Well it's that time of year again in case you've been under a rock...you know, ho ho ho and jingle bells and all that. I really love Christmas - it's a time of family, fellowship and celebrating the birth of Jesus. Plus, there's always better food around than usual and time off from school and work. What's not to love about that? I have no problem with gift giving and receiving, but over the years I have been soured at the consumerism of this country - especially around Christmas time. It has made me not want to participate. Every year it gets worse - this year I saw Christmas decor out before Halloween! I hear the message loud on clear - let's completely skip Thanksgiving - a holiday where we STOP and give THANKS for what we HAVE (read between the lines: no buying stuff!) and move right on into the season of buying. I find it funny...no, down right hysterical that the media is telling me day after day that we are in a recession, the economy is tanking. Yet the mall parking lot is packed and there are people coming out of stores with lots of bags looking for their SUV's. There are no bread lines at the mall, people.See now I've gone and done it...I wanted to do this precious little post about Abby and I doing our sweet handmade Christmas crafts and my soap box found its way out next to my keyboard again. Sorry 'bout that.
On with the show, shall we?
So what I was GOING to say was...it's that time of year again. The time of year when we need to give a gift to the teacher in our life. Although this is Abby's first year of real school, it's her 3rd year of having a teacher at Christmas. We've been around the block a few times. So we like to do little handmade thingies that are inexpensive but show thought and love...this year is no exception.
You can ask my Mom (in fact she could probably produce a picture that tells the same story). I have always been a handmade Christmas gift kind of girl. When I was young, I would use my own money and buy a ton of candy. I would parse the candy out into little baggies and tie them up with ribbon curly cues. Then, I would put little name tags on them and put them in a basket and take them to school to pass out to my friends. The bags were always well received.
This year, Abby and I did "S'mores in a Jar". We filled mason jars with a graham cracker/brown sugar mixture, marshmallows and chocolate chips (Publix had a wonderful sale on Ghirardelli chips - perfect timing!). Then, we kinda "do up" the mason jars with some fun tags and an ornament. For the tag I did a simple piece of white stock paper covered with a fun design from "My Mind's Eye" (one of my faves). I embossed a gold Christmas and added a star brad. Inside we have the directions on how to make the s'mores bars as well as a little message from the kitchen of Club Amaro. Add a little raffia, a mini clothes pin and a fun ornament from the dollar bin at Michael's and WAA LAAAA!