you could streamline the whole giving thing to match up when the whole family was around you’d spread out the gift buying (last minute would now be in November instead of December) and whole families would have it easier when it comes to getting together.

Would that confuse the holidays, though?  Would we still be able to be thankful if we knew we were getting goodies?

For all of us here at Weekend Kindness to all of you and your families we hope that you have a great Thanksgiving!