FC is looking for your best Christmas/Holiday Tips & Tricks!

ajrsmom · #1 (**permalink**) 12-02-2011, 07:52 AM

I'm on the lookout for your best tips and tricks for the holidays -these can be tips for anything that has to do with this time of year!

Ex: gifts, recycling ideas, cooking & baking, inside & outside decoration, dealing with kids, family time, fashion & beauty, school, dealing with the snow and cold weather, health...you name it, I'm looking for your best tips to share with our readers!

Post your best original (not copied from anywhere) tips that you haven't posted here on our forums before. You might just win an icon for your awards library and get to have your tips posted on the FC Blog and on the FC Facebook page!

Turn your every day actions and holiday traditions into an award for you here at FC!!

fish3711 · #2 (**permalink**) 12-02-2011, 08:09 AM

I recycle my Christmas Cards. I take the older cards and cut/paste them onto card stock and I make my own Christmas Cards for my family & friends. I also use ribbon and well pretty much anything I find that I think looks good and glue it on the card for decoration. I add a family photo for the finishing touch.

Felicia

stellajean66 · #3 (**permalink**) 12-02-2011, 08:15 AM

In the evenings, as a family, we like to put on some Christmas music, make some hot cocoa or eggnog and sit in front of the tree and enjoy each others Christmas memories..............our son gets to hear our Christmas pasts and he brings smiles to our face with his favorite memories with us.

ajrsmom · #4 (**permalink**) 12-02-2011, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fish3711

I recycle my Christmas Cards. I take the older cards and cut/paste them onto card stock and I make my own Christmas Cards for my family & friends. I also use ribbon and well pretty much anything I find that I think looks good and glue it on the card for decoration. I add a family photo for the finishing touch.

Felicia

Great tip

Especially good if you've saved all of the cards from our FC Card exchanges over the past years!

ajrsmom · #5 (**permalink**) 12-02-2011, 10:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stellajean66

In the evenings, as a family, we like to put on some Christmas music, make some hot cocoa or eggnog and sit in front of the tree and enjoy each others Christmas memories..............our son gets to hear our Christmas pasts and he brings smiles to our face with his favorite memories with us.

There is nothing more special than family time spent together like this. Your son will have special stories to pass down to his family someday.

ajrsmom · #6 (**permalink**) 12-02-2011, 10:49 PM

If you have an old jar candle that isn’t pretty enough to set out any longer but you still love the scent, chisel the candle out of the jar and melt the pieces in a candle melt warmer. A jar candle chiseled into pieces will last a very long time in a candle warmer, saving lots of $$$ from not buying new candles.

I did this with a large jar candle that I have that is no longer nice to look at sitting on the table but I love the scent - its gingerbread. I have a Scentsy candle warmer so I filled the bowl with little pieces of the gingerbread candle that I chiseled out of the jar. It works great and I have so much left in the candle to use over and over!

RobertaD · #7 (**permalink**) 12-03-2011, 04:58 AM

Great idea Tami, I have several containers of candle that didn't burn all the wax but there is no wick left.

Roberta

cau · #8 (**permalink**) 12-03-2011, 07:28 AM

We have a few customs special to my family.
1. We have an Advent calendar in the shape of a tree with 25 pockets in it. I put some coins and a few candies but mainly fill it with slips of paper with things like worth 1 job done by mom, your favorite dinner, popcorn and Christmas movie night, no electronics tonight , decorate sweatshirts tonight , go see the Christmas lights tonight etc.
2. Everyday of Advent we do a good deed or go out of your way to say something nice to an enemy, at dinner we discuss what we did and give encouragement to continue
3. All our ornaments are either homemade or given as gifts.
4. I make a movie of our Christmas pictures every year

stellajean66 · #9 (**permalink**) 12-03-2011, 08:23 AM

Another family tradition, we take a night out the week of Christmas, and go look at Christmas lights in a fancy neighborhood. And we play Christmas music while we are light watching too. We usually take someone different with us. We took my husband's Grandmother a few years before she passed away. My son still talks about Granny taking us for ice cream afterwards.

fish3711 · #10 (**permalink**) 12-03-2011, 08:50 AM

We have a Christmas Tree Tradition in my family. It is one I created for my kids, it wasn't one I grew up with. We all go to pick out our tree. Once we've picked it out and brought it home we all choose a name for it and write it on a slip of paper. Then we draw one name out and that is the tree's name. When we decorate it I make home made cookies and hot chocolate. And I insist on playing Christmas music. I used to tell my kids the christmas music is what kept the tree alive thru the holidays, LOL but they are much too old to believe that now... I like that the children who have moved out carry on these traditions in their own homes now.

Felicia