With all the holiday preparations for our own family’s get-togethers once our catering parties were over we were unable to make the last week’s blog. It amazes me how much preparation there is leading up to what is pretty much a one day event! Some people celebrate on Christmas Eve, which we do very privately by ourselves, then Christmas Day with some of our family and then on into Boxing Day to ensure everyone is able to visit or be visited. During this period presents are given and received and enormous amounts of food are consumed and the wine flows.
Our holiday celebration has followed this pattern for many years, as I am sure most of yours have too. This year we wanted to change things in the spirit of our new sustainable life style. This proved to be more difficult than we had anticipated.
At home we thought it would be simpler, we just told each other no “unnecessary” gifts, only things that are needed, sustainable, fair trade, no animal cruelty, no excess packaging. With little time Roger and I had only one afternoon/evening together to achieve this. When it came to giving to others gift certificates were a hit in our book. As long as we felt the store, spa etc were selling/using products we agreed with it would be ok. Not as easy as we thought, having to call spas and quiz them on their products was quite difficult, many will not give you the information or just don’t know. Larger stores have a multitude of products so it would depend what our recipients bought with their certificates as to whether it would be considered a sustainable gift or not. Hmmm could we put stipulation on redeeming on the cards? A sincere thank you goes out to The Body Shop, who not only have fair trade, no cruelty to animal products they also took a donation to stop sex trafficking of young girls and women from third world countries, a good way to end our shopping marathon.
One of the best successes; to cook gifts for our friends and family with ingredients that we were comfortable with, organic local milled flour, free range eggs, organic butter, fair trade coffee. Giving cookies, cakes, puddings, tarts etc., did take a bit of time but was cost effective and a big hit. Note to self, start this preparation much earlier next year!
All in all we had a fab Christmas, thank you this year to Found Family Farm for the most outstanding free range turkey ever, also the beautiful free range eggs and chicken as well. Swain Beef for ground beef and steak in our yummy pastries and beef bourguignon. Maple Wind Farm (working on their new site for now producing lamb) for their bacon in my sausages, stuffing and brussel sprouts. Tyrone Mills for their flour in my bread, cakes and pastry. Yellowlees Family Farm for their ground lamb in my mini pies, meatballs and burgers. Algoma Orchards for apples. The Beekeeper for honey, propolis and bee pollen. Prestonvale Tree Farm for our beautiful Christmas tree. Ocala Winery for their outstanding wines and hospitality throughout the year. The Brickworks Farmers Market, for so many amazing suppliers. Oshawa Farmers Market on so many beautiful sunny Friday afternoons. Our great friend Dennis Brown for his continued support and keeping us on track through difficult times. To Russ Beverley for getting Roger back into the gym and enjoying every minute of it.
Lastly thank you to my amazing family for not only embracing this change but continuously raising the bar and converting all who will listen. Thank you 2010, hello 2011 I know we are going to be great friends. Happy New Year!
No comments:
Post a Comment