by: NC
(NC)—As the holiday season draws near, many Canadians will begin planning a festive get-together for family and friends. The team at Canadian Tire have put together entertaining ideas to add some flare to celebrations this year.
Formal dinner • The table will be the focal point. Choose a festive colour – red or cranberry is the hot colour this year – then coordinate dinnerware, napkins, tablecloths and glassware for an elegant look. • Make a festive centrepiece by arranging glass ornaments in a bowl or a tray with holiday candles. • Personalize it. Place a name card at each setting or a trendy shatter-proof ornament on each plate as a special takeaway at the end of the evening.
Cocktail party • Serve finger foods that people can eat easily while holding a drink. Food stations make for a more informal atmosphere. • Adorn drinks with holiday-themed swizzle sticks and attach wine charms to glass stems to add some flare and help guests identify glasses. • For a sleek look, Canadian Tire has a line of stainless steel bar accessories complete with bottle openers, utensils and drink shakers.
Cookie Exchange • Great way to celebrate and round-up tasty treats for holiday entertaining. • Decide on the number of guests. Ask each person to bring a dozen cookies or squares for each guest. Have guests package treats individually and gather together for a festive celebration to exchange goodies. • Package up treats in holiday mugs, cookie jars and recipe boxes from Canadian Tire or send guests home with holiday-themed cookie cutters. A full range of festive food storage and baking accessories can be found in-store. Skating party • Perfect for those who enjoy the outdoors. • Choose a local outdoor rink or arena and call ahead to reserve space or find out public skating hours. • In the spirit of the season, invite guests to bring extra mitts, scarf or hat to donate to a local charity. • Once the fresh air has worked its magic, invite guests back for warm apple cider, hot chocolate or mulled wine served in festive mugs and accompanied by some fresh, baked goods. - News Canada About the author:News Canada
6/20/08
The Holidays Are a Time to Honor Seniors
by: ARA
(ARA) – Older adults are often the best storytellers in the family. Their memories, traditions and talents are just waiting to be shared. But as we approach the holiday season, many older citizens won’t be near their families because they live far apart. What better way to honor seniors in your family and community and pay tribute to their experiences than by undertaking a project together this holiday season. There are a wide range of projects that individuals, families, and social and service organizations can participate in with older adults. In fact, it is a great opportunity for youth-oriented organizations such as school groups or scout troops to get involved with seniors, according to Betsy Reithemeyer, director of the Wal-Mart/SAM’S CLUB Foundation, which funds thousands of projects designed to enhance the lives of older adults. This year the Foundation donated $1.45 million to more than 2,900 youth groups for projects benefiting seniors. “These activities bring generations together, nurture friendships, encourage volunteerism, and broaden understanding and support in a community,” says Reithemeyer. Here are a few project suggestions for this holiday season: * Host a storytelling time for older adults to relate their favorite holiday memories. * Visit an elderly resident of a nursing home. Many of these individuals never have a visitor at holiday time and would appreciate having someone stop by to share a smile. *Make a holiday greeting card for residents at a retirement center. * Make a family photo album as a holiday gift to the family, complete with dates, locations and identifications of family members. Share stories about special events the family enjoyed together. * Construct a family tree, giving children the opportunity to learn the ancestral line of their family. Strive to preserve particular ethnic or religious beliefs and special holiday traditions. * Ask a senior to share special talents, such as cooking, sculpting or quilting, which can be passed on to interested young people. * Volunteer at a nutrition center or with Meals-on-Wheels to prepare and deliver holiday meals or food baskets to elderly shut-ins. * Design a Web page about a grandparent or favorite older adult. * Videotape an interview with a senior about his or her life. Show it at a meeting of a youth organization and invite the star of the show to attend. * Host a game day at a senior center featuring traditional board games enjoyed by young and old alike. Wal-Mart provides financial support to 501(c)3 youth groups for intergenerational projects every year. Each store makes a donation to fund projects such as delivering fruit baskets to shut-ins, providing lunch for grandparents at a local food kitchen, conducting oral history projects with local centenarians, and visiting nursing home residents whose family members live far away. “Older adults are a vibrant, contributing part of our communities,” says Reithemeyer. “They have a great deal of wisdom and insight to share, and they deserve to be honored.” The Wal-Mart/SAM’S CLUB Foundation funds the many projects chosen by the company’s associates through the Wal-Mart Good Works community involvement program. Whether you choose to do a project in a youth group, as a family, or on your own, the holidays are the perfect time to bring together youth and seniors in your community. Courtesy of ARA Content About the author:Courtesy of ARA Content
(ARA) – Older adults are often the best storytellers in the family. Their memories, traditions and talents are just waiting to be shared. But as we approach the holiday season, many older citizens won’t be near their families because they live far apart. What better way to honor seniors in your family and community and pay tribute to their experiences than by undertaking a project together this holiday season. There are a wide range of projects that individuals, families, and social and service organizations can participate in with older adults. In fact, it is a great opportunity for youth-oriented organizations such as school groups or scout troops to get involved with seniors, according to Betsy Reithemeyer, director of the Wal-Mart/SAM’S CLUB Foundation, which funds thousands of projects designed to enhance the lives of older adults. This year the Foundation donated $1.45 million to more than 2,900 youth groups for projects benefiting seniors. “These activities bring generations together, nurture friendships, encourage volunteerism, and broaden understanding and support in a community,” says Reithemeyer. Here are a few project suggestions for this holiday season: * Host a storytelling time for older adults to relate their favorite holiday memories. * Visit an elderly resident of a nursing home. Many of these individuals never have a visitor at holiday time and would appreciate having someone stop by to share a smile. *Make a holiday greeting card for residents at a retirement center. * Make a family photo album as a holiday gift to the family, complete with dates, locations and identifications of family members. Share stories about special events the family enjoyed together. * Construct a family tree, giving children the opportunity to learn the ancestral line of their family. Strive to preserve particular ethnic or religious beliefs and special holiday traditions. * Ask a senior to share special talents, such as cooking, sculpting or quilting, which can be passed on to interested young people. * Volunteer at a nutrition center or with Meals-on-Wheels to prepare and deliver holiday meals or food baskets to elderly shut-ins. * Design a Web page about a grandparent or favorite older adult. * Videotape an interview with a senior about his or her life. Show it at a meeting of a youth organization and invite the star of the show to attend. * Host a game day at a senior center featuring traditional board games enjoyed by young and old alike. Wal-Mart provides financial support to 501(c)3 youth groups for intergenerational projects every year. Each store makes a donation to fund projects such as delivering fruit baskets to shut-ins, providing lunch for grandparents at a local food kitchen, conducting oral history projects with local centenarians, and visiting nursing home residents whose family members live far away. “Older adults are a vibrant, contributing part of our communities,” says Reithemeyer. “They have a great deal of wisdom and insight to share, and they deserve to be honored.” The Wal-Mart/SAM’S CLUB Foundation funds the many projects chosen by the company’s associates through the Wal-Mart Good Works community involvement program. Whether you choose to do a project in a youth group, as a family, or on your own, the holidays are the perfect time to bring together youth and seniors in your community. Courtesy of ARA Content About the author:Courtesy of ARA Content
The Making of Holiday Events
by: Cyndi Seidler
What's your vision of this holiday season? Creating a memorable holiday is like orchestrating a major production. There are people, props, and agendas involved. Appoint yourself as the producer and bring together the pieces to transform your vision into a reality.Start a list of what activities would give you the most pleasure, and then decide what the main event(s) will be. Are you going to be throwing a party? Having a tree-trimming party? Doing charity work? Going on a light-gazing tour? You might need to do meal planning, party planning, travel planning, and/or gift planning.Break down your holiday event(s) into action tasks. Set priorities and schedules of the activities that need to be carried out. It's a good idea to keep all your planning information in a notebook binder. Put all your lists and information in this to use each year. Keep meal plans, special activity plans, party plans, gift ideas, holiday card lists, and travel details in the binder. Get others involved. Delegate some of the tasks to family or close friends. After all, you're the producer, and producers do their best when they have a team helping them with the production.Another piece of the holiday production would probably include meal plans. Decide on the menus and stock up on food early. It's even a good idea to prepare any food you can in advance. Or, maybe you may want to let someone else cook for you and have your meal catered? If you have helpers, designate a "desert team" to do the holiday baking.No holiday production list is without a separate gift list. Get creative with gift-giving. Make a list of gift ideas that you can create yourself (or buy at affordable costs). Think of something memorable and personal, something useful, something consumable, something that grows, maybe some excursion experiences. If you have some artistic abilities, make a drawing, put your song on a cassette tape, or write some prose and mount it. How about putting together some personal mementos, like an album of photo collections, or a memorable video? Of course, if you have any gifts that need to be mailed, you must also be timely in shipping these out. With postal security, this is important in ensuring the gifts sent by mail arrive in time.The same applies to getting holiday cards mailed out. Schedule this on your calendar so that they are received a week or two before the holiday.Now, a good producer is only as good as they can stay within a budget. So, establish a budget and be realistic on it. It's best to try and break down a budget for each activity. More too often, people resort to using credit cards for their spending needs. But try to adopt policy to do cash-spending. You won't have to look back "after the fact" that you're heavy in debt.Decorating the home for the holidays is yet another part of the production that helps put people in the holiday spirit. You can even make a family event out of this.By the time the holiday events arrive, you just might be nominated to win the Holiday Awards!About the author:"Organizer to the Stars" Cyndi Seidler is an author, syndicated columnist and professional organizer. She's a frequent media guest, and has been helping individuals create organized lifestyles since 1994. Her methods have helped prominent celebrities such as Sinbad, Eric Roberts, Karen Black, Tisha Campbell, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Larina Adamson, Bobbi Billard, Billy Sheehan, and Spencer Davis get a grip on their hectic lifestyles. http://www.cyndiseidler.com
What's your vision of this holiday season? Creating a memorable holiday is like orchestrating a major production. There are people, props, and agendas involved. Appoint yourself as the producer and bring together the pieces to transform your vision into a reality.Start a list of what activities would give you the most pleasure, and then decide what the main event(s) will be. Are you going to be throwing a party? Having a tree-trimming party? Doing charity work? Going on a light-gazing tour? You might need to do meal planning, party planning, travel planning, and/or gift planning.Break down your holiday event(s) into action tasks. Set priorities and schedules of the activities that need to be carried out. It's a good idea to keep all your planning information in a notebook binder. Put all your lists and information in this to use each year. Keep meal plans, special activity plans, party plans, gift ideas, holiday card lists, and travel details in the binder. Get others involved. Delegate some of the tasks to family or close friends. After all, you're the producer, and producers do their best when they have a team helping them with the production.Another piece of the holiday production would probably include meal plans. Decide on the menus and stock up on food early. It's even a good idea to prepare any food you can in advance. Or, maybe you may want to let someone else cook for you and have your meal catered? If you have helpers, designate a "desert team" to do the holiday baking.No holiday production list is without a separate gift list. Get creative with gift-giving. Make a list of gift ideas that you can create yourself (or buy at affordable costs). Think of something memorable and personal, something useful, something consumable, something that grows, maybe some excursion experiences. If you have some artistic abilities, make a drawing, put your song on a cassette tape, or write some prose and mount it. How about putting together some personal mementos, like an album of photo collections, or a memorable video? Of course, if you have any gifts that need to be mailed, you must also be timely in shipping these out. With postal security, this is important in ensuring the gifts sent by mail arrive in time.The same applies to getting holiday cards mailed out. Schedule this on your calendar so that they are received a week or two before the holiday.Now, a good producer is only as good as they can stay within a budget. So, establish a budget and be realistic on it. It's best to try and break down a budget for each activity. More too often, people resort to using credit cards for their spending needs. But try to adopt policy to do cash-spending. You won't have to look back "after the fact" that you're heavy in debt.Decorating the home for the holidays is yet another part of the production that helps put people in the holiday spirit. You can even make a family event out of this.By the time the holiday events arrive, you just might be nominated to win the Holiday Awards!About the author:"Organizer to the Stars" Cyndi Seidler is an author, syndicated columnist and professional organizer. She's a frequent media guest, and has been helping individuals create organized lifestyles since 1994. Her methods have helped prominent celebrities such as Sinbad, Eric Roberts, Karen Black, Tisha Campbell, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Larina Adamson, Bobbi Billard, Billy Sheehan, and Spencer Davis get a grip on their hectic lifestyles. http://www.cyndiseidler.com
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