blue crab at our front door. last week. post inspired by Joshua Becker.
Last week I stepped out the front door of my tiny house and onto our temporary step.
It was one of those moments like a thousand other ones.
I could have bustled on through the yard, head consumed with a thousand future checklists.
But I didn’t. For some reason I stopped, and I looked around, and I saw a flash of something blue.
He was tucked in tight between the wall of our tiny house and the temporary step.
A blue crab. A big guy too. (I’d never seen one wild before despite growing up on the Florida coastline.)
If I’d been living at a faster pace I wouldn’t have spotted him.
Or if I had, I wouldn’t have had time to appreciate him.
I’ve been practicing the lost art of living slow though, and that is the difference between seeing the crab and rushing on by.
The Hidden Benefits of Minimalism
Slowing down is another benefit of minimalism. When you’ve pared down everything; the stuff, the crazy schedule, the overwhelming influx… then it’s time for life to start. And it starts with the smallest things sometimes, like a majestic blue crab come to share the presence of the moment with us.
Simple Living Action Step
Be a cliche. Stop and smell the roses.
Relax. Recuperate. Let your chilled out self hang out and do a big blisspile of nothing. Keep your eyes open and see what comes to fill your empty vessel. You might just find a blue crab outside your doortstep. Enjoy your weekend everyone. I’ll be taking a digital sabbatical for Saturday and Sunday.
Updates and Conversations
* Coming next week. Andrew and Crystal’s Tiny r(E)volution comes to Minimalist Packrat. Next week is tiny house week. Lots of (finally) shots of our inner sanctuary, thoughts on tiny house living, and the must-see essay from Andrew Odom on his tiny house life.
* What about you? Is your life stressed out or relaxed? Have you come to a comfortable relationship with the concept of relaxing, or are you like me, working to maintain a balance?
* Now for something completely different. If you have a moment, please help a rat out and share a thought about your simplified celebrations. I’m working on (either a book or a section of a book) on redefining holidays and I’m looking for real world experiences of people who have abandoned a high stress holiday experience and created a simplified holiday instead.
I’ll go first because I can. Patrick and I spent 20 minutes hanging out with Mr. Blue Crab. He was sooooo cool! He was rather wary of us though and we finally broke off our engagement with him to give him a little break (and a chance to sneak off through the grasses).
Simple celebrations: I wrote about this last year but it’s that time of year again. I noticed the other day in Target that the patio furniture was on sale. 30%. That meant we were only weeks away from garden centers around the nation turning into halloween centers. Soon the christmas stuff will be out again. I’ve just been sniffing the first hint of autumn and the gentle fading of summer’s bloom and the stores will have such a jump on the upcoming year that they’ll be pushing me right past the crisp vividity of fall and straight into the holiday season.
But that doesn’t happen anymore. Patrick and I simplified our celebrations. We took them back from all the outside influences and created something special instead. It took us a few years, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of conversations with relatives and friends about why we were choosing to make these changes. But now I can look forward to the upcoming gauntlet, knowing that fall and winter hold beautiful, meaningful celebrations for me, a time of quiet, a time of hibernation and communing, a time for crunchy fall leaves, and a hushed change in the planet around me.
Now it’s your turn! How have you simplified your holidays? What steps have you taken?
I should think Mr. Blue *would* be wary; in his world most of the creatures he encounters look at him and say, “Oh, cool; look – DINNER!” I think that sort of existence would make any of us hesitant to embrace a relationship with a new species.
Great photos, by the way.
Yes, The Holidays are fast approaching. Fortunately we, like you, have managed to shed the “gotta out-do everyone in gift giving/celebrating/party-throwing” mentality AND to get our family members on board with this as well. Celebrating these special occasions is so much more fun without the stress and hassles that have been heaped on top of them like straw sheaves on a China-men’s bicycle by “modern” society.
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Allan, Patrick pointed that out too. I’ve been vegetarian for so long I forgot most people would consider him food. Mr. Blue was under no illusions though. He stood unmoving in full guard position for twenty minutes while Patrick photo’d him. Even after we went in he stayed motionless because he could still see us through the sliding door. It wasn’t until we’d been firmly settled in place that he decided it was safe to move. Thanks for sharing your piece too. ;)
We have a growing expanding family, our 4 grown kids, and then my husbands 3 siblings and his mother. For years, as our kids we growing up, we struggled to visit my family (now no longer living) and his family all on the same day, THE holiday. So Thanksgiving was rushed, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day was rushed. Due to my parents’ passing and some major health issues requiring hospitalization for several members of the family right around Christmas time a few years back, I finally got the hubby’s siblings to agree to celebrating on an off day. We usually go the Friday after Thanksgiving (none are avid shoppers, so Black Friday doesn’t matter!) and for Christmas we get together a few days before or after depending on what day of the week it falls, This has greatly reduced the stress, especially for my young adult kids who have in-laws to visit as well.
Even though we get together with the extended, extended family, I still try to get my kids and grandkids together at my house. My husband and I made a commitment to not stress our kids out about gathering ON the holiday either. So each year, we just take a peek at the calendar and try to gather sometime around a holiday. Typically, we are all getting together about 4 times a year anyway, and this happens to be one of them.
And as far as food and gifts, it is all simple. The focus is on spending time together, having my adult children maintain their relationships, for the grandkids to play with their aunts and uncles and the significant others/fiances. That is the highlight of our celebrations for me, just sitting back and watching everyone enjoying a great time just BEING together.
Bernice
Eating healthy for the long haul
Thank you so much Bernice, that was awesome! I really appreciate you sharing this, and it will be making it’s way into the book. You rock girl!
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When Dave’s family had too much distance and too many little kids to make Christmas gatherings work well, we switched to summertime family campouts. Each year one family took responsibity for finding the place and we all gathered for a weekend of fun where it was OK for the kids to yell and run and make a mess. It was lovely.
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Thanks for sharing that Linda. I love the fact that it was a campout as well. You weren’t just getting together with family, you were doing it in the distractionless space of nature. That frickin’ rocks. Beautiful way to switch up the holidays. ;)
LOVE IT! I think one of the good things about kids is that they force you to slow down and notice the little things. I notice on the days and times I put everything aside and try to see the world through their eyes, it’s much more interesting. I also believe the slowing down is a reason I’m really getting into photography. It again forces me to look for the small things and take a deeper look.
As for holidays, we personally don’t really celebrate any, except maybe birthdays and Thanksgiving. It’s hard because both of our families live extremely close by, so we often feel obligated to make it to every family event. Part of the reason I want to move is because I’d love to slow down around the holiday season!
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Hey Megyn,
Glad you enjoyed it. ;) Kids do tend to make us notice the little things, it’s true, it goes with the territory. I remember being a kid and making constant observations, most of them minute. Everything was rather crisp.
I understand about the familial pressures too.
Our holidays are usually chaotic, visiting both my husband and I’s immediate familes, then extended familes, which is 5 gatherings, plus, well, we’re a family now too with our two boys! So for Thanksgiving this year, we’re taking a week vacation to the east coast (from the midwest) and staying at a condo on the oceanfront, where we can cook a nice intimate Thanksgiving dinner, just inviting one dear friend of ours who lives out there and is alone for the holiday. We’re still afraid to confront relatives about not getting together (we’re not scheduling any alternate date Thanksgivings), but our excuse is it is the best time for my husband to take off a whole week, since 2 days are already vacation days. We are also vegetarian, the only in our families, and we plan to have a lovely vegan meal, with no snarky comments! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, since it is largely spared from consumerism, except for the huge ordeal of how big of a turkey to buy and what contraption to cook it in. Now that that’s a non-issue for us, it’s great to get away from it at familys’ houses.
Hi Kate,
Your upcoming Thanksgiving vacation sounds beautiful and serene. I’ve been lucky not to get snarky comments about my vegetarianism, but then again it’s been going on so many years people got tired of snarking about it. ;) Getting away from it all, at the beach, in a beautiful private condo sounds like a dreamy vacation to me, and a beautiful way to share gratitude with your most immediate family.
The blue crab is beautiful! Thank you for sharing him (or her) with us.
Have a wonderful weekend. :-)
Thanks Stacia. My neighbor’s seen three so far this season, but this guy here is still the only one I’ve ever seen in my life.
My weekend was great! Hope yours was too. :)
Tanja from Minimalist Packrat recently posted..Andrew and Crystal’s Tiny Revolution
This is a cute blue crab. I haven’t seen blue crab on my enter life.
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Our family has a wooden bowl by our front door that we toss spare change into when we empty our pockets. Sometimes we take change out for soda or to feed the meters downtown. There is a constant flow of change into and out of the bowl throughout the year. On New Year’s Eve we take the change from the bowl down to our local grocery store and use it to buy “feast” items to share with our family and friends that night, such as bread, cheeses, etc. It is our New Year’s Celebration – using the largess and remainder of our spare change from the old year to celebrate the beginning of the new. We all sit around a central table and share the food from the communal bowls that are on the table, laughing, talking, and simply being together.
Small and simple.
Hi Michell,
That is is such an amazingly cool celebration idea. I love the idea of a wooden bowl holding the celebration for the year. It’s such a beautiful and bountiful concept. I may need to take that one up myself. Thank you so much for sharing.
it seems our entire married life was spent on the highway… to and from… one set of family to another. when the holidays were
over… (both thanksgiving and christmas we did this)… we were both exhausted and had felt we’d missed whatever we were really
celebrating. (much like you and patrick in one of your archives i believe).
after bob died i decided i would relish just being alone for the holidays. it took about 3 years to get this accomplished without
hurting any feelings. isn’t it funny… we worry sometimes about every other single person’s feelings except our own. and for
some reason, when you’re alone… people just cannot fathom that you might like to spend the “holidays alone!!???” what on earth
is the matter with you. are you weird or something? no. i simply decided. enough. my values do not lie in anything related to
materialism. large noisy gatherings make me tired now. and at 66 and years of sharing my time, i simply decided to be selfish
with my holidays.
i cook a little. i watch old corny christmas movies on dvd. i sing the caroles out loud if i want to. i take walks in the crispy air.
i meditate. i pray for peace. i decorate a little beautifully made artificial tree (can’t see ending a live one’s life just to be thrown in the
trash after a few weeks!) and before my little dog died last september… we would walk together in our neighborhood at night on
christmas eve and look at all the christmas lights! he loved it and so did i!
if anyone else of your readers find themselves alone on the holidays… i’m living proof that you can create your own little rituals
and celebrate with your heart. sometimes it lonelier in a crowd than it is being alone. i call it not loneliness but solitude.
cheers!
tammy j
Hi Tammy,
What an absolutely beautiful story you’ve shared here. Thank you so much for that. It sounds like a very special and private way to share the holidays. And that can be the most empowering sometimes. Many of the holidays are simply a way to honor the passing of the seasons anyways, and the way you celebrate sounds absolutely beautiful. ;)
Oh, how I wish I could contribute to your book, Tanja. Unfortunately, I’m still pressured by both sides of the family to get together when it suits their schedules…not when it is convenient for my family. I finally put my foot down this past Christmas and stayed home…the first time in over 20 years. I loved it! Not to sound like a Grinch, but I just hate having to get together on a set date. I have started having “just because” days every now and then with my mother, husband, etc. Those are the rare days when I just call and say we shouuld have a nice lunch or dinner….just because. There is no stress and no dressing up for these days. Also, since they don’t fall on holidays, no lines! Awesome!
Hi Lorna,
It sounds like you’ve started the process. I love the idea of just because days. That’s a lot how Patrick and I are now. I got my mother something just because at a random time of the year and we got his mother something just because as well. It’s much more natural, rather than contrived. I prefer it. :) The mothers do slowly understand. And both of them in my life, will continue to decorate and do it up big. That’s their prerogative. My prerogative is smaller and simpler. ;) I think you shared plenty for the book here. Thank you Lorna. ;)
I love the colour of that crab – beautiful!
Celebrations. Mmm. We have really cut a lot of that out. We have never done Christmas – period. That cuts out a hell of a lot of trouble and crap. I like Thanksgiving, it’s about food and family/friends for us and I like to cook. I see it as a holiday to celebrate giving thanks…to people, to the earth that provides food, and to whatever you believe in. The only thing we do on birthdays is make what the birthday person wants to eat that day; I might take the girls out to pick out some kind of thing like a book or art supply that they want later on – but not at the birthday. The Man and I may or may not give each other something on our anniversary, depends on what catches our eye; we usually spend that day hiking or outside somehow. We don’t celebrate any other “holidays” but we do have other days that are special to our family that we “celebrate.” Everything is very low key, with no expectations for either us or the children. I realize that a lot of people think it’s hugely unfair what we do to our kids, but we are a joyful family throughout the year, sharing, celebrating, and giving when we see someone needs it, not because the day, country, and consumer culture demand it. Do my kids sometimes feel a little weird? Yeah. But then I’m trying to give them the gift of being comfortable NOT fitting in – my very eccentric family did that for my siblings and I and I consider it the best thing I’ve ever been taught. Sorry for writing so much, I love the idea for the book, Tanja!
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Hey Terra,
First, thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing this. How awesome. Your way of celebrating sounds so beautiful and simple. I can only think how delightful it would be to have never done Christmas. It was the biggest and hardest to switch focuses on. ;) How cool you missed all that.
And second, how incredibly amazing that you grew up with such an accepting family, and I think it may be the biggest gift of all you are sharing with your children. Acceptance in my opinion, is one of the greatest virtues we can master. It’s beautiful you’re sharing that.
For your holiday celebrations, at Christmas, we buy our 5 year old son 3 gifts- to symbolize the gifts brought to Jesus, then he gets 1 from Santa and 1 from us. He also donates some of his older toys to local charities and he has to pick them out. The rest of the holidays, we keep it pretty simple with a nice meal, a walk with the dogs and football, if it is on. I do not do cards or anything, unless a specific family member requests pictures, then I do them from home. Usually with sales, I can get 20 pics printed nicely printed for $5, so it’s not that bad.
Ok..onto the other question…minimalism has helped me relax by giving me more time for the things I love. I used to run around and clean, organize and otherwise drive myself nuts everyday, trying to keep up. I remember when I first started, I decluttered all the knick-knacks except for a few special items, like my stars and some pictures, and WOW..I felt the OMMMMMM very quickly. : ) Then I worked everything else. It’s like losing weight, but in a fast and healthy way (I know that is not physically possible, but more of a mental metaphor). Clutter makes me sick and I miss out of the beauty of life.
Hi Heather,
Thank you so much for sharing that. I love the way you place a reasonable limit on the gift giving. That way your son can still feel a part of the celebrations he sees around him, and yet your home won’t suffer the consequences of so much stuff or expense. Wonderful.
And as for your your second, I so completely feel that. It’s amazing how clearing out stuff makes everything feel so amazing. I’m blown away how much less stress I have in my life now that I’ve downsized so much.
When my husband & I were first married and had our first child, we had the only grandchild on my side of the family & youngest on my husband’s. It was insane trying to get to all the family get-togethers at holidays that they all wanted us at. If we didn’t make it to every single place, we got huge guilt trips because “you love them more than us!!” If we went to them all, we were all, including our newborn daughter, totally stressed out & worn out and there was nothing joyous about the holidays. Thankfully we moved 7 hours away from them all and don’t go back for the holidays, so we can have quiet celebrations, just us & our 3 girls. There also used to be a barrage of gifts & as a new family we were expected to buy lots of gifts for family we never saw & had no idea what they would want/could use. We also got a lot of guilt trips over it, but after a couple of years of it, we politely explained that we had no idea what to buy for family we never saw & thought a better use of everyone’s money would be to buy for their own children and let us buy for our own children. The first couple years, they still bought junk for ours, we didn’t buy for theirs, we got a guilt trip, then everyone finally let it go & accepted things & we all started enjoying the meal & time spent with family more when it wasn’t a competition for who could get the most extravagent gifts any more. My girls would love big fancy birthday parties with tons of friends attending so they could get lots of money/gifts like their friends all do, but we don’t have those parties. We have a small celebration with our immediate family, and maybe a set of grandparents & a couple friends. This keeps the girls from getting so much junk, saves us money not having a huge party, and lets our girls appreciate what they do get.
Kathy that rocks. Thank you so much for sharing.
It’s interesting how much my experience has been similar to yours, only sans kids. You summed up the experience for me in one long paragraph. That’s pretty amazing. :)
What I love most about what you wrote is the way you stuck to your guns and made the changes happen even when pressure got intense. I also love the way you’re purposely raising your children to not have or expect a huge commercial birthday. There is so much power in the way we raise our children individually and as a society. When society says you need a disney princess or a nascar driver at the party, the individual can say, not my kids, they don’t need that. I truly believe most children (and adults) don’t enjoy parties after a certain size limit has been reached. For kids it’s a pretty low threshold that they need.
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I love simplistic holidays! I have a complicated relationship with Christmas, as a loved one died at that time, and it has always reminded me of tragedy. Its only now, nearly ten years later, that I have learned to not dread it so much. One way to make it great is to not do presents!! Or if you do, pick your nearest and dearest and set a limit. My best friend and my sister get a present each, with a $50 limit, and I buy something small for my grandparents. That’s it. I’d love to give up altogether and did try once, but sometimes that just causes more upset than it’s worth. Sometimes minimalism isn’t the most important thing!
Also, if you have family issues (dont we all??) then it can help to talk about them ahead of time. I chat with a therapist throughout the year and it helps me to realise that I cannot change my family, however I CAN change how I respond to them, and it stops me dreading seeing them so much. Also, I plan a catch up with my friends after Christmas dinner on the beach, just friends and cocktails and sunset over the ocean, to help us debrief from the family stress! It’s especially nice for those of us who are missing parents or other family members.
On my birthday I plan a big dinner or night out at a bar we love, so that way if someone really wants to buy me something they can buy me a cocktail or pay for my dessert! Saves presents, and of course everyone knows they are getting you something you will enjoy, because they can see you enjoy it!
Hey Mia,
That sounds really rough. I don’t think I’d want to celebrate Christmas much if someone close to me died around then either. It’s good that time is easing that for you.
I love your spending limits and how you’ve pared it down to the simplest amount of people to share gifts with. And I adore your holiday dinner with friends, cocktails, and a sunset over the ocean. That sounds absolutely ideal. :) Now that I’m not in the woods anymore, maybe that’s what I need to do, get over it being a fish restaurant and hit up a beach side restaurant around the holidays. (I haven’t settled into my perfect holiday groove in Florida yet.)
Tanja from Minimalist Packrat recently posted..A Minimalist Take on Clothing
Slowing down – I don;t have a problem witht he conept, but sometimes I have a problem making it happen. Whenever I get dis organized, or have a new transition (ahem…going back to work) things seem faster because I end up forgetting to do/buy something so it ends in more trips to the store for forgotten items and more errands. We are working on getting it all sorted.
As for keeping holidays minimal. We learned a big lesson this past week. We totally got caught up in the birthday thing for CArter. But thanks tot he lessons we’ve learned while striving to live more minimally, we were able to pull back, drop some of the excessive plans, and go with the flow. Carter had an awesome birthday! Not exactly minimal, but more pared down thatn our crazy plans. Striving for simplicity has really helped me embrace the “it is what it is and it is good enough” philosophy. So it wasn;t a perfect 10 on the minimalist scale, but I was able to tame some of the perfectionist over the top tendancies I have.
All in all, we are still in the struggle. We can try again on Halloween.
geez. there are some serious typos in that last comment.
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It’s okay Jaime. Your comment is good.
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Hey Jaime,
I hate to hear that things have been so busy for you. I totally know that feeling and it can be so incredibly uncomfortable. You’ve had a lot of transitions going on too, with finishing graduate school and all. And thanks for sharing about Carter’s birthday here. I’ll be including it in the book. I think it’s important for people to know that it’s o.k. to be slow in making changes and that sometimes little changes are change enough. Downsizing Carter’s birthday is awesome for so many reasons and I bet he liked it better too.
I can’t wait to hear about the Halloween minimizing attempts. :) It’s harder for really crafty people like yourself. I have become incredibly uncrafty since going minimal!
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I’ve got to start right here at the end of the comments. Have you all ever noticed that I start with the bottom comments and work my way up? I don’t know why but it’s a comfortable way for me to go, but then I feel nervous that someone may feel left out if they notice I commented on someone later. If that’s not ridiculous I don’t know what is!
Anyways, just announcing it here that I absolutely adore each and every one of you for sharing your stories of how you celebrate. Every single one of these is going to be in the book, as well as the ones I received by email. Thank you, thank you, thank you to each and every one of you. (Big beaming smile.) Now I will be making my way up to comment on everyone, but I had to say that first!
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I’m a little behind in my reading…probably because I took some time to slow down this weekend : ) I’m getting better at slowing down. One of my mantras this year is “life is not an emergency” and I’m trying to eliminate “hurry up” from my vocabulary – especially when talking to my girls. I think it’s important to be fully present and enjoy what we are doing, but it’s equally important to enjoy the spaces between activities.
We have fairly simple celebrations in our family, including holidays and birthdays. Our girls are almost 5 and 6 and they have never had a big birthday party with extended family and friends. The main reason for this is that we have moved around a lot in the past 4 years (4 different states) and have never lived close to extended family. We keep the celebration simple by making it a day to celebrate the birthday girl – they get to make their own cake (with help), choose the menu and sometimes choose a special activity for the family to do. My oldest daughter’s birthday is in january and we went cross country skiing this past year. My youngest daughter’s birthday is in October and we went to the zoo.
I was just asking my daughters about Halloween yesterday….both want to be something we already have costumes for! simple
Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to be simple as we refuse to travel home (to NY or IL) and home doesn’t travel to us on holidays! In the past 3 or 4 years we’ve stopped giving gifts to extended family and instead make donations to various charities and ministries. It’s been well accepted and they’ve started doing the same for us. We exchange a few gifts within the immediate family, but not a lot.
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We’ve been scaling back holiday efforts for several years, and finally last Christmas we started no presents. I made a few packets of special treats to exchange with others (things I make that others don’t), but just a few–a batch each of a couple different things. Kept wine on hand to take to gatherings and ready to share when people dropped by. This year we have avoided presents except for birthdays, and then only consumable ones or contributions to specific projects–for instance, a set of herb seedlings for my DIL (spring birthday). We have vowed, also, to never have stressful gatherings ever again (we have stressful family dynamics). Sometimes it is stressful to initiate the changes, but once done, it’s done, and things get better quickly after that.
I used to go all out with holiday decorating, particularly Halloween and Christmas, but these days I work much more symbolically–a small artificial charlie brown tree with a star on top, a favorite pumpkin lit up on Halloween night, a particular meal or dessert. In an uncluttered house, such small things stand out much more, and the sheer simplicity is both elegant and meaningful. The front garden does a lot of the work, as does cooking in season–everything looks, smells, and tastes as if it is celebrating that particular day, whether it is a holiday or not.
Minimalism allows the senses and emotions to appreciate subtlety. I think that at least some of the depression that occurs during holidays comes from not actually feeling the pitch of celebration that is being screamed at you, as if we’re always expected to feel the hyperdriven sense of excitement of very small sugar-fueled children. When the ridiculous volume of tradition and commercialism is turned down, we suddenly realize that we are, indeed, feeling something a little different than we do on other days, we’re not numb or disconnected–or depressed–at all.
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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a blue crab before. Great photos! Are they all that vivid shade of blue?
I amped up the color a touch. I couldn’t resist, it was so beautiful! It was quite blue on it’s own, but I did hit the saturate button in iphoto a few times.
I’ll share how I’ve simplified Christmas.
Last year I determined to make gifts for people. Everyone on my list. I had to shorten the list a bit. I did this by suggesting that we draw names for each other, and, since there are six people in my family and four of them are very young, I ended up making a lot of gifts. It was really great though, because I was creating something every day for over a month. After a week, ideas were flowing like crazy. I couldn’t wait to start working on my projects each day. This year we’re going further. I’ve emailed all of our family (the ones we usually do gift exchanges with) and threw out a bunch of ideas for Christmas, from no gifts and group giving project to those in need (aren’t we all in need of something, really?) to choosing one person to give to with a very small dollar limit to a fun potluck celebration. We still haven’t decided, but everyone was open to doing things differently and shunning consumerism. Yay!
Another thing I did last year was a church project. I was inspired by an idea I’d heard at Donald Miller’s Storyline conference and pitched it to my pastor. That’s when Change Christmas was born. The secretary designed a really cool little envelope/flyer based on the example I showed her and we put $5 in each one. We passed them out at church a few weeks for Christmas and said that they couldn’t put it back in the offering and they had to share their story in some way. It was awesome. I received dozens of stories of people creatively using $5 to bless someone else. We even got other churches involved. I think my favorite was someone who went to a friend’s house who was the mom of some little kids. They told her that they would babysit and sent her away with the $5 to go get some coffee and hang out for a while. I think I liked it so much because I want someone to do that for me. ;) We’re doing it again this year. I’m sure the stories will be amazing.
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That’s a beautiful tradition to share Nina. Thank you so much. I love the pay it forward concept and I bet you will have some wonderful stories to share from that experience. Now I want to know how you shared your five dollars too.
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Ah, my five dollars. I took the five dollars I was given from the original project that inspired for Change Christmas and combined it with the $5 from church and bought hosting and a domain for the site. Not glamorous at all. But I did have a great time putting special touches on the site and doing all of the behind the scenes stuff. This year I’m challenging myself to get really creative.
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