A Month of Merries, Happies, and Best Wishes This Week.

Based on the last post, we know there's a multitude of cultural celebrations this month... many of which happened this last week alone. No matter which one you celebrate, may your heart be full while you create memories that hopefully will last you a lifetime. Sending you...

Merries... Happies.... Cheers.... Best Wishes.... Chag Sameach... ¡Feliz Las Posadas!...

May your homes be filled with many blessings...

Lots of love, peace, and happiness...

Image created at Canva.com

A Month of Holidays

Following up on my last post, I felt like it was good to mark our calendars. December is known by many as the month of Christmas and Hanukkah. But it's a month of much more than that when it comes to the many global, cultural, religious, and heart-centered holidays. 

In this season of giving, sharing, caring, and peace, it's good to know how full this season is for all. Click here for a bigger version.

Here are some brief snippets about some of the holidays that may be lesser known:

❄️ St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6th): Historically from the legend of bishop St. Nicholas, children in parts of Europe leave out shoes or boots to be filled with small gifts and treats, reminding families of secret kindness and the origins of Santa Claus.

❄️ Bodhi Day (Dec. 8): Celebrated by Buddhists worldwide, Bodhi Day honors the enlightenment of Siddhartha Gautama under the Bodhi tree, and is a day of meditation, study, and acts of kindness.

❄️ St. Lucia Day (Dec. 13): Especially popular in Sweden and Scandinavia, St. Lucia Day features processions of children dressed in white with wreaths atop their head, the singing of songs, and the sharing of baked goods, symbolizing hope and light in the darkest time of year.

❄️ Las Posadas (Dec. 16th-24th): Celebrated by Catholic, Mexico and Latin Americans, this holiday re-enacts the journey of Mary and Joseph, with nightly processions and communal hospitality reflecting unity and compassion.

❄️ Yule (a Pagan-Wiccan holiday) and Winter Solstice (Dec. 21st): Marking the shortest day of the sun in the Northern Hemisphere, and the return of the sun, with festivals of light, reflection, and hope for new beginnings.

❄️ Pancha Ganapati (Dec. 21st -- 25th): A five-day Hindu festival of family harmony, forgiveness, and renewal centered on Lord Ganesha.

❄️ Festivus (Dec. 23rd): Popularized by the show "Seinfeld," Festivus is a lighthearted, secular holiday that features quirky traditions like the "Airing of Grievances" and feats of strength. 

❄️ Jólabókaflóð (Dec. 24th): An Icelandic tradition that celebrates love and togetherness by exchanging books and reading with family.

❄️ Boxing Day (Dec. 26th): Traditionally celebrated in the UK, Canada, and Australia, Boxing Day began as a time to give gifts or charity to service workers and those in need, and today it’s most often marked by shopping, community donations, and sporting events.

❄️ Kwanzaa (Dec. 26th-31st): A celebration of African heritage, unity, creativity, and collective hope for a better world.

❄️ Guru Gobind Singh’s Birthday (Dec. 28th) A Sikh celebration honoring the Sikh leader’s teachings of equality, service, and peace.

❄️ Omisoka (Dec. 31st): Japanese New Year’s Eve, which is focused on family, home cleansing, sharing meals, and peaceful beginnings.

Calendar created at Canva.com.

Happy Holidays 2025

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Yule, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, something different 

or some combination of them all, may this season be one of family, friends, festivities, fun; memories and meaning and moments to cherish. Happy Holidays. 

Image created using Canva.com.

Sustainable Gift Giving Meets Santa's Workshop

This past weekend I was in a vortex of Christmas crazy and creation this weekend. My eyes were a bit bleary, crossed, tired and hurting. My body was sore for over-sitting in worker bee mode. Santa's Workshop was at full tilt, no stops, knee-deep in Christmas construction. 

'Tis the season, right?

As time keeps ticking, we are getting closer to the mailing deadlines, priority shipping dates, and The Big Day. It can be overwhelming, trying to get it all together... especially if you are trying to "shop till you drop" to get those perfect Christmas or Hanukkah gifts.

If you are feeling like you are running out of good ideas, here's where shopping in an eco-friendly way. These two visuals can help with inspiration. Additionally, Green Action Centre's post "Sustainable Gift Giving" can help you go deeper with ideas on their ten categories listed in the infographic below. It may be just what you need to find that "something just right" for that "someone special!"

Images from https://www.instagram.com/p/C0ZK_7Ws_TD/ and https://greenactioncentre.ca/featured/sustainable-gift-ideas/

May the Season Delight Your Heart

December is such a flurry. Holiday parties. Shopping for people you care for. Decorating your home with lights or other adornments tied to your traditions. Attending seasonal shows, holiday plays, or musical events. Readying for Winter Breaks from school, including final projects and exam season for many high school and college students. Baking cookies and preparing for feasts. Gathering with friends and friends. Traveling from one celebration to another. 

It is a busy and full month, regardless of the holiday and traditions you celebrate.

Whether you are ending your holiday traditions or just getting geared up, may this time bring you peace, love, hope, joy, gratitude, rich memories, and time with the people you care for.

Images created by www.canva.com.

The Cost of Christmas

Inflation has been a bit of an economic buzz word this past year. 

An interesting way to take a peek at inflation is to look at life through song. A seasonal song. 

PNC Bank makes it easy.

Every year, for the last 39 years, PNC updates their PNC Price Index website where they price the items in the song "The 12 Days of Christmas."

Now that we are within those last 12 days until Christmas, it's the perfect time not check it out.

Read and overview about this year's numbers by checking out PNC's Insight article.

Then be sure to see which of the items from the song are up, what items are down, (and what one item annually irks me!) by checking out the PNC Price Index.

It'll make you feel better about your own Christmas expenditures and budget!

Also, be sure to check out my 2018 and 2020 posts on the subject and ways I've used it in the classroom (and how I've included Hanukkah too).

Image from the PNC Price Index: https://www.pncchristmaspriceindex.com/en/about-pnc/topics/pnc-christmas-price-index.html

52 Clutter Free Gifts

'Tis the season to be shopping... or at least that's what one would have you to think from anywhere from mid-November through the December holiday season. 

I was recently telling my college-aged daughter about my long-standing, complicated relationship with Christmas. It's a swirly mix of a full calendar events, to-do lists, and a bounty of extra preparations in an already run-around schedule. Then there's the commercialism and expense, the wants and needs, the environmental demands in more, more more STUFF...all combined with the "happiest time of the year." I feel this phrase can be a misnomer of heightened expectations, especially as you get older and people you love are no longer here. High expectations can also easily lead to disappointments as reality and human frailty and flaws are at play. There can be a lot of pressure at this time of the year: the perfect gift, the perfect dinner, the perfect family events. In the mix, sometimes the true meaning of the season gets lost in the frenzy and stress. At times, it can make me perfectly Grinchly. 

With all of that, I found myself apologizing to my daughter about my grinchly-ness because even on the cusp of total adulthood, she adores the season and all that goes with it. It's not my job to sprinkle my mixed feelings like snow in a snowglobe and dash her delight.

One thing that helps me to take a look at the gifts--both in my requests and in the ones I give. I know I'm fortunate and I really don't "need" more "stuff." My needs are fulfilled, with the exception of needing more time with the people I love. And when it comes to "wants," more and more, post-Covid in particular, I'm finding the wants also involve shared time over stuff. Time and togetherness are certainly clutter free. Perhaps this is why this list of 52 Clutter Free Gifts really spoke to me. 

May it serve some inspiration for you too, and help center you this season in the true meaning of the holidays.

Image from The Art of Simple FB page and created by https://www.becomingminimalist.com/: https://www.facebook.com/theartofsimple/posts/pfbid037QU9xenu3NVybhUguae4rLXF5miJPprDAWs4TVLL2EHTi8wQuLQEfmBqoF8zBaV6l

Seasons Greetings

Wishing you a wonderful and safe holiday season here at GTG. 

May you find peace during your holidays, joy in the twinkling of the lights, 

and magic in they eyes of the children who surround. 

Take time to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors!

Image created at Canva.com

Wrapping Up What To Do With That Wrapping Paper

'Tis the season, most certainly indeed! Both Hanukkah & Christmas are next week, and odds are high there are some gifts you are both giving and receiving. With the changes over time with recycling, it can be tricky to know what to do when it comes to gift wrap, bags, and wrapping paper. Given that, I used the information from this NBC News article to create an infographic to help give you the ins and outs of recycling this holiday season!

Infographic created using Canva.com: https://www.canva.com/design/DADuIB6kRGk/share/preview?token=1jdAvDhoUSFL4tnQP1MeUg&role=EDITOR&utm_content=DADuIB6kRGk&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton 

New Year, New Reads

What was on your Christmas/Holiday Wish List?

Mine was heavy hit with books. And boy oh boy, did I get some good ones:

As a homeroom teacher, my classroom library was one to rival the school library. "Treat books lovingly" has always been one of my messages. No folding back the covers or bending down the corners. Treat them as your friends!

I also always had the Harry Potter books in my class library. Gotta love Scholastic book points! But given I'm more of a fiction or non-fiction versus fantasy reader, I never read them. Nor did I see the movies: "It's not my genre," I always used to say.

But that was until this year, when my Middle School son started reading the series. Simultaneously, we made plans to go to Orlando's Universal Studios over Spring Break to Diagon Alley, Hogwart's Express, and all that's Harry Potter. With our plans to go, I did what I do: I started researching:

• We started a week long binge-fest of watching 6 of the 8 movies.
• This led us to a friendly family competition: who would finish Book #7 first. 
• I started reading book #7 first.... then we went to Universal.
• Then I started the series from the beginning and read all 7, while simultaneously watching the last 2 movies upon our return from Florida.

I. Was. Sucked. In!! And surprised. And stunned by some 20 year surprises that I'd never learned the spoiler. (My kids chastised me, saying, "Mom, where have you been...we knew that! Everyone knows that" How, I asked? You haven't seen the movies. "Mom! The Internet!" But of course! Given that, the philosophy and back stories fascinate me, and the illustrated trio of the first three books are just down right amazing. I'm starting my reread again!

From my techie side, I've got another trio of books. This set though is to help neutralize tech time (for both myself, my family, and my elementary school students), helping us all to balance out screentime in a positive way. I'm eager to dive into those 3 books: "The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place" by Andy Crouch, The Art of Screen Time: "How Your Family Can Balance Digital Media and Real" by Anya Kamenetz, and "Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World" by Deborah Heitner.

All this leads me to my next set of books: More and more, I think the way to offset the over-techification of America is to got back to nature and environmental education. Upon reading Richard Louv's "Last Child in the Woods" as part of our school summer read, my school has created book groups with this and 3 other books in order to create a positive change internally within the school. I opted into a group centered around this book since I feel this and the "teching of America" are two sides of the same coin. Nature will help us neutralize the FOMO associated with technology, yet technology and innovation will help solve some of the environmental issues our world is facing. Given that I'm eager to read The Nature Fix and Love Earth Now: The Power of Doing One Thing Every Day.

And then there's Michelle Obama's book, which I did finish reading over break already. Always interesting to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to take a peak into the White House and see what it would be like learning yourself into being a member of the first family. It's always good to embrace hope and optimism too.

Clearly, I'm going to be busy for a while! But what's better than curling up with a good book? 

What's on your reading list for the 2019?

Photo from my camera of my reading stack!

The High Cost Of The 12 Days Of Christmas

Every year with my 4th Graders I have them calculate the true cost of the song "The 12 Days of Christmas." PNC annually updates their website, The PNC Christmas Price Index, with the current year's pricing. They've done this every year for the last 35 years. They have  kept track of the going rate for a partridge in a pair tree, as well as 8 maids a milking (dismally low), the 12 drummers drumming, and everything in between. The graphics are always quaint and entertaining--as are the fun facts of whether it's up or down from the year before.

For my 4th graders, it gives them a grand opportunity to try out their math skills--especially when they start adding it up progressively over the 12 days! Additionally, they complete the activity on the iPads in Pages--giving them the opportunity to complete a table & a preview for when they are on 1-1 iPads in 6th grade.

We also have a companion piece to this activity where I have the same group of kids do a comparison shopping for Hanukkah prep: from menorah to candles to dreidels and the making of potato latkes.

Math skills--Check! Internet navigation--check!

PNC image from https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/11/15/price-12-days-christmas-gifts/2004002002/; all other images: I created in Pages