The snow has melted, the grass is getting greener, and spring has officially sprung.  Easter is here and that means sweet little bow ties, patent leather shoes, frilly pastel-colored dresses and matching bonnets, precious moments, and chocolate-filled baskets. It’s the perfect holiday to pull out your camera and capture loving moments before church, during an Easter egg hunt, or at a relative’s house visiting with family and loved ones.

In photography it is important to pay attention to your available lighting. The number one place to capture those stand-out portraits or even those classic snapshots will be outside, in the natural light. More often than not we, as photographers, want the light source behind us.  Sometimes, though, this may wash your subject out, and since they will probably be in soft colored clothes that wouldn’t be so good for your picture. Instead of the light source being behind you when you shoot, try to have it coming in from an angle; basically speaking, aim for [the sun] to shine over your right or left shoulder on to your subject. Also, when taking portraits inside strive to take photos near a window, for diffused lighting effect. Posing near a window, using diffused natural light, will give you a soft look to your image; making it look absolutely magical, in a frame, on your wall, or imprinted on a photo book or calendar.

Here are some tips to make your Easter portraits memorable:

• Try not to over-pose. Instead, ask your children to hold hands and follow them as they walk by a row of flowers or take a shot of them walking away from you. This creates a timeless portrait that Grandmas go crazy for.
• Have fun. One fun pose to try is where you have your children lie down, with their heads coming together, and shoot from above. Posing them this way is a different take on traditional portraits.
• Don’t worry about smiles or eye-contact.  Some of the best pictures don’t have either.
• Embrace the mess. Church is over and it’s time to dig into the Easter chocolates; don’t worry about a choco-face.  Snap away and capture the candid fun!

By Cheryl Tallman and Joan AhlersA festive drink for the Holiday season. One the whole family will love.

Ingredients:
1 pear peeled, cored and cut in chunks
1 cup of egg nog (dairy or soy)
2 ice cubes cracked
Dash of cinnamon

Directions:
Place all ingredients in blender. Blend at high speed for 15 seconds. Makes 2-3 kid-size servings, or 1 1/2 cups.

About the Authors
Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers are sisters, the mothers of five children, and founders of Fresh Baby. Raised by parents who love fresh foods and entertaining, their mom, a gourmet cook, ensured that they were well-equipped with extraordinary skills in the kitchen. Both with long track records of business success, they decided to combine their skills in the kitchen with their knowledge of healthy foods and children to create Fresh Baby. Cheryl and Joan put a modern twist on the conventional wisdom that when you make it yourself, you know it’s better. Their goal at Fresh Baby is to make the task of raising a healthy eater a little bit easier for all parents. Fresh Baby’s breastfeeding accessories and baby food making supplies provide parents with practical knowledge and innovative tools to support them in introducing their children to great tasting, all-natural foods – easily and conveniently. Visit them online at www.FreshBaby.com and subscribe to their Fresh Ideas newsletter to get monthly ideas, tips and activities for developing your family’s healthy eating habits!

by Vivian Dee

How do one give the perfect gift? Ahh! Another occasion, another milestone…excitement is building, adrenaline is pumping; and off one goes shopping. But what should you get for a cousin’s birthday, another shirt, another bag or a perfume? Gift giving can be exciting and nerve wrecking as well. But when all is said and done. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of giving the perfect gift.

What can you do to ensure the celebrant and the gift are a perfect fit? Here are some tips on gift-giving. Prepare ahead of time. Mark it in your calendar and be alerted about few weeks before time. This will give you sometime to think your gift through. Know the celebrant, make sure you find out if; she or he has a special hobby or interest. Is he or she engage in a very physical strenuous job? Does she put in long hours at work? If so, would she appreciate a little extra pampering?

Remember all the little occasions worth celebrating and keep them in mind to help you get started. Special days can be a birthday or anniversaries of your milestones you have accumulated through life. Here are some milestones that are often overlooked but should be celebrated, birthdays, because we are too busy to celebrate, weight loss-because you are too scared of putting the weight back and celebrating maybe premature.

Long friendships, when you quit smoking for the first time or the second time or perhaps the third, getting a project done on time, a new home, seeing your one year old walk for the first time, passing an exam, just finished redecorating the house, landscaped the entire yard, change of season, or just because.

Be sure to add new milestones in your calendar as it happens. Celebrating can in fact make us feel better, rejuvenate and strengthen our relationships with friends and families. It gives us a feeling of accomplishments. It validates us as a person. It gives us a sense of purpose. It also increases job satisfaction. And when this cycle goes on, it makes us a happier person and happy people are strongly correlated with good health. So take time to be healthy!

About The Author
Vivian Dee is the owner of PurpleEgg LLC.

Family traditions come in all shapes and sizes and are treasured by family members throughout several decades. There is a feeling of comfort and warmth that can come over a person when they are participating in something that they know is important and a feeling of pride when a parent or grandparent can pass down a tradition to his children or grandchildren.

Photography
Family traditions can also involve capturing important moments in film. Keeping a scrapbook, or lining pictures along the wall of your child for every age so that you can see how they have grown or by taking out the photo albums every birthday in order to reminisce.

One family went so far as to religiously photograph themselves every year on the same date, in order to see how they progressed and aged. This started in 1976 with mom and dad, and included pictures of their children from the year they were born through 2006. The results of this family tradition are astounding as it is a chance for them to stop time and see how they changed over time. It is also a great idea for all families who want to start a tradition of chronicling their lives with film.

Some parents will take yearly Christmas pictures of their children, leaving the most recent one on the wall for the entire year. Every year, the new picture would go in the frame on top of the previous year’s picture, giving parents a collection of holiday portraits of their children. Some might do collages of their child in a big frame from birth through the first year, a picture from every month, showing how their baby had changed and grown throughout the first year alone. Photography is a great way to involve tradition in your family.

Holidays
Family traditions can be something little or big and take place as various times of the year. Holidays are a popular time that people abide by family traditions whether it is Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas.

As a kid, Christmas was a holiday that held a lot of tradition in my family. Every year my mom and I would go to my aunt and uncles house on Christmas Eve to spend the night. Dinner would be something light and easy, normally sandwiches and chips. In the evening my mom, aunt, uncle, cousins and myself would play games like Pictionary and Charades for hours. Before bed we would go outside and look for a flashing red light in the sky, which my uncle swore to us kids was Rudolph’s nose.

On Christmas day all the kids would wait at the top of the stairs for the adults to call us down so that we could see what Santa brought. My uncle the chef always made the turkey, and I always made the gravy. My aunt would have the “Gray Family Applesauce Bread” for all to take home, and lots of fudge lying around for a treat. We always HAD to have my grandmothers chocolate pecan pie, so much so that we had to call her for the recipe when she became too ill to make the trip.

Easter in your family might have consisted of re-hiding the Easter eggs a dozen times so that the children can search them out repeatedly every year. In the fall some families hold traditional pumpkin carving contests, letting a friend or neighbor judge. Traditions make people happy, they make people feel comfortable and help them leave their problems at the door for one day, or at least for a few hours.

Vacations
Some families have the tradition of a yearly holiday away from it all just for them. They use this time to reconnect and get to know each other again. This time may be a vacation to a family amusement park, Hawaii, or to grandma’s house. They may even include a yearly, quick trip over spring break to a nearby beach or mountain resort that the family likes to go back to every year. These family traditions are what the kids will remember as they grow up, go off to college and begin families of their own.

Family traditions are an important part of any family. Whether the traditions are small, like the chocolate pecan pie, or grand like the trips to the beach, they are a great way for a family to bond, and pass down the importance of relationships and togetherness. It is never too late to start a family tradition of your own.

You don’t want the same picture that you took last year, and you want it to look different than Uncle Joe’s picture when he is standing right next to you. Here are some ideas to help you take great pictures this holiday that everyone in the family will be able to cherish and remember.

1. Use high resolution.
For photos that you do not want to print, low resolution is great! But if you are taking a picture that you are going to want to print out for your album or scrapbook, or to give as a gift to your mother for her upcoming birthday, you will get a better printed image with a higher resolution. If you need to buy an extra memory card so that you have the storage room, splurge on yourself and buy one.

2: Get close up.
Create impact by getting up close. The picture will look totally different with your subject up close and personal than it will with them just fitting into the background.

3. Don’t use the “Auto” setting.
Take control of your camera and your pictures. Doing it manually you are likely to get different and more interesting shots. For portraits, use low aperture – around 2.8. For landscapes, use high aperture – around 16. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

4. Change your angle.
Don’t just stand in front of your subject. Try kneeling down in front of your subject, laying down and taking the picture from the ground, or standing up high on a chair or on a second floor balcony. Have your family stand on the stairs and take pictures from the side as well as the bottom of the stairs.

5. Don’t center your picture.
There is no rule that your friend or family member have to be in the center of the picture. You can get a great picture by angling it so that your subject is to the left or right side. You can have him sit on top of a sturdy table and take the picture so that the table is included and your subject is just in the top frame of the picture. Play around, experiment and have fun!

By Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers

A parfait is an old-fashioned layered dessert that looks pretty, and is fun to eat. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, we thought you would enjoy a nice sweet treat to serve for dessert to your special loved ones.

Ingredients for each parfait:
3 Tbsp. strawberry puree (made from 3-4 large strawberries)
1 Tbsp. chocolate syrup
½ cup vanilla yogurt
Whipped cream and sprinkles (optional)
Parfait glasses, short stemmed wine glasses, or tall glasses

Directions:
Puree the strawberries in a blender. Make the parfaits by layering the ingredients in each glass in the following order:
2-3 Tbsp yogurt
1 Tbsp chocolate syrup
2-3 Tbsp yogurt
3 Tbsp strawberries
2-3 Tbsp yogurt

Chill. Just before serving, top with whipped cream and sprinkles. Grab your spoons and dig in! Happy Valentine’s Day!

About the Authors:
Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers are sisters, the mothers of five children and founders of Fresh Baby, creators or products such as homemade baby food kits, baby food cookbooks, baby food and breast milk storage trays, breastfeeding reminders, and child development diaries (www.FreshBaby.com). Visit them online at www.FreshBaby.com and subscribe to their Fresh Ideas newsletter to get monthly ideas, tips and activities for developing your family’s healthy eating habits!

by Jan McCracken

It’s CHRISTmas!

Where are the wise men?

WOW – The wise men are MISSING! What kind of Christmas is this anyway?

Are you caught up in the “season” with this Christmas thing? Do YOU know where the wise men are?

For over 200 years we have celebrated Christmas and all of the joys and festivities that go with the “holidays” in this great country of ours. Christmas was declared a federal holiday in 1870 by President Ulysses S. Grant for the purpose of celebrating the “philosophy of good will toward men.” What’s changed?

And, where are those wise men?

The Associated Press reported last Christmas that in New Jersey the sixth-grade class of the South Orange Middle School planned a field trip to see the play, “A Christmas Carol.” However, due to pressure from some of the parents the field trip was “re-routed” to a show, “The Great Railroad Race”!

Why? Because of the concerns from parents that the play, “A Christmas Carol” might have something to do with CHRISTMAS! The school principal told the AP, “There is a great sensitivity to putting students in awkward situations.”

Jesus is just not acceptable! Nice…

The school board in Covington, GA last year voted to “remove” the word Christmas from the school calendar!

Hundreds of towns across the US have banned placing nativity scenes and even poinsettias on public property. It seems that the ACLU as well as other organizations have threatened lawsuits and instilled the fear of God, uh, that would be the fear of “a greater power” because we have these “sensitivity concerns” and need to suppress any kind of religious display!

Why? Because Jesus Christ is involved in Christmas. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Jesus Christ, the great philosopher who believed that all men should love one another!

DOWN with all the happiness this national holiday brings to old and young alike. DOWN with tradition. DOWN with peace on earth and good will towards men. OH, and forget about that love one another stuff! Our world is in such GREAT shape this Christmas that we really don’t need any of that LOVE stuff, right?

And just how do we take Christ out of this season, out of Christmas? And WHY would we want to?

Our founding forefathers saw fit to utilize much of Christ’s philosophy in drafting the Constitution of the United States, a document that is the rock of this country reads…”One nation under God…”

Where are the wise men? We need them and I hope they show up pronto and start hanging out with us. This US would be WE, mis-guided and very confused Americans!

In the precious name of Christmas and all the wonder, magic, peace and love that it holds, please whisper a prayer that the “wise men” will show up in the nick of time for the world!

Wishing you all the love and happiness of this great Christmas season and abundant blessings of peace,

Copyright 2003, Jan McCracken

www.LowCarbcookin.com
Home site of Low Carb Christmas Cookin’
The FIRST Low Carb Christmas Cookbook!
Low Carb Christmas Cookin’- with an Old-Fashioned Cook! 224 fun-filled, sometimes hysterical pages!

About The Author
Jan McCracken is author and self-publisher of 39 gift books and cookbooks. Born in the Midwest and former owner/innkeeper of a country bed and breakfast in Branson, MO, she has been cooking since she was seventeen years old (she won’t tell us how many years that is! Jan has been living the low carb lifestyle for almost eight years. Her long-term goal is helping people understand that food is truly the great medicine, prevention and healer of disease. jan@lowcarbcookin.com

By Molly Gold

What Mom wouldn’t want to know the best secrets to create a fun-filled holiday season without wearing herself out? The life of a mom during the holidays is beyond hectic, with many women finding themselves hosting one winter holiday and traveling to another. The hectic pace of having it all leaves Moms scrambling for everything from presents for teachers to a well-stocked fridge before the relatives arrive. To help families enjoy the five weeks spanning the Winter Holidays with all their charm and wonder, Moms need to plan ahead. Check out Mickey’s Holiday Planning Guide and Calendar on www.MickeyDVD.com for scheduling solutions for a Happy Holiday Season.

Tackle the November Trio — get ahead of the game now!
Three important tasks must be accomplished by December 4 to allow room for holiday fanfare.

1. Write holiday cards now.
   Purchase cards, reproduce a family photo, write your holiday letter, address envelopes, and assemble. Thanksgiving weekend, let your children help stamp and apply return address labels and then drop them in the mail with plenty of time for your loved ones to enjoy.

2. Review your Gift List and tackle it now.
   You will save time and money with preseason sales. Take it one step further and shop online. You can finish it all in one sitting and relax while gifts are shipped prewrapped!

3. Take inventory of your holiday décor now.
   The stores are stocked to fill in the gaps so you are ready to go when the time comes.

Apply the Rule of One
One holiday social event per weekend, that is. And when you accept an invitation, contact your babysitter immediately so you won’t find yourself scrambling. We tend to over schedule during the holidays and then wonder why the season feels more like a treadmill than a celebration. With her planner in hand, Mom can carefully commit everyone’s time, leaving room for winter sports, the usual tour of weekend birthdays, commitments at your place of worship, and just plain hang-time to enjoy the warmth of your own home and family. While you are scheduling, review all school holiday performances and events with your partner so if needed, time off can be requested now and sitters for younger siblings can be arranged. If simultaneous events occur, have each partner take one event so everyone is covered with an adoring adult.

Family Traditions
Winter holidays just can’t commence without a huge batch of your family’s favorite cookies to start the season off right. This year it might be Daisy’s Sugar Cookies (visit “Just for Mom” at www.MickeyDVD.com for a great recipe). Maybe you decorate your home Thanksgiving weekend, or maybe you believe in Santa and visit him at the mall every year Christmas week. You need to schedule these celebrations to make sure they occur, just as they do every year, while you zoom through the fun. Offer your children the rituals you cherished as a child. Tell them why these rituals are special and together, start some of your own. You can create a Family Traditions Book where you record each activity with its history and then add to it through the years. Your children will grow to love this routine and you will offer a legacy for their children to cherish someday as well.

Act from the Heart
Teach your children the significance of their affections by encouraging personalized, handmade gifts for their favorite friends and teachers. Offer your child a choice between activities such as baking cookies or decorating candle votives. Check out some of Mickey’s craft ideas and resources at “Just for Mom” on www.MickeyDVD.com and schedule family time. Be careful not to curb your child’s creativity with a drive for perfect presentation. Remember the lesson here is showing the value of heartfelt gestures for gift-giving occasions. Go one step further and have your children sort through their toys and offer items outgrown or less favored to local charities. Throw away anything broken and help your children deliver their gifts to their charity of choice.

Entertain Early
Remember flu season? It’s back just in time for the holidays. Murphy’s law dictates that on the very day you have your annual open house for 75 friends and neighbors, someone under your roof will have a fever. So what’s a mother’s best defense? Entertain early in the holiday season and be prepared ahead of time so you can handle last-minute challenges such as this. Have your event before the season gets the best of you. Then you can enjoy the preparations to welcome loved ones to your home. By minimizing last-minute party tasks, you will build in time to handle the unexpected bumps life always hands us. And if you have to reschedule the entire event, remember it’s not the end of the world.

About the Author:
By Molly Gold, nationally known scheduling expert and creator of The Go Mom Planner. Molly has been featured on Good Morning America and her articles have been featured in Better Homes and Gardens, Woman’s Day and numerous other women’s magazines. For fun games, activities and family fun visit MickeyDVD.com.

by Rondi Hillstrom Davis and Janell Sewall Oakes

Wonderfully simple to do and oh so impressive!

You don’t need a $40 Easter egg decorating kit with pages of instructions to impress your family and guests this Easter – achieve sophisticated elegance with colors taken directly from nature. Simply decorated from a myriad of plants and flowers, you can create a beautiful range of natural colors and textures. Try this technique – it’s simple enough to do with young children.

Ingredients
Gather together eggs, an enamel or stainless steel pot, vinegar, cheesecloth, a rubber band, and plant materials such as onionskins, blueberries, pecan hulls, parsley, beets or dandelions.

Directions

1. To prepare the dye bath, fill a pot with two or three cups of plant material. Barely cover it with water (more plant material produces stronger colors.) Simmer for at least 30 minutes. Add water and stir as needed. The dyes can be made several days in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Strain and heat the dye before using it.
2. Use hard-boiled or blown out eggs. Carefully wash the eggs with soap and water. Allow them to dry. Wipe the eggs with vinegar.
3. To decorate the eggs, moisten small leaves and grasses, one at a time. Press them firmly against the egg. Hold them in place by wrapping the eggs in a six-inch square of cheesecloth or nylon pantyhose. Pull the cloth tight against the egg and secure it with a rubber band. Immerse the egg in a container of warm dye. Some dyes are stronger than others. The process may take only a few moments or several hours. Dyes derived from yellow onionskin, red onionskin, and blueberries all provide quick results.
4. Unwrap the eggs, drain, and let them dry upright.

What a magical and unpredictable process. Each lustrous egg is a unique surprise. Some of our favorites were the results of happy accidents. Enjoy discovering!

About The Author
Rondi Hillstrom Davis and Janell Sewall Oakes are the co-authors of the award-winning book Together: Creating Family Traditions. To check out their website that’s jam packed with family ideas, visit togetherparenting.com/.
info@togetherparenting.com

by Patty Getz

Christmas is about so much more than presents and parties, and yet, each year, that is the focus that we as a society place on it. Christmas has become a stress for some, and financial hardship for others. Where there used to be a holiday, to celebrate Family, we have some how lost touch with our roots, and a meaningful soulful Christmas.

Following is a list of of Ideas that cost little or no money, that you can do with your family this Christmas for a more meaningful Christmas. Set aside some time, and lets all get back to the basics of Christmas. Take this list, and let each family member choose one, and then set aside an evening, for each activity, you will be surprised and amazed how much this will Change your and your families outlook on Christmas.

1. Make a popcorn Garland
2. Make garland with construction paper
3. Watch Christmas shows together with hot chocolate and popcorn
4. Make decorating the the tree a family event, serve hot chocolate and play Christmas music
5. Make your own Christmas cards to send to people
6. Go Christmas shopping at the the Dollar Store and donate to a charity for Christmas gifts
7. Donate clothes or toys for needy children
8. Make a snowman
9. Have a snowball fight
10. Make a ginger bread house out of graham crackers and what ever you have in the house
11. Paint Christmassy pictures on the windows with washable paint
12. Make a game out of hunting around the house, for things to make Christmas decorations out of
13. Build a fire, and have a slumber party with your kids
14. Bake and decorate cookies
15. Have a wrapping party
16. Plan to share a plate of goodies with any elderly or young parents in the neighborhood
17. Go caroling
18. Go for a drive and see who wins for the best lights in town — make an award for the winner and present it to them
19. Attend a live Nativity
20. Take a special drive at night to enjoy others Christmas lights
21. Invite your children’s friends over to make cards or gifts for their parents
22. Go collect pine cones and use them to make ornaments
23. Make bird treat with peanut butter and birdseed
24. Sing Christmas carols
25. Have the kids write and act out a Christmas play
26. Go to the library and borrow Christmas videos and books
27. Have a game night
28. Take a walk or drive around a neighborhood that has their houses all lit up and decorated
29. Shovel the snow for your elderly neighbors
30. Read one Christmas short story each night before bed
31. Write Christmas letter to all the relatives with the kids all telling what they have been up to in their own words
32. Go sledding (a personal favorite) and come back to the house for hot cider and hot chocolate (we do this and invite the kid’s friends to join us)
33. Take a picture of the kids in front of the Christmas tree, and make it a yearly tradition
34. Visit the local nursing home and present some of the residents with homemade Christmas cards
35. Do a random act of kindness for a neighbor that you know is sick or feeling down, like take them a plate of cookies or some homemade ornaments
36. Attend a church service together
37. Invite an older person/couple for a holiday meal
38. Have a campout night, and sleep in sleeping bags under your lighted Christmas tree or some Christmas lights
39. Make up a Christmas scavenger hunt
40. Watch the all the videos or home movies of Christmas, or look at all the photos from Christmas
41. Make some ornaments
42. Color some Christmas pages together
43. Share a favorite Christmas memory
44. Help your local church/library/community center organize a special holiday reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas, A Christmas Carol, etc. Invite seniors/families. Maybe get a local store to donate some cookies or cocoa.
45. Have a birthday celebration, complete with cake, and birthday decorations
46. We make a video of ourselves decorating the tree, making cookies, singing Christmas carols and telling the Christmas story, then we make copies of it for all the far off relatives (beats a humdrum letter)
47. Volunteer as a family for the local shelter or nursing home
48. Have your kids make Christmas cards or snowflakes and take them to the local nursing home
49. Organize your scout troop or Sunday school or home school group and go caroling at a nursing home
50. Scout or youth group could also offer to paint the windows of local businesses for the holiday with washable paint
51. Ask the local supermarket if your youth group or older kids can help carry groceries out for senior citizens. Those turkeys are heavy to pick up and put in the car!
52. Help sort food for a food pantry that does food baskets for the holiday
53. Make paper snowflakes to decorate your windows
54. Organize or volunteer to work in a Christmas wrap booth that gives the proceeds to charity
55. Volunteer as food servers at shelters that provide Christmas/Thanksgiving dinners
56. Light up your walkway/driveway with handmade luminaries
57. Collect pine boughs and pine cones and make wreaths – can be shared at nursing homes or with elderly ones nearby
58. We decorate our stocking each year. I buy the ones from the Dollar Store, and whatever we wish to decorate with. Last year we used sticky foam shapes, this year we used glitter glue pens
59. Get out your old records – or borrow your parents – and listen to the golden oldie Christmas songs from your youth, and share the memories of Christmas past with your children
60. Learn about different cultures celebrate Christmas…. and about what they did years ago.
61. Sing silly Christmas songs with your kiddos… (Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer)
62. Find an angel tree and have your kids help pick out a toy for the needy child’s name on the angel tree
63. Make a manger scene out of playdough or clay or even construction paper, whatever is handy
64. Create a calendar that the kids can mark off the days until Christmas.
65. Have a “Christmas Past, Present and Future” evening/afternoon. Get out your photo albums/scrapbooks and talk about Christmas Past, remembering those who are no longer here to share it with us; for Christmas Present, discuss what one thing makes Christmas special for each person; for Christmas Future, talk about your hopes and dreams for the coming years ahead.
66. Make Christmas gifts for your family’s pet and other relative’s pets
67. Take a little Christmas tree and decorate it with your pet’s toys and set it in the living room with your bigger tree – just for the pets! Wrap up some treats and place them under the pet’s tree, too, like a small can of some fancy cat food or a package of doggie treats. (Hopefully the dog won’t tear it apart to get at it until Christmas day.
68. Let the kids make their own stockings out of felt and stocking “packages” out of paper grocery sacks to put gifts for others in.
69. Gingerbread people made out of brown grocery sacks are very cute, too and inexpensive and make great tags on presents and ornaments for a tree or wreath. You could glue on google eyes and a small candy cane to the gingerbread people, too and make them even more dimensional and if using two sides, you can tape or glue them together and stuff them with cotton balls to fill them out if you want to make them puffy.
70. Let your child decorate their bedroom door for Christmas. A wreath with some small trinkets on it is charming on every door inside the house, too.
71. Make snowmen out of styrofoam ball ornaments or styro balls or old Christmas bulbs (the breakable kind) in 2 sizes (one larger and one smaller glued together), paint white or glue on cottonballs or fake snow and add glitter. Use google eyes or dots punched out of a paper punch for eyes, Orange pipe cleaner twisted to a carrot shape for the nose, little buttons or Mini M & M’s or small pom poms can be buttons or even the gold top of a paper fastener clip. Also can use yarn for eyes, smile, eyebrows or braid yarn for a scarf. Use your imagination and whatever you have around the house, toothpicks or tree branches for arms, etc. An old sweater and flannel shirt can provide scarves and hats, mittens for all the snowmen and snowwomen which can be grouped together under a tree branch from outside. Provide all the scrap materials you have and let the kids have a great time making them.
72. Make some snow globes with old jars.
73. Create a God Can for family members here is how — use a tall odd shaped can, the one I found was a solid gold color, was maybe 6 inches tall and semi squared with a rounded bubble shaped lid. (Found it at Dollar Tree last year)

This is what I attached.

God Can
When your worries get too heavy
Follow this little plan
Just write it on a little note
And drop it in this can
You know that any problem
That you place in Our Lord’s hands
Will soon be taken care of
Because we can’t but God Can!

About the Author:
Patty Getz is the owner, and editor, of Totally Frugal, and Old Fashioned Families, and loves to spend her time with family, in the kitchen, and Teaching others, how to have a more fullfilling life. Webmaster and owner of www.totallyfrugal.com. Send comments to mailto: totallyfrugal@totallyfrugal.com This article may be reprinted, provided the byline and contents are not Changed in any way.