Canadians are keeping holiday spending in check, some ideas on how to do this

Two years ago, we spent on average $1,810 on the holiday, this year the average Canadian will spend about $1,517 over Christmas, the lowest holiday spend in three years, according to a separate BMO study. If you want to avoid overspending, try the following:

1. Before you go out to buy, ribbons, bows, tree lights, etc, do an inventory—to make the job easier, if you have not done so already, when you pack up keep all the holiday items together.
2. Do not bring your kids shopping with you; studies suggest they’ll help you spend 29% more than your budget.
3. Do not shop with your partner; you’re likely to spend 19% more.
4. Do not use a cart; people who carry their stuff spend 8% less.
5. Pay cash and carry $100 bills; you’re less likely to break them for smaller purchase
6. One way to avoid overspending is not to make too many spontaneous purchases.
7. We have a large family getting together at Christmas so we only give to the children under 12
8. Give to a charity or the food bank, or give of yourself may be better than an expensive present, which may be re gifted.
9. Whether you prefer to shop in person or online, it’s important to know your budget limits and to stick to them.
10. Buying online, leave the site or walk away from the site after you have put the items in the basket, wait at least 24 hours or longer to close the deal—some stores may offer you an incentive to complete your purchase.
11. Allow time and planning and comparison shop
12. Keep your budget in mind and shop carefully to get the best selection and price.
13. Give the gift you make yourself, to people who would appreciate the thoughtful gesture.

Planning to use your credit cards for some of the gifts this year? If you have balances, now's the time to plan head and wipe them out. Especially if those balances are from last year's holiday. You should never want to get to next Christmas without paying off last Christmas.

14. Limit the number of cards you carry on shopping trips. Bring only those that you'll actually use.
15. Keep an eye on your card. Make sure you get it back promptly after each use.
16. Conceal your card while waiting to pay for purchases. Someone in line behind you might try to memorize or copy your account number.
17. When the cashier returns it to you, do not absent-mindedly stick your card in a coat pocket or someplace else where it can easily fall out.
18. Treat receipts carefully. Check them to see if your account number is hidden (with Xs) except for the last four digits. If the full number is visible on a receipt, do not leave it lying around.
19. When your billing statements arrive, compare them with holiday receipts to help spot any unauthorized charges.
20. Be especially selective when shopping online. Shop with companies you know and stick to secure Web sites. Look for a locked padlock, an unbroken key or a lock icon (displayed at the bottom or on the status bar of the screen) to determine if a Web site uses security software.
21. Don't give out your account number unless you initiate the transaction. Watch out for any phone, Internet or mail solicitations that ask you for this information.
22. Fill in blanks on receipts. When dining out, draw a line through any blank spaces on the receipt (i.e. tip/gratuity space if you leave a cash tip) and total the amounts before signing.
23. Pick off-peak times to actually do your shopping. Most kids (or is it just the ones on the “nice” list?) are in school until close to Christmas, so hitting the stores during the day might save you some time and help you avoid impulse shopping. Eat before you go and take a bottle of water along. Every little bit of savings will help keep your budget from becoming naughty!
24. Each month after you pay your debts that have fixed monthly payments (mortgages, vehicle and term loans), only make the minimum payments required on your credit cards with the lowest interest rates, but maximize your payments on the credit cards with the highest interest rates.
25. Once a credit card is paid off, use this extra money to pay down your credit card with next highest interest rate. This will save you money and help you pay down your debt faster.  Consider paying off credit cards with small balances first. Psychologically it shows that you are making progress. Once paid, cut up and cancel the credit cards. Most people only require one major credit card and perhaps one retail credit card with savings incentives during special sales events.

Merry Christmas

A time for family and friends, may you be enveloped with the warmth of family, and friends on this special day. No matter what the history of the day, we celebrate the day with hopes of a new and better time. For those who cannot be with family or friends, my you have a day of peace and love. Best wishes for the day and for the upcoming year from my family to you and yours.

Enjoy this wonderful video from the Elkhorn, WI firefighters who are raising money for their local fire department. The animated light show features 40,000 lights, professional voiceovers, and over 50 strobe lights. 

The Little Drummer Boy

As well enjoy the following The 7 best Christmas lights shows, these are amazing works of love and caring 

Holiday gifts

Holiday gifts are a huge expense every year. No one wants to feel like Scrooge, though, even when our gift budgets are tight. What can we do to spread holiday cheer without spreading ourselves too thin?

Rather than throwing precious money at anonymous retailers, consider making gifts yourself. In a world that’s pre-made and mass-manufactured, handmade gifts have even greater charm and significance. There are many thoughtful gifts you can make right in your own kitchen, costing just a little money, inspiration and creativity.

A gift from the kitchen is a particularly thoughtful gift for those who may not have the time – or inclination – to cook, bake or create for themselves. Many years ago, I received – as a gift – a book called, “Gifts of Good Taste,” by Anne Young. It contains recipes (and creative and attractive representational ideas) for gifts you can create in your own kitchen, running the gamut of sweet to savory flavors.

My favorite recipe from the book is for Keeping Cake. I like to present it to friends because it incorporates seasonal flavors (cranberry, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves…), makes a tasty, wholesome breakfast or snack and keeps well past the holidays (thus its name).

3 cups cranberries (rinsed and divided)
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon grated orange peel
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
¾ cup sour cream
½ cup butter or margarine, melted
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large saucepan, combine 1 ½ cups cranberries, sugar and orange peel. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring constantly, until berries pops and mixture thickens (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat. Chop remaining cranberries and add to the cranberry mixture; cool.

In a large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, beat eggs with sour cream. Stir egg mixture into dry mixture. Stir in butter, cranberry mixture and pecans. Pour batter into two greased and floured 8 ½ x 4 ½ loaf pans and bake 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cakes in the pans 10 minutes before removing and cooling completely on wire racks. Wrap cakes in aluminum foil and allow to age 1 week. The flavor will continue to improve over several weeks. The cakes will keep for up to 3 months in a cool, dry place.

Yield: 2 cakes

To help get your creative gift-giving juices flowing, the book also includes recipes for homemade:

Cheese spread
Pancake / baking mixes
Candies and Fudge
Muffins
Cookies
Mulled wine
Flavored popcorn
Spiced nuts
Seasoned oils and vinegars
Marinated vegetable blends
Flavored butters and spreads
Jellies
Dog treats

The best gifts appeal to the recipient’s senses: In addition to edible gifts, many people make lovely and fragrant homemade candles and soaps from the kitchen. A particularly lovely idea is a growing gift. Plant herbs in an appropriate container, like a coffee cup or soup bowl as a gift of flavor.

Perhaps these ideas will inspire you to create your own gifts from the kitchen. If you have a “gift” for creating something wonderful in your kitchen, you can create your own homemade gifts. Your talents and creativity are a gift you can – and should – share at the holidays and all year around. It’s the most affordable – and ultimately the most thoughtful – way to give gifts.

What gifts could you cook up in your kitchen?

Boxing Day What is it for?

If you are looking for something that explains the origins of Boxing Day, well, you are not going to find it here. The day-after-Christmas holiday is celebrated by most countries in the Commonwealth, but none of them are really sure what they're celebrating, when it started or why. 

So here are some ideas presented for your pleasure on this holiday best spent lounging around in brightly colored sweaters, wondering, lazily and lethargically, what to do next

During the Age of Exploration, when great sailing ships were setting off to discover new land, A Christmas Box was used as a good luck device. It was a small container placed on each ship while it was still in port. A priest put it there, and those crewmen who wanted to ensure a safe return would drop money into the box. It was then sealed up and kept on board for the entire voyage.

If the ship came home safely, the box was handed over to the priest in the exchange for the saying of a Mass of thanks for the success of the voyage. The Priest would keep the box sealed until Christmas when he would open it to share the contents with the poor

Another explanation is that in England an 'Alms Box' was placed in every church on Christmas Day, into which worshippers placed a gift for the poor of the parish. These boxes were always opened the day after Christmas, which is why that day became known as Boxing Day. A variation on this idea is that during Advent, Anglican parishes displayed a box into which churchgoers put their monetary donations. On the day after Christmas, the boxes were broken open and their contents distributed among the poor, thus giving rise to the term Boxing Day..

There's another possible story about the holiday's origin. The day after Christmas was also the traditional day on which the aristocracy distributed presents (boxes) to servants and employees — a sort of institutionalized Christmas-bonus party. The servants returned home, opened their boxes and had a second Christmas on what became known as Boxing Day.

Finally, some believe that the following is the most plausible reason for the day being a holiday. Many poorly paid workers were required to work on Christmas Day and took the following day off to visit their families. As they prepared to leave, their employers would present them with Christmas boxes. 

Boxing Day has been a national holiday in England, Wales, Ireland, and Canada since 1871. For years in which the holiday falls on a weekend, the celebration is moved to make sure workers still get a day off (except in Canada, where it remains Dec. 26), but since visits to Grandma and other family obligations are fulfilled on Christmas, there isn't anything left to do on Boxing Day except eat leftovers, drink and watch TV.

The Irish still refer to the holiday as St. Stephen's Day, and they have their own tradition called hunting the wren, in which boys fasten a fake wren to a pole and parade it through town. Also known as Wren Day, the tradition supposedly dates to 1601, to the Battle of Kinsale, in which the Irish tried to sneak up on the English invaders but were betrayed by the song of an overly vocal wren — although this legend's veracity is also highly debated.

The Bahamas celebrate Boxing Day with a street parade and festival called Junkanoo, in which traditional rhythmic dancers called gombeys fill the streets with their elaborate costumes and headdresses.

In addition, of course, there is the shopping. England and Canada's Boxing Day evolved into a major shopping event in the 1980s — the equivalent of post-Thanksgiving Black Friday. Every year for the past three years many of the sales started earlier in an effort to boost the slumping economy.

Boxing Day has evolved to an extended Christmas afternoon. It is a holiday with presents that have already been opened and a dinner that has been eaten and another day to visit with friends and relatives. 

Enjoy your day!

The Christmas Challenge

The Christmas Challenge 

            Christmas has always been a holiday celebrated carelessly.  For millennia, pagans, Christians, and even Jews have been swept away in the season’s festivities, and very few people ever pause to consider the celebration’s intrinsic meaning, history, or origins.

            Christmas celebrates the birth of the Christian god who came to rescue mankind

            Christmas is a lie.  There is no Christian church with a tradition that Jesus was really born on December 25^th. 

           Many of the most popular Christmas customs – including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are modern incarnations of pagan rituals.

Many who are excitedly preparing for their Christmas celebrations would prefer not knowing about the holiday’s real significance.  If they do know the history, they often object that their celebration has nothing to do with the holiday’s monstrous history and meaning.  “We are just having fun.”

Challenges and Questions:  
Is it important to know, remember, and because of this knowledge not celebrate the day because you know the real history of Christmas? Or is it more important to learn and not repeat the errors of the past and know that the meaning of Christmas has changed for many of us?

Does knowing the history of Christmas, make any difference in how you celebrate the day?

What meaning do you hold in our hearts for this holiday?

This Christmas, how will you celebrate and what are you really celebrating? Are you celebrating  the history of Christmas or are you celebrating the meaning of Christmas to you today?

Have a wonderful day.  (I know the history of the day, but it does not change what it means to me today!)

The Real Story of Xmas Part 3

This continues the Origins of Christmas Customs

A.     The Origin of Christmas Tree
Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church sanctioning “Christmas Trees”.[7]  Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Church.

B.     The Origin of Mistletoe
Norse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna.  Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim.[8]  The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.[9]

C.     The Origin of Christmas Presents
In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors compelled their most despised citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and Kalends (in January).  Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace.  The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavor by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas (see below).[10]

D.     The Origin of Santa Claus
a.       Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra.  He died in 345 CE on December 6th.  He was only named a saint in the 19th century.

b.      Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament.  .

c.       In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy.  There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children's stockings with her gifts.  The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult.  Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.

d.      The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans.  These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw.  Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn.  When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.

e.       In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25th instead of December 6th.

f.        In 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (most famous his The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) wrote a satire of Dutch culture entitled Knickerbocker History.  The satire refers several times to the white bearded, flying-horse riding Saint Nicholas using his Dutch name, Santa Claus.

g.       Dr. Clement Moore, a professor at Union Seminary, read Knickerbocker History, and in 1822 he published a poem based on the character Santa Claus: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.  The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon would be there…”  Moore innovated by portraying a Santa with eight reindeer who descended through chimneys.

h.       The Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast almost completed the modern picture of Santa Claus.  From 1862 through 1886, based on Moore’s poem, Nast drew more than 2,200 cartoon images of Santa for Harper’s Weekly.  Before Nast, Saint Nicholas had been pictured as everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock.  Nast also gave Santa a home at the North Pole, his workshop filled with elves, and his list of the good and bad children of the world.  All Santa was missing was his red outfit.

i.         In 1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa.  Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby face.  The corporation insisted that Santa’s fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca Cola red.  And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol.

The Real Story of Xmas Part Two

Christmas is a huge celebration and we many people believe we, as a society have lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas. But how many of us know what that really is. Professor Kelemen gives a very interesting historical account of the real story of Christmas, which I thought I would share here over the next few days. For more information and sources go here  

Here are some highlights from his website: 

How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on December 25?

A.    Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25.  During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weekl ong celebration.  The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.”  Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week.  At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by killing this innocent man or woman.

B.    The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time.  In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

C.    In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it.  Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.[2]

D.    The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday.

E.      Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia.  As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.”  The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.

F.      The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who  first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.”[3]  Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.[4]  However, Christmas was and still is celebrated by most Christians.

The Real Story of Christmas Part one

The following is taken from the works of Lawrence Kelemen who is a Professor of Education at Neve Yerushalayim College of Jewish Studies for Women in Jerusalem, where he lectures undergraduate and graduate students in modern and medieval philosophy. After receiving his undergraduate degree from UCLA, Professor Kelemen continued with his graduate studies at Harvard University, and later completed 12 years of post-graduate field research.  The information in this post will be upsetting for some people.

Christmas is a huge celebration and we many people believe we, as a society have lost sight of the true meaning of Christmas. But how many of us know what that really is. Professor Kelemen gives a very interesting historical account of the real story of Christmas, which I thought I would share here. For more information and sources go here  

Here are some highlights from his website:

When was Jesus born?

A.   Popular myth puts his birth on December 25^th in the year 1 C.E.

B.   The New Testament gives no date or year for Jesus’ birth.  The earliest gospel – St. Mark’s, written about 65 CE – begins with the baptism of an adult Jesus.  This suggests that the earliest Christians lacked interest in or knowledge of Jesus’ birthdate.

C.   The year of Jesus birth was determined by Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian monk, “abbot of a Roman monastery.  His calculation went as follows:

a.   In the Roman, pre-Christian era, years were counted from ab urbe condita (“the founding of the City” [Rome]).  Thus 1 AUC signifies the year Rome was founded, 5 AUC signifies the 5^th year of Rome’s reign, etc.

b.   Dionysius received a tradition that the Roman emperor Augustus reigned 43 years, and was followed by the emperor Tiberius.

c.   Luke 3:1,23 indicates that when Jesus turned 30 years old, it was the 15^th year of Tiberius reign.

d.   If Jesus was 30 years old in Tiberius’ reign, then he lived 15 years under Augustus (placing Jesus birth in Augustus’ 28^th year of reign).

e.   Augustus took power in 727 AUC.  Therefore, Dionysius put Jesus birth in 754 AUC.

f.     However, Luke 1:5 places Jesus’ birth in the days of Herod, and Herod died in 750 AUC – four years before the year in which Dionysius places Jesus birth.

D.   Joseph A. Fitzmyer – Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America, member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and former president of the Catholic Biblical Association – writing in the Catholic Church’s official commentary on the New Testament[1], writes about the date of Jesus’ birth, “Though the year [of Jesus birth is not reckoned with certainty, the birth did not occur in AD 1.  The Christian era, supposed to have its starting point in the year of Jesus birth, is based on a miscalculation introduced ca. 533 by Dionysius Exiguus.”

E.    The DePascha Computus, an anonymous document believed to have been written in North Africa around 243 CE, placed Jesus birth on March 28.  Clement, a bishop of Alexandria (d. ca. 215 CE), thought Jesus was born on November 18.  Based on historical records, Fitzmyer guesses that Jesus birth occurred on September 11, 3 BCE.

Have a wonderful Xmas day

For many of us this is a day of family, celebration and joy, I hope your day is joyful and full of wonder and delight. My grandson are spending this day with us along with his parents. While we are joyful to have them with us, I am most thankful for the opportunity to again see the world through a childs eyes.
For those of you far from family, may the day be filled with joy and friendship and may you capture, the feeling and spirit of the day and continue to hold that feeling for the full year

For those of you who are missing a loved one because of illness or a recent death, may you focus on the good that person has brought you and remember their spirit and may you have friends and family with you to help the day go better.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY

NEW YEAR FROM MY FAMILY TO

YOU AND YOURS

First Xmas

We cannot spend his first Xmas with our new grandson, but we enjoy the pictures, next year he will know more about what is going on and will be more excited, and will start to learn the true meaning of Xmas. Enjoy your first Xmas Ryder