Christmas Presents

Okay, if you are on my Christmas list and DON'T want to know what you might be getting, turn away. Close this screen and don't peek. If you are not on my list and want to know what I am doing so as to give you some inspiration, please read ahead. If you think it is too early to think about Christmas and gifts, well you are just wrong!

So, Christmas gifting is a year-long process for me. I work and plan all year long as to what I am going to be doing and who gets what. For the last 5 or 6 years I have tried to switch to mostly all handmade gifts rather than store-bought. I am trying to get the focus back on the intention behind the holiday and the reason for gifting rather than supporting Best Buy and Target. I had frankly gotten fed up with gifting "gift cards" and can I tell you how many of the damn things go lost in my house? And I am sure mine is not the only house they go missing in. I think buying gift cards is like tossing money into a black hole.

A couple of years ago I started planting loofahs. And that year everyone on my list got their own personal loofah to scrub with, a crocheted cotton wash cloth, jars of bath salts and a bar of homemade soap. These were all gifted in a crocheted shopping bag. No waste involved here at all, no paper, no tape, everything was usable.

Before that I made flavored vinegars and olive oils. Those were really good and easy to do. The trick was finding beautiful bottles with corks to package them in. We made some pickled mixed vegetables from the garden back when we weren't living in a drought and actually HAD a garden to pick things from!!

This year I am making the cutest aprons you have ever seen. They are just precious! I am really excited about them. But not as excited as I am about this . . . . . .

For 2 almost 3 years I have been working on a cookbook as a fundraiser for San Antonio Birth Doulas http://www.sabirthdoulas.org/index.html This is a non-profit organization I work with and it is very dear to my heart. Finally, after all this time the cookbook has gone to print! Hooray!!! So I will be gifting most of the people on my list a cookbook and a new apron. I am really excited about this. Now I just have to come up with a clever way to present them.

The cookbook is very family and baby friendly. The chapters are not the usual Appetizers through Desserts. Instead we have more than 400 recipes that are categoriezed in Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Arts & Crafts, Lunch Box & Snacks, Parties & Celebrations, Pregnancy Post-partum & Baby. All the recipes are tried and true and sent in by people who work with SABD and their family members. I am really proud of it.

If you are interested in purchasing one of these cookbooks (all the proceeds go straight to the works we do), please let me know. I would be happy to mail some out to you so that you can gift a few of these yourself.

Oh, and if you know someone who is having a baby I have printed up a new batch of the baby food cookbook I started back when my kids were small. I worked on it and refined it over the years and it is really nice. Same thing with this one, I am donating all proceeds after my printing costs back to SABD. So you can feel good about making these purchases knowing you are not only gifting a high quality book that will be used to nourish your loved ones, but you are helping us to help under-privileged women and babies. Talk about your win-win situation!