Does Father Christmas\/Santa exist?\u00a0 Of course he does. However, he has to deliver to 1.8 million homes so we want to help him out.\u00a0 Here’s a few ideas and Mr Christmas if you are reading this I actually do want socks this Christmas and I have been a good boy (pretty much).<\/p>\n
Christmas always seems to come at the wrong time, no matter how much you try to put by for it, it never seems enough. The trouble is, there are too many things you feel you have to buy to make the festive season run smoothly. The truth is much of it is needless spending, advertisers and retails have become very adapt at selling you the perfect Christmas. \u00a0This is why we at selfsufficientish would like to try and cut the spending around the festive season and hope to offer some ideas for a sustainable and more frugal Christmas.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n If you are a hoarder like me then you will have some Christmas cards left over from last year. It is simple to turn these into cards again for this Christmas.<\/p>\n Point three is quite important as it would be quite embarrassing to give someone the same card they gave you the year before.<\/p>\n What I have also done is simply draw an arrow indicating that the to and from has changed and given back the cards I have been sent by others. Again you can’t do this too often but some think it is funny the first time you do it.<\/p>\n Photos<\/strong> – If you have a lot of digital photos then why not make a disc for all your relatives with computers. You could give it that personal touch by printing out covers for them too. <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Herb cuttings <\/strong>– Take cuttings from your favourite herbs and pot them in painted pots. You might want to print out some growing instructions too. It is better to take hardwood cuttings in the colder season. If you live in New Zealand or Australia then softwood cuttings can be taken at this time of year, during the growing season. <\/a> This is something I did last year.<\/p>\n Buy some cheap olive oil and cut a few twigs of rosemary or a similarly decorative herb.<\/p>\n Put the herbs in the fanciest bottles you can find.<\/p>\n Top up with the oil and print off your own labels with something like Rosemary infused Olive Oil Bottled Exclusively for …..’. \u00a0This works with all kinds of herbs, basil<\/a>, chili etc and you can do the same with pickles or jams you may have left over. \u00a0A lot of the time people would prefer a more personalised gift than some tat you bought at the last minute when you were drunk on Christmas Eve.<\/a><\/p>\n These can make healthier alternatives to the chocolate decorations that you find on many trees. Cheaper too and it can also be fun for your children to help.<\/p>\n 350g (12oz) Plain white flour Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ground ginger into a bowl. Divide into two equal sizes and roll out each piece on a lightly floured surface to about 5mm = 1\/4 inch thick. Using cutters cut out gingerbread figures and put them on a lightly greased baking sheet.<\/p>\n Decorate with the currants\/rasins or icing to make eyes, mouth and all that.<\/p>\n Bake in a pre heated oven at 190c (375f \/gas mark 5) for 12-15 minutes or until golden. Cool on the tray for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack.<\/p>\n You now have your ginger bread men. Next step is to affix them to the tree. This can be done with some ribbon sellotaped to the back of the gingerbread men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Does Father Christmas\/Santa exist? Of course he does. However, he has to deliver to 1.8 million homes so we want to help him out. Here’s a few ideas and Mr Christmas if you are reading this I actually do want socks this Christmas and I have been a good boy (pretty much). […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[731],"tags":[96,95,12,97],"class_list":["post-19","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-cards","tag-christmas","tag-herbs","tag-photos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3094,"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions\/3094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.selfsufficientish.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Christmas Cards <\/a><\/h2>\n
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Present ideas <\/a><\/h2>\n
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\nA memory album<\/strong> – This is for all those relatives without computers (or who don’t know how to use them). Piece together some important memories in a scrap book. These can include photos, theatre tickets and so on. A good one would be a special holiday or event that you spent together. \u00a0You can even splash out in a quite expensive scrap book as e ssentially t he rest of the present is free. \u00a0\u00a0It should cost a lot to do, only a little time but personal gifts like these are always well received especially by elderly relatives.
\n<\/a><\/p>\nPersonalised Oils<\/h3>\n
Bake gingerbread men for tree Decorations<\/h3>\n
Ingredients<\/h3>\n
\n5ml (1tsp) Bicarbonate of soda
\n10mls (2tsp) Ground or greted ginger
\n100g (4oz) Butter
\n175g (6oz) Light soft brown sugar
\n60mls (4 tbsp) Golden or maple syrup
\n1 Egg (beaten)
\ncurrants or rasins for the eyes ect. You could also ry using a dollop of icing.<\/p>\nMethod<\/h3>\n
\nRub in the butter until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs then stir in the sugar. Beat the syrup into the egg.
\nstir. Mix to form a dough and then knead it until smooth.<\/p>\n