Tips for Trimming an "Earth Friendly" Christmas Tree

An Earth Friendly Tree Has Ornaments the Can Be Recyled. In this case they can feed the Birds.

The trend over the last few years to go green fits nicely with those who want to trim a country Christmas tree. There are ways to decorate your tree with completely biodegradable ornaments and trim. Most of us will not totally go with an earth friendly Christmas tree, but putting one together can give your home a country Christmas look and be a fun holiday project for the family.

Try trimming your tree with dried apple and orange slices. You take twine and loop a piece through each slice and hang them on the tree. To add a nice smell to your tree you can dust the fruit slices with cinnamon. When you are finished with these edible decorations remove the twine and put them out for the birds and critters in your back yard.

No country Christmas tree would be complete without strung popcorn and cranberries. Take dental floss and a large needle and string popcorn and cranberries together. The wax on the floss makes the cranberries and popcorn slide on easy. After Christmas simply string the garland on the outside bushes for a nice New Year's treat for the birds.

Take the mittens that your kids outgrew last year and hang them on the tree. Do the same thing with bright colored socks that have lost their mates and hair ribbons your girls no longer use. You can save the lone socks for the tree next year or make them into dust mittens (they are great to put on your hand spray with polish and get into nooks and crannies when you clean). You can save the old mittens or donate them to Goodwill.

Make a Hat and Mitten Tree and Donate the Ornaments to Charity

You can make your cookie cutter do double duty. When you are done with your holiday baking clean them up ;and uses green or red ribbon as hangers and put the cookie cutters on the tree. Cookie cutter ornaments make great gifts too. Hang the cookie cutter on a piece of cardboard that you have covered with red or green construction paper. Print your sugar cookie recipe on white paper and paste it on the cardboard. Make it small enough that the whole cookie cutter and recipe can be hung on a tree.

You can recycle a white sheet for a Christmas tree skirt. A cute idea is to outline each child's handprint on the sheet and embroider the hand print with the year and child's name. You can add a new hand print for each child every year. If you do not want to keep the tree skirt simply give the kids laundry maker pens and let them decorate the sheet. When you are finished with the sheet cut it into cleaning rags.

I

let the kids dress their bears for Holiday Decorations

f you have babies or toddlers in the house have the older kids 'dress' their teddy bears in out grown clothes and take up residence under the tree. Dressed bears from Build a Bear cost a fortune and the younger kids will get a thrill out of seeing the teddy bears dressed in their old clothes.

Don't forget the family pets when decorating the tree. Hang a fuzzy mouse from the dollar store somewhere on the tree when the family cat will not see it. You can also hang colored milk bones on the tree. Christmas morning give the pets the "ornaments" to keep them occupied while you open your family presents.

With a little creativity you can create a very unique and even somewhat edible tree that looks great and is very earth friendly.

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Celebrate Your German Heritage This Christmas

Germanic Christmas 17th Century

Christmas gifts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Christkind. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nederlands: Sinterklaas tijdens het Het Feest van Sinterklaas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Christkind

If you are like millions of Americans who have Germanic heritage you might want to help your family understand some of their Germanic heritage by introducing some old German traditions into your family Christmas celebration.

One very old German tradition comes from pre Christian Germany. The Norse Goddess Hertha or Bertha was the goddess of hearth and home. At the time of the winter solstice homes were decorated with evergreens and Fir trees to celebrate her coming to a family feast.

 The family placed large flat stones to serve as an alter and a fire of "fir boughs" was built upon the stones. Hertha appeared in the smoke and told the fortunes of the family members gathered at the dinner. Later flat stones that served as the fire place hearth stones were used as Hertha's alter. This is why Santa Claus enters modern homes through the fire place instead of the front door or window.

In old German Christian culture Christmas cakes were baked in the form of slippers and were called the slippers of Hertha. Small gifts were placed in the slipper cakes and given to single girls and children of the family who had been well behaved during the previous year.
Those of Pennsylvania German heritage may want to have the oldest male in the household put together a scene under the Christmas tree known as Putz . This is a scene of objects that show a manger setting complete with Shepard in the snow. Finding or making the various figures for the scene could be a fun family project. Don't try to achieve complicated perfection in constructing the scene as I believe the phase of an older man "putzing about" must be connected with this tradition.
Another fun German Christmas tradition is to wrap the Christmas presents in several layers of differing Christmas wrap each with a false name on the package until you get to the last layer when the person who is really meant to receive the gift name is attached. You could have the children of the house take turns taking off layers until they come to the last layer then hand of the gift to the rightful recipient.




This is called Julkulp wrap. A variation of this is to have several gift cards inside one another directing various people in the family to different places to find the gift. When the gift is found the gift card on the package is one who the present is for. It is also within German tradition to tie some gifts to the tree hiding among st the ornaments.








Instead of having St. Nicholas arrive to bring gifts , one could have St. Nicholas arrive with the Christkind a heavenly messenger who comes to earth at Christmas time. The Christkind is an angelic child who wears a gold crown and forgives children their minor misdeeds so they can receive their Christmas gifts. Lighted candles in the windows ( or electric equivalents) show the way for the Christkind to find the home. Sometimes St, Nicholas who is the one bearing the gifts, is known as Pelznickle which means Nicholas dressed in fur. The story of the "little stranger" goes with the tradition of the Christkind. In this story a woodcutter's family is blessed when they share a meager meal and warm bed with a poor wandering orphan child. 

The child is really the Christkind who in turn gives the family a blessing of, "silver nuts, lights, apples, and golden thread for their fir tree."
A small Christmas tree can be decorated by the children of the house and decorated with nuts wrapped in aluminum foil, a single strand of Christmas lights, and construction paper apples , and gold wrapping ribbon. This could be a Christkind tree where your children place envelopes with money or gifts to be given to a local charity.

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When Christmas Was'nt and The Real Holiday War

The Examination and Trial of Father Christmas, (1686), published shortly after Christmas was reinstated as a holy day in England. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Today many conservatives like to declare that multiculturalism has declared a war on Christmas.. Retailers no longer use MERRY Christmas in their advertising, schools have holiday shows and not Christmas pageants, Kwanzaa competes for recognition in the public eye along with Hanukkah and Christmas . Yet, it was there philosophical and theological cousins the Puritans that first declared war on Christmas in America. It took a long time and the power of consumerism to bring us is beloved Christmas.

Christmas in the first days of America was a regional occurrence. If it was recognized at all depended on where settlers came from in the old world. Early settlers who were Anglican tended to recognize the holiday. Puritans and separatist reflected the attitude of the Protestant Reformation in 17th century England. They saw no strong scriptural evidence of December 25 25th being Christ’s true birthday. They also recognized the connection of many Christmas traditions connection to paganism. Christmas was seen as a time where sinners drank and ate to excess. The diary of Gov. Bradford of Plymouth colony gives a description of Christmas in 1621 as a day of work designed to discourage any inclination programs pilgrims would have to celebrate.

Christmas as a holiday was banned in the Massachusetts colony from 1659 two 1681. Laws discouraging Christmas celebrations were written with laws downing at banning such activities as gambling. The fine for holiday feasting and drinking was five shillings.

Finally there was an influx of other intermittent image grants other immigrants to New England. The Massachusetts anti-Christmas law was repealed in 1681. More religious moderates, saw a religious value in Christmas celebrations. The first Christmas service in Massachusetts, were held in the Boston had town hall in 1868. Christmas however, remained at work town remained a workday for its citizens. Christmas was not an official holiday in Boston until 1856. Children attended school on Christmas day in Boston up until 1870.

Other settlers in early America had different ideas about the appropriateness of the Christmas holiday. In Virginia, the Cavaliers observed Christmas. The more affluent classes in Virginia, celebrated Christmas with feasting and decorating homes with greet with evergreens. Dutch immigrants in New York, brought traditions such as their version of Santa Claus, Sinter Klaas with them. The Germans brought the tradition of the Christmas tree into communities that they settled in in the early 18th century.

An English Christmas was still not popular after the American revolution. America had great diversity in its appreciation of Christmas. Celebrating Christmas had been a downfall for opponents of the revolution. Passions Hessian troops that were stationed in Trenton New Jersey took Christmas off as was the German tradition. In 1776 on Christmas day, they were surprised by Gen. Washington. This was a major turning point in the American Revolution.

The closest thing to an English Christmas was probably the traditions kept by 18th century Anglicans in Virginia Anglicans celebrated the date activities during Advent which was seen as a time of cantons December 20 fiefs myth was not considered a movable feast with was the start of the festive season. The 12 days of Christmas lasted until January 6 and was called 12th night or the Epiphany colonial Virginians generally held balls and parties on the 12th night. It was also considered a great time for marriage no one took special notice of New Year’s Day as 12th night 12th night seemed to cover the need to of knowledge a new year.

Christmas all in all was a dismal holiday for those who did not have money or social standing. Sometimes in the more liberal colonies provisions would be made for the poor to help them survive the harsh winters of colonial America. At best even those of Germanic descent, could only enjoy a brief respite from the need to work constantly in order to survive in the new land.

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Casting Our Votes in Stormy Political Waters

English: Tea Party protesters fill the National Mall on September 12, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Gadsden flag (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dr. Jerry Falwell (en, d. 2007), the founder of Liberty University (en), was a Christian pastor and televangelist. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Inauguration of Jimmy Carter (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am a woman without a defined decade of influence. I am sometimes included in the baby boomer generation and other times I am not. I did not experience the social uproar of the sixties but was most definitely framed by it. This makes me a political pundit in the middle of generations that define our culture wars.

Having prefaced this essay with that statement, I have to say in all my years of experiencing the yang and yang of progressive secular thought and conservative Christian thought; there has never been such a great divide, I had much greater faith in the world when the Christian right was full of people with fourth grade educations and sent their meager earnings to gaudy television evangelists.

When I was growing up conservatives were the men who showed up for Morning Prayer so they could catch an early tee time at the golf course. Yes, the trailer park crowd could be rallied for the right, but most were happily waiting for the return of Christ. It was true beyond doubt to them because Israel had been restored. None of us had to fear the social and political power of the less than intellectually sound.  The Moral Majority is the same political persona is that is now called the tea party.

Then something happened. Was it “inspiration” from Jimmy Carter explaining to Playboy that he was a “born again”? If there is an iconic socialist Baptist it would be the personified by Jimmy Carter, a man who publicly lives his faith.  It was the national nervous breakdown of the nations baby boomers who had recovered from their. "summer’ of Love and still woke up to find themselves no more spiritually enlightened then their parents. I suppose we will never know. The Christian right caught the nice man who works in middle management and made him reject evolution and vote to save Fred the Fetus.

Yet, I look everyday at a country tore at it core. It may not seem so, but even our moment of national unity after 9/11 was tarnished by some semi literate mentally unstable preacher. They claimed it was because our nation tolerated homosexually and did not say Christian prayers at public school that was at the heart of all our nations’ woes

Sometimes I wake up and wonder where all the adults went. This is a very true experience for anyone who lives in the intellectual death trap that is the true Midwest. Oh, I am not speaking of nice restored urban neighborhoods and artistic havens in all of the large and midsize cities in the Midwest, but the real Midwest. The Midwest where everyone knows there are still towns no one black or Hispanic will stay too long after dark. The Midwest that has small cities where there use to be good paying union jobs. These are now home to working poor subject to ‘right to work “legislation.

Victims of subsistence wages still did not turn to vote in 2014.   Poor white folk sit on their porches complaining about Obama being well someone who is uppity. We all know how that goes. Minorities in communities where they are the demographic majority would rather burn local businesses then vote and change the community leadership that is at the source of many of their problems.

Many do not vote because it is easier to see yourself as a victim of the right. It is easier to say the politics of hope were dashed by the tea party in House. Many do not vote because they are not sure what the Congress is or even does. The” I don’t vote because it won’t matter 'excuse, is old and rubbish. Your vote never counts unless you cast it.

The mindless religion and the politics of greed define at least of fourth of the voting population and yet because of practices such as,”red mapping” this minority tries to justify what remains of W.A.S.P power... Our nation is stifled by their power as Washington can not move forward on the simplest of policies. We are letting the inmates run the asylum. The rational adults have gone half cocked dressing up old culture war issues for new battles. Yet, we can not win these battles unless we send to home to their gated communities. There will be no return to sanity in this country till the sane are returned to majority power in all the branches of our government.

We Democrats failed our fellow Americans. Our message was not to be about income inequality or women’s reproductive rights. The majority of Americans are for these things and a whole host of supposed liberal issues and ideas. The minority now rules in Congress because of the apathy of our base.

There is no major soul searching on platforms to happen to make things better in 2016, other than we need to go door to door and in every public realm and register the true majority of Americans. We need that message that every vote matters and every voice matters.

 We need to be big and bold in this message and work the streets to make sure people don’t lose the very right so many Americans died to preserve. The right to work should not be thwarted because a person lacks a ride to the poll or twenty bucks for an ID. If the committed work to get out the vote and talk to the common folk about the real self help they will see if we win elections, then things will look very different in 2016. Hope and true democratic majority rule will be restored.

           

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Thoughts on Americans with Food Anxiety From Childhood

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Healthy Groceries in this country are reserved for the middle and upper class. The rest of us survive however we can.

Source: public domain publicdomain.net

Americans are known the world over for eating to excess. Foreigners freak at the potions served in restaurants. At the same time our nation of fatties is obsessed with organic, raw, and none processed food. We are a culinary nutrition nightmare. Upper class women in our country maintain healthy and attractive bodies by diets, gyms, and surgery. We have national campaigns to get kids to move and grow are own,’ healthy food’. There are myriad of issues that Americans have with food are enormous and I will not tackle it here.

I am writing from my own perspective as a poor white fat middle aged women. I am writing from the perspective of a parent.

Rice is a staple of American poor folk , not just those in third world countries.

Being Poor and Poor Diet

My youngest son who just went away to college has pronounced food anxiety. I gave it to him. He is going to a school that provides housing but no food plan. His only employment is part time less than ten hours a week at a Subway he can walk to. He has to pay his own internet to have the access to use his computer to do school work. I stocked him up on food when he moved in with his roommates. The other parents and I decided that they could share food and so we got them different things. They had meat, fruit, vegetables, and dairy for the first few weeks of school.

I do not by any means have a livable income so stocking him up left my cupboards bare. I have an older son who contributes to household expenses while living at home. He works two jobs, and most goes to support his car so that he can go to work and school.

To make my tale short, my 20 year old son away at school wanted to move into his Grandmother. She lives a several miles away from where he goes to school. She feeds him when she can afford to pick him up. The problem, he would have to have a car and full time job to support the car, in order to live there. His anxiety about eating Ramen noodles to survive college is bound up in his childhood food anxiety.

Sodium and Carbs Are Us

He grew up eating what we called cheese and peas. It was rice of any sort, cheese food, and frozen peas. It was what I could afford when I could not have a garden. Sometimes meat made it into the mix. When there was money there was meat and real dairy. I have moved a lot over the years Being able having a garden when I could helped. Other wise my kids were raised on fattening processed food. Another old stand by was generic chucky soup on biscuits. My kids learned to like mashed turnips, because they were easy to grow. Sweet potatoes fries were made, and called Halloween fries. When there was money I baked. There were sweets. Still a lot of times there was nothing.

I got in discussion with my no processed food will pass my mouth sister. She and her family have dealt with a lot of cancer so I do not blame her. They have always been healthy and mostly vegetarian. She does not seem to grasp it,. Poor folks buy boxed dinners and canned meats from Aldi and not organic staples from Wholefoods. Prepackaged is usually cheaper then trying to make a casserole from scratch. It however, is not cheaper if you grow your own vegetables’. You just use pasta or rice and some sort of sauce.  I usually did not have enough homegrown vegetables to last long. Many times we lived in apartments where you were not allowed to garden. Another point being poor means moving a lot to find work or just someplace you can afford. Urban gardening is great but it will not solve the nutritional food problem for the always moving poor.

My kids were healthy and not fat growing up because once free network TV was gone, we could not afford cable. They played outside and did sports that were cheap or free. The parks offered programs that kept them moving. I gave them cheap generic children’s vitamins. They survived. They however, now always fear the lack of food.

Gardening helps poor folk eat better , but it is not a solution.

The Attitude toward Food Only Economic Justice Cures

They are overweight now, because t too many carbohydrates set them up for to have metabolisms that never functioned the way it should. They do not have money to go on the low carb organic vegetable juicer detox diet food. . They can not even eat healthy by the old four food groups’ category. In this country health based on a healthy diet or maintained by a healthy diet is a privilege of wealth.

Lots of the recipes I make and post  are from when I have the money to splurge. I try to be conscious of nutritional value. Still, it never will cease to amaze me in a house where there usually is not much how I can be fat.

I have never canned. I think it is time to learn. I was at a loss at what to do with all my tomatoes. My neighbors actually started making faces when I showed up with more free tomatoes at their door. I had more than I could use and if I could can I could have benefited from them longer. So if I can afford the canning jars and whatever else one needs to can I will do it. I am just sorry I was not clever enough to find away to have given my kids better eating habit and less food anxiety when they were younger

Learn to Save At The Grocery

 

How to Grocery Shop With Little Money!

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How to Jumpstart Your Child's Love of Learning

English: My classes Homework chart. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Seymour, CT, September 24, 2008 -- High school student assists teacher instructing STEP lessons by passing out the homework assignment. Students will plan to meet with their family members to form a communication plan in case of an emergency. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Computers are often used to complete homework assignments. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: After school homework help as well as ESL classes are conducted in this center, to the right of the Children's Reference desk. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Giving your child an advantage in school is part of proactive parenting. If you as a parent are not able to excite your child in the learning process; there are strategies that you can adopt that will encourage your child to have a love of learning.

One of the most important things you can do for the middle school aged child is encourage them to interact with adults who express excitement over learning. This could mean encouraging your child to spend time with an uncle who is a civil war enactor or a neighbor who is a docent at a local museum. Studies show that kids do better in school when they have an adult mentor who is excited about the ongoing process of learning. If you are one of the many adults who have returned to school recently because of the recession; talk about the things you have been excited to learn as an adult with your child.

Encourage your child to learn about your community. Check with the local historical l society to find out about festivals and events that teach your child about their town's past. Visit local museums as a family outing, and show your interest in the things you see. Yes, the children take field trips at school to local museums, but showing your interest in local culture and history will reinforce the importune ongoing learning for your child.

Encourage your child to read books that are not just related to school work. Too many of us in the day of information online; have neglected to introduce our children to the public library. Reading for recreation is a learned habit. Read to your child nightly when they are young and take your child to story time at the library. Try to get to know your child's interest. If your child is interested in a particular sport or pet; help them check out books on these topics. If your child has a research project, use real books and not just internet research for the project.

Teenagers these days have very busy schedules with extracurricular activities and part time jobs. The teen years are one of the points in school that grades matter in the future plans of the teen. Good grade are essential for most teens to get into the college or trade school that interests them most. Unfortunately, the teen years are also a time when many times friends and activities matter more than school to the majority of teens. There are things you can do at home to help your teens focus more on their school work.

Create a space for your teen to study in that minimizes distractions. This may not be your child's bedroom. This should be an area that electronic distractions are kept to a minimum. If you're teen does their homework on laptop ask them to log off of their instant messaging. You should also ask them to turn off the cell phone and put away the iPod. Your teen will object, but texting or gaming during homework time is a distraction that will affect the quality of the work your teen produces.

Encourage your teen to use a assignment planner.It is unlikely with a heavy class schedule your teen will remember every class assignment. Have your teen check the planner nightly for homework. Encourage your teen to use the planner to actually plan a head and not just study for a test the night before. If your teen is very technically oriented; consider getting them an electronic planner, they may be more likely to enter information into a gadget than a paper planner.

Lastly, give your teen a support system. Encourage them to get the name of at least one student they attend class with and their contact information. This way your teen has someone to call if they are not sure or do not understand an assignment. If your school provides parents with the ability to track a students' progress online you should check the site with your teen so they know where they stand with various classes. Lastly, if the teen can email the teacher for clarification of an assignment; it saves the teen and the teacher from using valuable class time for individual homework issues.

There are various kinds of homework help lines and online resources your teen can use for homework support. In some communities churches or other organizations will offer homework help after school. There are also paid services you can use to teach your teen good study skills and organizational skills.

If you proactively encourage your child to develop positive lifelong learning skills, your child will be a success in school and homework will not be a dreaded work for you or your child.

http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/learning/studytips.shtml

http://life.familyeducation.com/teen/parenting/48435.html

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=10241

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18232473.html

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