Christmas sparkle, green edition...

The Internet is brimming with tips on green gifts, entertaining, and the like. Of course, it helps to have your place decked out, the better to get in the mood for seasonal festivities. There's no need to empty an already-thin wallet or further foul the planet to make your abode all sparkly for the season.

Reuse

I was walking, walking down the street...and spied something nice on the ground--a lovely winterberry branch--which I promptly took home to stick in a vase.

[Cost=zero, or the cost of picking up the branch off of the ground.] Also free for the snipping, boughs of (evergreen) holly which I have in the yard. Both the wintergreen and other hollies will keep about a week or so indoors.

It doesn't hurt to retrieve a few free finds left over from the year before (or the year before that), such as:

[Cost=zero. However, my chances of finding the above (hickory?) nuts this season would also be zero, because they have been AWOL in this part of Maryland this year!] (Neither have I seen the usually plentiful acorns.)

Recycle

A live tree for a small house--the solution--a small tree! You get the pine aroma throughout the house, but in a size where you can get the tree in the house. (And have a choice as to where in the house to place it.)

When the holiday season is over, this little pine will be broken into small pieces and scattered over the ground to decompose.

[Cost=$10, at Whole Foods. Because I had my own decorations, I was able to stay away from Whole Paycheck's obvious sucker bait, such as the bags of cinnamon-scented pine cones.] However, I wish the store had the little rosemary trees, which appear fuller.

The tiny decorations were purchased last year, from Dollar Tree, which is cheaper than too-chinchy-to-pay-for-security Walmart. (Also, while both chains sell scads of made-in-China trinkets, Dollar Tree has a larger selection of Christmas decorations). Go figure.

All other decorations were saved from the year before--purchased at Target the day after Christmas, at a massive discount, so I spent no more than $6.

Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

More Christmas Merriment...

I've been getting in the holiday spirit greatly, as of late...the other elves at work decorated the office yesterday, and it brought everyone's spirits up to see the display this morning!

Of course, I had to go into my Martha Stewart mode, and go to Whole Foods before work to pick up some seasonal accoutrements...They call that store 'Whole Paycheck' not just because of the price of much (but not all) of the merchandise, but because the variety of products will have you spending that paycheck before you know it! For instance, not only did it have the tempting tiny rosemary and stone pine trees, but garlands, just waiting to be picked up and given new homes. Which I promptly did, for one of them. I took the garland apart, and put parts of it in various areas of the office, so that there could be a fresh pine smell throughout, because the office tree is artificial.

Now, I couldn't stop there, of course. I had to find a jar or tin-enclosed candle, preferably soy, to impart a spicy, holiday aroma. Although I didn't find a candle with the exact name 'gingerbread,' I did find a nice facsimile, a cinnamon/almond scented soy candle from Pacifica, for $13. (All the candles that Whole Foods sells are soy, instead of parafin, according to a sales associate.) That one candle made the entire office smell even better, with the scent wafting up multiple floors! Next on my personal holiday list: a candle wick trimmer, which is recommended to keep candles burning clean, as you are supposed to trim candle wicks after putting out the flame. Even spilling a little candle wax after putting out the candle didn't faze me, because the wax wasn't extremely hot, but it gave my finger a nice cinnamon fragrance.

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My attitude toward holiday leftovers is very relaxed (most of them now being gone), even though I had much food left over, much was eaten and given away on Thanksgiving, as well. While I've tried (and enjoyed) specific recipes for leftovers in the past, such as turkeyless tetrazzini, I mostly have a new attitude toward leftovers.

I like to have the first dinner after the big feast as a mini-feast, with the fancy plates and decor, to keep it special, but because it's just the immediate family, it's relaxing, too.

After that, I like to eat the leftovers in any way, shape, or form. I might microwave part of one dish to eat for lunch one day, such as the green bean casserole, and, for the morning, microwave some macaroni and cheese for breakfast.

My least favorite holiday food is mashed potatoes, not only because it's relatively ordinary compared to other feast foods, but because it's my least favorite form of the spud, being pure mush, more or less. This time, I patted most of the leftover mashed potatoes into two patties, heated some oil in a cast iron skillet, and fried them into crispy, golden brown potato pancakes. (Eaten with gravy, of course.) Umm, umm, good!

Homemade cranberry sauce, which, if you make it yourself, you have tons left over (thankfully!), is so versatile, being like a jam or conserve. Post-feast, I like to eat some as a quick breakfast or dessert, often layered with applesauce and ground nutmeg, served like a parfait. However, my favorite way of eating cranberry sauce is with fresh chopped apple or pear on top. Yum!

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I have yet to begin my Christmas baking yet, but I'm keeping gingerbread in mind, both in cake form and cookies. It should be fun, and I'm looking forward to all the baking and warmth, blah, blah, blah...

Merrier Christmas?

Thanksgiving was great--the folks came to my house, and were satisfied. Vegetarians and meat-eaters alike got along, as all the sides were veg-friendly (the gravy was made with vegetarian bouillon, etc.), and everyone loved the green bean casserole, a recipe which was adapted from the Silk soymilk website. (My change was to fry some shallots separately, and mix half of them in the casserole, and put the other half on top.) To me, however, one of the best things about the whole week of Thanksgiving is having sweet potato pie for breakfast, the best breakfast in the world!

I should have known--they want me to host Christmas, too! Actually, that sounds wonderful, as Thanksgiving went without a hitch because I started planning in October, around Halloween, decorating, and all that good stuff.

I like to decorate au naturel, in part because of principle, but also because it's cheap. I mean, why pay for faux leaves when you can, literally, pick them up off the ground? That's what I do--I walk through the neighborhood, and look for dropped pine cones, and for the tree that's dropped small branches of needles, to use indoors as short garlands. Actually, as long as they're still green while on the ground, the pine branches will look fresh for weeks indoors and, of course, dry pine cones are usable forever. (So, again, why do people buy fake ones?)

However, the tricky plant, at least in terms of trying to keep it fresh when cut, is the holly. Fortunately, I have a decent sized holly right outside, with large, glossy leaves, and its brimming with berries, so I decided to test how to best keep them fresh when cut. Last week, I cut quite a few from this tree/bush, and kept half in a plastic bag; the other ones I applied oil to, in an effort to help them keep moisture, in order to keep them fresh longer. Well, last night I peeked in the plastic bag for the first time in almost a week, and those holly branches look fresher than the ones that I babied with all the oil! [Another year, I tried Future floor polish as a holly preservative, which worked for a couple of weeks, but made a mess in the house, as you can imagine, when it began to dry in the bowl in which I dipped the plants. ]

Let's not even discuss those lovely tiny stone pine and rosemary plants available at Whole Foods for the holidays, as they tempt me to take them home, and promptly kill them with my black thumb! (However, I have found that rosemary branches do quite well when kept submerged in water, whether on the table or in the refrigerator. Just change the water every few days...whether they retain enough flavor to use for potato dishes is another matter, though.)

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This may be the time of year to consider when, and how, to give gifts to colleagues and other business associates. Of course, sites offering gift ideas are a dollar a dozen, but there are also websites with guidelines on appropriate corporate gift-giving (and not just from American Express), knowledge which makes the holidays less stressful already!