12 days of SIMPLE holiday gift giving • day 1

In keeping with the holiday spirit I posted about on Friday...

Today is the beginning of the "12 Days of Simple Holiday Gift Giving" I mentioned I'd be sharing.

Let's face it...

over the next 12 days...

high levels of stress, full calendars, last-minute running around

and frustration could potentially sabotage our feelings of giving.

(and sadly, there may be some of you who've never even felt so much as a flicker of that warm holiday spirit yet this year)...

Well...

let's change all of that.

Over the next 12 days my goal is SIMPLE:

• to provide a daily gift of inspiration to lift, encourage and inspire each of you.

AND

• to provide some simple gift-giving ideas that won't break the bank.

My hope is to offer a place to escape for a minute or two...

to regroup...

to refocus...

and ultimately to provide something simple you can do EVERY day to invite the holiday spirit to stay around longer!

Day ONE

If you haven't been listening to holiday music - it's TIME!

You can listen to your regular music ANY day of the year -

You've really only got 12 days left for it to be socially acceptable to jam out to Holiday music.

So take advantage of these next 12 days!!!

Play it in the car...

have some playing in the house while you are cooking...

have it blasting when the kids are getting ready in the morning and when they arrive home from school.

Good music is proven to lift our spirits and alter our frame of mind.

This one little thing could really make such a big difference.

Other ways to incorporate music into your holidays:

• use Pandora's variety of Holiday Playlists - Holidays, Rockin' Holidays, Peaceful Holidays, or create your own playlist using your favorite artists like Jack Johnson, Sarah McLachlan, Zee Avi, James Taylor, Owl City, etc.)

• use Playlist to create your own holiday playlist (or use mine - although it needs to be updated).

• check out the Christmas Album from Glee (we listened to this during our annual cookie baking on Saturday night).

SIMPLE GIFT GIVING IDEA:

Create some Holiday CD's (how-to and suggestions from Martha Stewart)

KEEPING IT REAL

I am not a big t.v. person, (who has time?), so I've never even watched Glee.

But I can tell you I was dancing and singing at the top of my lungs Saturday night to their Christmas album. The windows were open with a kitchen full of family baking together. (there's no shame in my game) *wink*