Simply {fair}

Thanksgiving was wonderful, but the moment the turkey hit the trash Jingle Bells started playing and somehow a gingerbread latte made with eggnog showed up in my hand. My feet are ready to hit the ground running the Friday after thanksgiving.. but not to wally world or tar(get). I'm kinda over black friday. But then again, I'm ready to shop.. I just want to enjoy it. I've had some fun early in the morning sneaking out of the house to go round up low priced goodies... but the stories of people being trampled and shot kinda take the fun out of it. What should be a joyus experience celebrating the return of THE King is instead a frantic rush to getgetgetgetgetgetgetgetgetgetgetget and to be firstfirstfirstfirstfirstfirstfirstfirst and by all means to get it cheapcheapcheapcheapcheapcheapcheap. If you are into that, great, but I enjoyed Friday morning on the couch with my snuggle bugs. We did make a run later in the day to get fabric for our Christmas quilt, and to pick up some extension chords so we could hang lights. The lights were up by sundown and my sweet vintage style yard ornaments were nestled into the garden shining happily by bedtime. This time of year always feels like my bank account gets a stomach virus. eeck. We always TRY to stick to a budget, but usually fail miserably. I wanted this year to feel different. I want our purchases to matter more, to mean more, and to point us towards the nativity. I've thought a lot this year about where our stuff comes from. {Have you seen that jaw dropingly awful commercial on tv for the "stuff sack"? It is these children singing this horrendous song about 'How much stuff could a stuff sack stuff if a stuff sack could stuff : exactly like a saturday night live skit... but someone actually paid to make it and it IS REAL.} I do not want more stuff to stuff in our stuff. I just moved. I KNOW how much of our STUFF is actually quite disposable, pointless and gross. At the same time, I love having a comfortable home, and I enjoy blessing my children with toys. It is such a tough balance. While I want to make better choices for the products we buy, I am also leery of falling into the environmental/product equality/ do everything perfect guilt trap. This is not about legalism, or proving I'm a better person or holier than anyone. I simply want to feel a little better about what I buy, and buy with a bit more purpose. I'm attacking this in three ways: buying local, buying Made in the USA, and buying Fair Trade. Not everything (by a long shot) even closely falls into these categories, but by making a few better choices I hope we will start a tradition of buying smarter in our home. I want us to be good stewards of our finances and less selfish.  I'll be posting a few posts this week that show our feeble attempts. I am proof that the spendiest of spenders can make wiser choices and do a little good this holiday season.