Provident Living-December

We have had a very cold and very snowy month… we are wearing sweaters and layers to keep warm at home.
We found a bag of steamed broccoli and steamed red potatoes stuck inside our screen door one night when we came home from one of many concerts.  My next door neighbor told me the next day when we saw each other that the food was from her, just as I thought.  She sometimes brings home extra food from work parties and gives it to us since it is too much for just her.  For lunch on Saturday I made a huge pot of potato broccoli soup and brought her a piping hot jar full of it along with some homemade French bread topped with apple butter and some pieces of holiday fudge, as well.  She seemed very happy and admitted to secretly wishing for more of my soup she remembered me bringing her when she wasn’t feeling well some time ago.  I was pretty sure this was NOT the same soup but it was delicious and used both ingredients she had given me and the rest was on hand in my pantry.
And by the word “pantry” which I use often, I am really referring to what I have on my shelves and in my food storage located in the basement rather than a traditional room off the kitchen.  I live in a very small 5 room home with 7 people.  I have an eat-in kitchen which is something like 8x15 in total with very little cupboard space.  The shelving we built with lumber and hardware a number of years ago saves us in so many ways.  It allows us to safely store “enough” for a large family who rarely dines out in a wet basement using the precious vertical space we have.  I have grown very accustomed to running downstairs multiple times a day to what is really, at this point, an extension of my kitchen.  My other reason for using the word “pantry” is that most people don’t completely understand the term “food storage” and when they do hear that term I get a lot of questions and usually they end up thinking we must be some sort of survivalist type family.  Food storage, itself, is a different topic and I’ll probably cover more on that next month.
After a looooong battle with the dishwasher, extended warranty and the repair company the store sends out to fix broken appliances, the store decided to refund our 3 year old dishwasher purchase price to us in FULL and alleviate themselves of further repair work.  They also offered to have installation of a new dishwasher paid for as well, though that won’t be necessary since ours is a portable dishwasher.  The check arrived in the mail a week later.
Discovering last minute that my 11 year old was in need of a “festive” shirt for his holiday concert I went out and bought a beautiful red and black plaid button down shirt and a white sweater vest with a red insignia on the upper left front of it.  Both look brand new, are brand name and I paid $4.50 for each item.  While it’s not garage sale priced, it is a fraction of the original price and it was convenient too.  After a quick wash, dry and press Tristan looked very handsome walking out the door that night in his black pants and black shoes.  A Santa hat on his head matched quite well and he did indeed look quite festive for the occasion.  While I was there I picked up a pair of pajamas, a sweater and another button down shirt with matching sweater vest from The Children’s Place that I paired together.  I only paid a few dollars and this boy is sprouting so quickly that he really has had very little to wear since the temperature dropped.  I figured I would not make him wait for Christmas buying this way and he really does need a few things NOW.  To be honest, I’ve never seen the boy so happy to receive clothing.
I made a number of gifts to give away.  I will do a post on these.  Some were kitchen made gifts and some were from my craft area.  All were thoughtful and took time and the reaction to the gift I did see get opened was a positive one.  I’d planned on more homemade gifts to go around but time got the better of me.  I have loads of ideas but I need to plan earlier and act on those plans early enough so those are my goals for next year.
My children took their own hard earned money, decided on a budget individually and they purchased or made gifts for family members.  My youngest had just $6 and he got thoughtful gifts for everyone when he was taken shopping with his Dad.  In fact I thought everyone was quite thoughtful with their gift giving.
Gift giving within our family was different this year as well.  I made the suggestion to my husband to use the old adage “Something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read”… and a surprise from Santa Claus.  This year my husband thought it was a good idea.  It forced some creativity and more thought put into the gifts we got each other than in previous years.  Another plus; I thought it made gift giving easier because it seemed more organized.  I also stuck fairly close to my original budget but with a Santa gift I ended up going over by just a bit on each person.  We ended up finding some “unexpected” money to cover it though, so it worked out well.
I am currently trying to decide if I can successfully handle putting together a “Homemade Christmas” for next year.  It is something I have thought about for several years but my schedule combined with having little ones at home has made that difficult to actually do.  And I have received some resistance from my kids and husband suggesting this in the past.  So I am thinking, thinking, thinking… is it feasible?  My husband has some reservations about it so we may compromise and have Santa gifts that are not homemade.  I already know that our budget will still be tight next Christmas so there is the added advantage of keeping costs down even WITH the compromise.  Like I said, I have loads of ideas and need to harness the enthusiasm.
Finally, for the first year ever since having children we did NOT have professional portraits done of the kids or family.  It was a money saving choice… a choice we made.  Instead we had taken some pictures through the year that we thought could be “played with” and printed as 8x10’s with 5x7’s given to our parents.  We finally sat down, picked out pictures and cropped them and sent them in for printing.  We found a family package deal that gave us even more pictures in the package for less money than purchasing them without the package.  This worked out perfectly because my brothers and sisters and I had decided that instead of choosing names for a Christmas gift exchange this year, which not all of us were participating in, it would be more meaningful to exchange pictures between the families and help us feel closer which is the real reason for gift giving within the family.  The only cost is the print and the postage and some families are putting together family tree walls.  We all live pretty far apart and we don’t get to see each other often.  This helps the kids know who their cousins are.  We can mount the pics however we want to and then replace with an updated one whenever they come along.  I thought that was a pretty neat idea.  For us, our 8X10 prints take the place of 10x13 prints.  We ended up not being able to find 10X13 mats that would fit in our frames so we used a gift card and bought some nice 8x10 frames at 50% off after Christmas at the craft store.
That was my shorter than usual list for living providently this month.