LILL's LIST

There’s still time. Don’t panic. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice (like us) or something completely different, there’s still time to come up with a present that is earth-friendly, homemade and frugal as all get-out.

But before you get out the fruitcake recipes, consider these options, which may be just different enough to please even the most persnickety family and friends. My favorite is something I received last year. It’s the present I’ve used the most and its recipient was in my thoughts every time I used it.

My friend gave me a beautiful old teapot that she got for a quarter at a thrift store. It was nice, but even nicer were the 100 teabags that came with it. They were half organic black tea and the other fifty were various herbal blends. The really neat part of the whole thing is that she had removed the tags from every one and wrote her own little taglines.

It is SO neat to pull out a “Cold Cure” teabag when I’m feeling kind of stuffed up and read: “Let my warm thoughts fill your heart while this hot tea chases your cold away.” It’s almost like my friend is sharing a cup of tea with me at my kitchen table. I swear it intensifies that medicinal power of the tea.

You could let your kids help you write the tags for relatives and friends who would love to hear from them – and you – but live at a distance. What grandmother wouldn’t love a cup of tea with her grandson’s red heart and an “I love Grandma” on the tag hanging over her cup?

If you’re not into tea and sympathy this holiday season, how about letting the kids decorate a plain white cloth bag for earth-friendly shopping? Or get some cheap stencils and do it yourself with a picture of Mother Earth or a brightly colored bird or a slogan like, “Save The Earth… BYOB” which stands for “Bring Your Own Bag”, of course.

There are so many free or very inexpensive – but really useful – gifts that you can make. There’s no excuse to give the same old tired crafts and knicknacks. Instead of candles, make them some gel air fresheners from jello or gelatin in pretty glasses you’ve found at yard sales or thrift stores. Here’s a recipe I posted last year.

Make a hanging air freshener with some cedar shavings from the local pet store and some essential oil. Put them into small cloth bags so friends and family can hang them up. Or for a gift that’s sure to be appreciated, find out what your friend or relative does that you can give them a gift for so that they don’t have to buy it themselves.

Do they feed the birds? Buy them the kind of bird seed or suet they use. Do they have a hobby that calls for supplies? Find out what they need and get them some. It’s a luxury not to have to buy the everyday things that eat up our budgets, and sometimes people are hesitant to spend money on hobbies or non-essentials this time of year. If you do it for them, there’s no guilt!

The most important part of homemade gifts is using your imagination and time to come up with something that is truly useful and that will be appreciated by the recipient. Homemade gifts have gotten a bad wrap, er, rap because so many times they’re just an excuse not to have to choose or pay for a present.

If you give someone something that was thrown together in haste, with very little thought, only to get out of buying something, your friend or family member might act pleased, but they’ll know it isn’t from the heart. That’s the most important part of gift-giving, whether it’s bought or made by hand. So, while there’s still time, think about what you have on hand or can buy inexpensively and figure out whether that will work for the folks on your list. If it doesn’t, head for the mall and don’t beat yourself up.

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