By Victoria Rolfe / Red Hook, N.Y.
Well, ‘tis the season, folks! If you read my cover story in The Insider last month, “Black Friday is Aptly Named”, then you are well aware of my feelings about the commercial aspects of the holiday season. This is not to say that I do not give gifts to my loved ones this season. In fact, I absolutely adore the day itself, when my family gathers around in our festively decorated living room and takes turns slowly opening each present that has been lovingly chosen for them.
It's not the price of the present that is the important thing. It does not have to be anything elaborate. It’s just the sheer fun of slowly going through that mound of creatively wrapped gifts under the tree. What’s inside the package can be something as mundane as socks or underwear (yes, we go there), or it can be a special surprise affectionately chosen for that person. One year my daughter, Amber, surprised me with tickets to see “Skate America.” We are both figure skating enthusiasts, and this also entailed spending a wonderful weekend in Lake Placid together (I happily funded the accommodations.) What a fabulous and thoughtful surprise!
Yes, that gift involved money spent. And from a young girl who could ill-afford that kind of expenditure, it was certainly a lavish gesture of love. But it was, as they say, the thought that counted. Not only was it generous, but it was a great way of saying, “I want to spend time with you, enjoying something we love together”.
But “the thought” does not have to involve a big price tag, or any purchase at all. It could be a key chain, or refrigerator magnet, or bookmark that made that person think of you. It could be something picked up at a thrift shop that someone knew you would just love. Or perhaps something that your loved one made just for you.
As our children were growing up, I tried to emphasis the non-materialistic aspects of the holidays. We decorated cookies together. We made snowflakes for the windows. We adopted a less fortunate family to shop for. We made our own holiday cards to send to family and friends. We made ornaments for the tree.
In this spirit, I implemented something we called our “special assignment.” Each year, it was something different (some favorites were repeated occasionally). For instance, several years, we all made a calendar (secretly) together. With two adults and four kids, equaling six, it was simple enough to divide the twelve months into two apiece. We put the months on pieces of paper into a hat, and each chose two, then got to work on secretly designing our pages.
On our day of festivities, we all put our pages in a designated location and then at the appointed time, we all got to admire them together. To make it even more fun, we all tried to guess who made which ones. The creativity was phenomenal! I later took the pages to Staples and had them made into a calendar for our wall to enjoy all year.
Some of the artwork Victoria’s talented family came up with for their household calendar
Another year, I gave each person five pieces of card stock paper and told them to make a page for each person in the family, decorating in any way they wished and telling that person what they mean to you and what you love about them (of course, I did it too). Then I made covers and put all the pages for each person into a book just for them. It brought tears to my eyes to see all the affection and appreciation expressed in those pages. I read them again and again.
A lot of the years involved putting all our names into a hat and each picking one name out. But this grab bag assignment always came with a twist. One year it was that you had to make something for that person. Another year, more specifically, you had to bake something for them. Another year (back when cassettes were still a thing), you had to make a mix tape for your chosen person. And of course, you always had to guess who your special gift came from.
One year, when I was lamenting that I still had fairly empty walls in my house, I assigned everyone to make something to hang on the wall. Many years (decades?) later, I still have a few of those art pieces on my wall. I just took my son, Colin’s, down to repaint my living room. He made 8 x 10 prints of some jellyfish he photographed at the aquarium that year.
For me, it’s not those big-screen TVs, or new laptops, or other fancy gadgets that make the holidays so special. It’s decorating, and baking, and spending the month of December secretly preparing surprises to show each other just how much we mean to one another. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t have to cost anything. It truly is the thought that counts.
Wishing you all a holiday of warmth, love, hot cocoa, fun, surprises, laughter, and hugs. And a happy, healthy, peaceful new year of simple abundance. From the Rolfe family to yours.
A long, long time ago, after the birth of her third child, Victoria made the life-changing decision to leave the work world behind and devote herself to being a full-time mom and homemaker. Along with her new title of Domestic Engineer, she took on the role of the Chief Home Economist for the family.
At first, it was scary to try to live on less than half their income, but Victoria found that she not only rose to the challenge but thrived in the enjoyment of learning to live their best life with limited resources. She embraced this new frugal lifestyle of the at-home-mom and went on to add a fourth child to the mix. And their family was complete.
Along the way she acquired a great deal of wisdom in how to not only avoid debt, but pay off mortgages early, buy cars for cash, travel on a shoe-string budget, and send kids to college with no student loans, all while also saving a tidy nest egg for retirement. She currently educates others in these skills through her business Bright Future.
Now living the life of a modern homesteader in the Hudson Valley, New York, Victoria has added gardening to her list of skill sets as she grows many of her own vegetables to supplement her family’s primarily vegan diet. And she has come to realize that this waste-not, want-not, carbon-friendly, sustainable life she is living is not only benefiting her own family but also our Mother Earth, and that each of us has the obligation to live a responsibly sustainable life not only for ourselves, but for the greater good of our community, and our planet. We can all do this one household and backyard at a time. We are the world! And it all begins right at home.
Victoria can be reached at brightfuture2budget4@gmail.com
This is a great follow up to the Black Friday article with such meaningful gift ideas. I loved all the family generated and creative gifts like the calendar, postcards and wall art.