Design Crafters

Want something different on your Christmas card this year? How about one of the most famous spots on the planet during Christmas time? That’s right, Christmas in New York, ofcourse!

Rockefeller Center can be instantly spotted in this beautiful photograph by Franklin McMahon. It features that amazing tree that is the focal point of this Christmas scene. Each year, a tree chosen from different location in the US, and towers above the majestic skating rink. With the skaters enjoying themselves and the hustle bustle of the tourists everywhere, you’ll feel like you are really there!

Want that extra special touch? Consider having the cards personalized, on both the card and envelope!

If you are like most families around the holidays, the time period between Christmas and New Years serves as a wonderful opportunity to clean up after the holiday chaos, and begin to prepare for the upcoming year.  Goodness knows organizing all of your decorations can be a lot of work, so here are some helpful hints to get you started.

• Go through all of your left over holiday cards and wrapping supplies and purchase what you will need for next year this week.  Stores are selling old holiday wrapping paper and decorations at over 70% off this week.  Take advantage  of the steals while you can.
• Make sure you have enough storage containers for all your decorations. Storage supplies go on sale every January.
• Talk to your family members to see how this year’s celebration went from their perspective.  Ask family members what were their favorite and least favorite activities this season. Make a note to focus on preferences and eliminate the least-liked next year.
• To avoid a fight with the lights next year keep festive outdoor strings tangle-free and tidy with a cord wind-up. (In a pinch, a piece of cardboard should also do the trick.)
• Take care of your Thank-You notes immediately.  Rules say you have up to 2 weeks, but the sooner you get them done, the better!
• Recycle your tree, by turning it into firewood, and having a post-Christmas bonfire bash.

Hope these holiday clean-up tips make your new year bright!

This Christmas Eve, start a tradition with your family by making Christmas butter cookies as a family.  Each year, since I was a little girl, my mother and I would bake these cookies on either Christmas Eve of the day before.  It is a fun, easy way to spend some relaxing quality time before the hectic holidays begin. Here is what you will need:

• 1 cup butter

• 1 cup white sugar

• 1 egg

• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Here is what you are going to do:

1. To begin, cream together the butter and white sugar in a large bowl, until light and fluffy.
2. Next, beat in the egg, then stir in the vanilla.
3. Combine the flour and salt, and stir into the sugar mixture. Cover dough, and chill for at least one hour.
4. Chill cookie sheets, and preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
5. Press dough out onto ungreased, chilled cookie sheets and bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly golden at the edges. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

 Happy Holidays!

This year, I am compiling a holiday wish list from my friends, family and colleagues to see what their top “wishes” are for next year.  This list can be purely fantasy, or reality, it is completely up to you.  What I am asking, is that you leave a comment to this post, and tell me what your top holiday wishes are.  I will gather all of the responses over the next several days, and then post them all to this blog, anonymously.

Here are my top holiday wishes:

• Peace in the middle east ( a little cliche, but still true).
• Bring our soldiers home to spend the holidays with their families.
• An economic uplift next year.
• All of my family coming together next Christmas.  My family is scattered throughout New York and Ohio, and this year it was too expensive to make the trek down to celebrate together.

Please add yours to the list, and maybe your wish will be granted!

It always seems like the holiday season is one of the absolute worst times of the year to travel.  Airports are jam-packed, kids are cranky, which makes the parents cranky, and all the roads are full of traffic.  If you are planning on traveling this holiday season, here are a few tips from me to help your travels go a little smoother.

Before Your Trip

Pack Lightly - Think about possibly shipping your gifts to your destination ahead of time to keep from having to pack them. If you can’t send your gifts ahead early, don’t wrap them if you are flying, as the airlines requires that you keep all gifts un-wrapped for security measures.  One year my mother spent hours wrapping gifts, only to have TSA tear open the paper the very next day.

Confirm Your Flight Time - Call the night before for early morning flights, or early morning day of to confirm your flight status.

Check-in Online (if possible) - A lot of airlines now allow customers to check-in online.  This could help save you a long wait at the check-in line.

Plan Out Your Trip (if driving) - Before you go, sit down and plan out at-least one route to drive.  Planning out a second, backup, route can also come in handy of there is a lot of traffic on the interstates.

Take Your Car in for a Check-up Before Your Long Road Trip - No one wants to get stuck during the trip, so take some preventative measures to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Day of Your Trip - If you are flying

Start Your Trip Early - If you are driving, try to hit the road by 4:00 a.m. for an easy few hours of driving.  If you are flying, opt for early morning flights (before 8:00 a.m) as these are the least packed.

Try to Avoid Peak Travel Days - Generally, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years Eve and New Years Day are the worst days to travel.

Hopefully these tips will help make your holiday travels go just a little smoother!

With budgets being tight this year, one great way to save some cash (and help the environment) is to “go green” for Christmas this year.  There are many benefits to going green this Christmas; you will save some money, you will be helping the environment, and to top it all off, your house will still look great!  Here are a few ideas to help you have a Green Christmas:

• Use recycled Christmas cards. There are a ton of really great, environmentally friendly holiday cards available this season.
• Use LED lights on your house and your tree.  LED lights use 90 % less energy than normal holiday lights and as a result, they can save your family up to 50 dollars on your bills during the holiday season!
• Lastly, buy a real tree, instead of a fake one.  Fake Christmas trees consume petroleum while being manufactured and transported, which is bad for the environment.  Instead, buy a real tree, most of them come from tree farms, and are much healthier for the environment.  Also, once the holidays are over, you can turn your tree into firewood or mulch chips for your yard.

Hopefully these tips will help keep your holidays green (and bright)!

I found this card today, of a polar bear sprawled out on the snow with a christmas cap on his head, and I smiled.  It was such a simple pleasure that I had to share the card with you.

There is a lot of unnecessary stress and anxiety around the holidays.  Bills, closing out the year, beginning a new one, buying holiday gifts, cooking for the family, the list of stressors just goes on and on.  To help you cope with the stress this holiday season, here are some fun tips from me:

• Bake some cookies - Nothing fancy, just plain sugar cookies, the kind you cut out and decorated when you were a little kid.  To keep it really simple, get some pre-made dough (in the freezer section of the grocery store.  Remember what is was like to be a kid again!

• Set a holiday budget and stick to it - Nothing is worse then spending more money that you have available to buy holiday gifts, so set a budget and then refuse to go over. Instead, get creative…see my posts on top gifts for men and women this year.
• Go easy on the decorations this year - There is no need to go over the top on holiday decorations this year, unless you want to.  I have some friends that are stressed out at the mere idea of decorating, while others use it as a form of therapy.  The key here is to do what works for you, don’t feel pressured to decorate, decorate because it is fun.
• Lastly, remember what the holidays are truly about: Family, fun, love, laughter, and hope.

Happy Holidays!

As I have said before, holiday music was such a significant part of my childhood…it truly embodied the spirit of Christmas for me and my family. My sister and I would eagerly await the coming year’s holiday specials on television, seeing who would be singing what with whom.

My grandparents had a collection of amazing traditional holiday music from their generation. We loved these tunes as much as any of the new, and would frequently switch back and forth between the different times and styles.

This post is a short collection of my favorite traditional holiday tunes, all with accompanying videos on YouTube. There are some real gems, so please do go check them out…

My first is my absolute favorite holiday song of all times, perfectly paired with an amazing vocalist…

The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole

And this version with Mel Torme and Judy Garland…Mel Torme actually co-wrote The Christmas Song

The Christmas Song with Mel Torme and Judy Garland

No Christmas would be complete without White Christmas…which I mentioned in my last video post. But, I just found this video of the finale from the movie, White Christmas…and I was so excited I had to sneak it in again!

White Christmas by Bing Crosby

And one of the all time favorites, Judy Garland singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, from the movie Meet Me in St. Louis

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Judy Garland

Finally, a lesser known song, but a fun clip…Dean Martin singing Christmas Blues.

Christmas Blues by Dean Martin

Hope you all enjoy these songs…and would love to see clips of your favorites, too!

As my friends and I were talking about over on Twitter today, this year, we will all be looking to build meaning into Christmas. Though the motivating factor is mostly financial, it serves as a great reminder to us all that the holidays are about deeper, more meaningful things. We spoke quite a lot about our families and wanting to find a way to enjoy the time we could spend with each other, as many of us can only visit for either Christmas or Thanksgiving (some are even combining it to make it Christgiving!).

Lots of creative and amazing suggestions came from the group about making gifts, photo books, drawing names…I suggested creating a coupon book that entitles the redeemer to various household chores, nights on the town, etc. But I also think there are ways that we can plan special activities for our time together to make it more meaningful…and really, that’s one of the best gifts of all.

So today, I am sharing a couple of ideas that I think are incredibly fun and center around the fireplace. These are sure to create meaning and memories for years to come.

In American history, fireplaces were considered the heart of a home. In addition to serving to warm the house, these huge walk-in style fireplaces were used to cook meals, heat the bath water, heat the water to clean clothes and so on. No house could exist without it. Now, we more often use our fireplaces for comfort and additional heat. Very few homes are entirely heated by fireplaces. And, we have stopped cooking in them, almost entirely.

My suggestion to you is to bring back fireplace cooking! Yes, that sounds strange at first, but remember the song that starts “chestnuts roasting on an open fire”? Um, hello…your fireplace is an open fire! In fact, there are chestnut roasting pans and popcorn pans for fireplaces and those items can be ordered from specialty websites and catalogs.

But I suggest something even more simple. How about grabbing graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows and making smores? The camping section of your local all purpose store has long metal forks that can be used to roast the marshmallows. Have the family sit together in front of the fireplace while listening to Christmas carols…doesn’t get much better than that. You can make hot dogs in the same way…fun on a cold Saturday afternoon!

And, one of my favorite things to do is to clean potatoes, use a bit of vegetable oil on the skins and some salt, wrap tightly in tin foil, and bury them in the coals UNDER the grate of the fire. True it is not as hands on as the smores, but it is so much fun to eat! And it tastes absolutely out of this world…plus, you are getting double the energy bang for your buck for the fireplace.

I am sure you will have your own ideas about how to make the holidays meaningful…I would love to hear about them!

This time of year, I start thinking about all of my favorite holiday music. There are so many songs…some traditional, some new…really an eclectic mix. I was feeling a bit nostalgic, so I decided to create a YouTube stream of some of my faves.

Without a doubt, this seemingly strange combination tops my list. David Bowie and Bing Crosby singing a version of Little Drummer Boy. You know that Bing was completely freaked out by singing next to Ziggy Stardust, but the resulting song is so beautiful…their voices sound amazing together.

Followed by one of my grandfather’s favorites, White Christmas.  It was an incredibly meaniful song to his generation and subsequently to our whole family. We would sing it together over and over until the Christmas season came to an end.

And who can forget the Christmas song designed to end world hunger?  Do They Know It’s Christmas is a great way to look back at the bands of the 80’s. Wham, The Police, Bananarama, Paul Young, Boy George, Duran Duran…the list goes on. If you take a peek at this video, see how many you can identify.

Finally, another 80’s fave…Wham’s Last Christmas. This song just personifies 80’s pop…all packaged up in a Christmas song. For some reason, I just love to listen to it…I think it is the synthesizer bells that open the song…

If you don’t see your favorite song here, let me know…I will include it in my next list. I am a nut about holiday songs…so you can bet there will be several more of these posts between now and the holidays!