Skip to main content

Gift No-Nos

I'm going to try to make or thrift all of my Christmas gifts this year, but I know my family will go out shopping for new stuff. I am always grateful for any gift, but I think this year I will first give them a list of:

Ten Things I Do Not Want for Christmas

Anything Containing Sugar and/or Carbs: I will be immediately giving them to someone else because hello, you've forgotten than I'm a diabetic again.

Exotic Teas: I do love trying new things, especially as hot beverages in winter are nice. However, I'm still working my way through 2023 Christmas's and 2024 birthday's teas. Let me finish those first.

Fuzzy Holiday Throws: I actually like these cheap minky-like throws, which are super soft and definitely warm. Problem is I own about five right now and three are Christmas or winter prints.

Jewelry: I wear a bracelet every day to remind me which hand is weaker at the moment. I have about a hundred of them, too. Occasionally I'll wear some stud earrings, but I already own about two hundred pairs of those. So please, no more jewelry.

Pajamas: You never remember my size, so I always have to exchange them. Also, sleeping in fake satin just makes me sweat all night.

Purses: This year I thrifted a lot of Vera Bradley bags that will keep me in purses probably until I die.

Slippers: I have duck feet, and they pinch my toes, and the ones without heels are annoying. I'd rather wear socks. P.S., I own enough socks, too.

Supplements: I am trying to reduce the amount of vitamin and herbal supplements that I take because swallowing pills makes me gag, and I think it's healthier to get them from food. Help me out here.

Things Related to My Dogs: I love my two Sheltie boys; they bring joy into every day for me. I also get a lot of Sheltie-themed gifts (calendars, socks, Christmas ornaments, etc.) so I have plenty to remind me of them. I know I'll be getting a Sheltie wall calendar for my home office this year because my guy believes I love looking at strange dogs all day. Honestly, I'm just not a dog-themed gift lover.

And finally:

New Gifts of Any Kind: This past year I've successfully thrifted almost everything I bought for myself (books, clothes, shoes, fabric, yarn, thread, etc.) When I bought new it was on sale (good strong white thread) or my way of showing support for an independent business (books from that lovely indy book shop in Winter Garden.) I am trying to reuse and recycle with whatever I need because that's doing my part for the planet. While I really do appreciate the sentiments behind any gift, bottom line, I'd appreciate them more if they weren't new.

Christmas tree and presents image credit (the text is my doing): Pexels from Pixabay

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.
Post a Comment
Read more

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.
Post a Comment
Read more