Are Celebrity Crushes Realistic?

“I’ll never cheat on you unless (insert celebrity here) walks in…”

I’m sure you’ve heard something like that before. If you haven’t heard it in your personal life, I’m sure you’ve heard it in pop culture to some extent. It’s the concept of “celebrity hall pass.”

A “celebrity hall pass” for couples is defined as an agreement between couples that if they ever get the chance to be with (sexually) their favorite celebrity or “hall pass” they can do so without any consequences from their relationship. Why do they call it a “hall pass?” It is a metaphor from our school days when roaming the hallways was forbidden unless you had a pass from the teacher to be in the hall. The concept is fun to think about. It allows some fantasy into your relationship to dream about which celebrities you would cheat with if you had the opportunity.

But why fantasize about cheating even if it’s with a celebrity? This is a double-edged sword. It is said that healthy couples should be able to watch a movie together or sit in a restaurant and look comfortably at the opposite (or same) sex while still being secure in their relationship, but doesn’t it always leave some unrealistic expectation that your partner is lacking compared to your celebrity crush? Really, it depends on how you feel. I have read many articles including this one by the website SheKnows.

The author, Kacie McCoy, discusses the pros and cons of celebrity hall passes. McCoy states that couples shouldn’t take hall passes seriously, and they should discuss the boundaries of what is considered cheating as a couple. She also reminds her readers that they would not want their significant other fantasizing about a certain celebrity during sex. Cheating of the mind is still cheating, so discuss this with your partner.

I wanted to know what other women thought about this topic, so I posted a poll in my Girl Talk group on Facebook. Fifty-one women voted in my poll, and forty-three of them said that they openly talk about celebrity crushes and hall passes in their relationships, six women said they had no opinion either way, and two women thought that thinking about another person in their relationship was cheating even if it was a celebrity. This also sparked a lively debate in the comments of my poll. The consensus from these women (the ones that voted yes) was that the idea of a “hall pass” with their significant other was a joke because (as I stated above), in what world would that happen?

The poll I posted in my GirlTalk group.

I believe in looking but not fantasizing because, as mentioned by Christen in our Podcast, in real-world Texas, it is unlikely that we would run across our fantasy crushes in real life. It’s a nice daydream though. Honestly, if I ran into a celebrity on the street, I wouldn’t even recognize them unless I was actively looking for celebrities. While we are talking about it, though, my celebrity crush will always be Leonardo DiCaprio from Romeo and Juliet, because I teach high school English. My students hear enough about him leading up to the reading of Shakespeare. Essentially, I like the idea of Leo (Romeo) at that moment in time from the 90’s Romeo and Juliet movie and probably not the real-life DiCaprio.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes

I want to hear from my readers. Please, tell me in the comments what you think of the “celebrity hall pass” idea. Also, tell me your celebrity crushes!

Celebrity Hall Pass

Since we’ve been talking so much about the holidays and planning for 2022, I thought it might be fun to change things up a bit with a fun little discussion about celebrities…specifically celebrity crushes.

A long while back, I was watching an episode of “This is Us” (I love that show!), when one of the characters, Kevin, went on a fun and adventurous date only to find out that he was his date’s “Celebrity Hall Pass.” Kevin had never heard of that phrase, and neither had I, but we both knew what it was...it’s the one celebrity that your spouse or significant other will give you a “pass” to date or sleep with if the opportunity ever arises. 

Shocking as that may sound to some people, it actually is a real thing, and no, I am not condoning extramarital dalliances with your celebrity crush. In fact (spoiler alert), Kevin’s date comes clean and admits she can’t go through with it, and I feel like that’s probably the case with most people who have celebrity crushes. I know it is for me.

For the podcast this week, we’ll be talking more about celebrity crushes and whether we think a “Hall Pass” is good, bad, or irrelevant. I’ll also be revealing who I would choose for my “Hall Pass”. Tell us yours, or join in the discussion in the comments below, or in the Facebook Group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/281022473463978

Thanks for reading,

Cindy

 

Secret Santa Stocking Stuffers

Hey, it’s Cindy again, and I’m here to wrap up our talk about holiday traditions. I think we’ve already established that I like Christmas...a lot. I love giving gifts, something I got from my Dad, who was always giving surprise gifts to my mom. I think he really loved the part of Santa --  those secret gifts stuffed into stockings and piled up under the tree to be discovered on Christmas morning. It’s one of the reasons he was still leaving things for my sister and me long after we were grown and had children of our own. 

One of the things I loved was that there was usually a Santa gift for my mom, too. It wasn’t necessarily something big, just a token of his affection stuffed in her stocking or stacked neatly where she’d be sure to find it. I carried on that tradition with my own family, filling their stockings every year, even after the kids were grown and there was no reason to be secretive about any of it. But one thing always bothered me -- I loved the giving, but I missed being surprised. 

A few years ago, at a board meeting with my Aggie Moms group (that’s a whole podcast of its own!), the president asked us to share a fun Christmas tradition. So as we went around the table, one of the other moms told us how her family had an unusual gift-giving routine. Someone in the family would pick a store and everyone in the family had to buy a gift from that store. The store changed every year, and sometimes it could be a real challenge because it might be a unique specialty store, or even a gas station!

This sounded like great fun, and wound up being the perfect solution to my stocking surprise dilemma. I told my family about my idea, and we all agreed to give it a try. For that first year, we agreed to Dollar Tree as our store, and the challenge was for everyone in the family to buy one gift for each person in the family (we didn’t have any kids then). There was no price limit because...well, it was Dollar Tree. On Christmas Eve, we all stuffed each other’s stockings before we went to bed, and then we sat around the breakfast table the next morning, exploring what we got. We had a lot of great laughs and wound up with some fun little goodies that we might never have bought for each other or ourselves. After that, it was a tradition.

Over the years, we’ve shopped at Always 99¢, Daiso, Five Below, Dollar Tree (again), and others. Sometimes it’s easy to find gifts, and sometimes it’s a real challenge, but it’s always fun, and everyone looks forward to both giving and receiving the fun little trinkets we find. Notably, it never fails that someone buys me something with a llama on it, and I always find something for one of the girls that has a mermaid. Now if only I can remember what store we picked for this year….

 

Christen's Favorite Holiday Tradition

Back a couple weeks ago I was talking about my December bucket list, and some of the holiday traditions that I love. One of the newer traditions that I have stated recently is really just an old tradition that has evolved over the years, and it’s one that I seem to look forward to the most. It has kind of formed its own bucket list of sorts. Mom and I have been compiling a list of Christmas themed movies over the past couple of years, and we select certain ones we want to watch; we literally take a vote each year and plan movie nights together. Please tell me other families are as neurotic as mine? So far we have watched the traditional movies everyone knows and remembers as well as some not-so traditional holiday movies. The debate is still up about some of them like Diehard and So I Married an Axe Murderer. In addition to those holiday movies, there has been a binge fest of Terminator, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. This  year I am thinking Marvel is a good idea, as my mom hasn't even seen Aquaman yet!

This nonsense all started with those old Christmas movies that I grew up watching, like the stop motion The Year Without a Santa Claus or the animation Frosty the Snowman, both of which were produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. Anyone my age can recall watching these films growing up. They originally aired on TV, and still do if you keep an eye out for them. We even watched them in school countless times.

As I got older, I wanted to watch more and more of the holiday films and I discovered Hallmark one lazy afternoon. My best friend and I sat at her mom's house one day from morning till night watching back to back movies. The three of us snuggled up on the couch just lazing the day away, each dozing off into tiny naps. I have to have my snuggle days in the winter time, I guess the combination of the weather and warm drinks and food that just make me want to hibernate. What’s more enjoyable than cuddling up on the weekend and watching some cheesy holiday movies? Once I discovered the ridiculousness of Hallmark Christmas movies I was hooked! 

I try to watch as many Christmas themed movies as humanly possible during the holiday season. It does take some planning if you need to include the kids or want to have a holiday watch party. If you are flying solo, Hallmark takes the guesswork out of it. There is basically a new movie every two hours all day every day. If you have a DVR you can record the ones you miss while at work. If you ditched cable or can’t seem to get in sync with the network channel and you need your movie fix ASAP, Netflix has been really pulling out the stops for their holiday movies. Last year, we enjoyed Klaus, Jingle Jangle and Christmas Chronicles 2 as a family. I also enjoyed watching all of the Princess Switch movies. If you have children in your watch party, I recommend spending about 10 minutes on Netflix adding all the holiday movies to the watch list on the kids profile. This will keep the movies streaming for hours. I especially like to have these on while I am doing my holiday baking, because I have seen them all a thousand times and don’t have to be 100 % engaged. I can sit down, watch a few minutes of Home Alone in between cookie batches while I rest my feet.

This year, I am also excited to bring out all of the old Christmas classics from the 70’s that my husband and I enjoyed growing up that I mentioned earlier. My mom recently cleaned out her movie collection and gave us all of the VHS tapes, and she had all those favorites. We plan on blowing the dust off of the VHS player soon and popping those babies in for some throwbacks!  If you are interested in looking up the old animated films that we all loved to watch growing up, here is a great list of holiday themed movies; just scroll down to the 'Television Specials' graph and you will see all your favorites and more. 

What is your favorite holiday movie? Do you think Die Hard is a Christmas movie? Let me know of any little gems that aren't as mainstream because I have the desire to watch them all and want to add them to my Ultimate Holiday Movie List – Coming soon!

Traditions: Cookies and a Smile

When I think of traditions I think of consistency. I think of something that you can rely on every year that does not change. As I’ve talked about before in an earlier blog, I am still exploring holiday traditions as a newly solitary orphan (meaning I live alone) and I spend the holidays in different places exploring what I want to do in my life. Before all of that, my family life was pretty traditional as I’ve stated before. One tradition that has been passed down generations in my family is holiday baking.

I love to bake. I started baking with my grandma when I was a little kid, and then with my mom as I got older. Every holiday, especially Christmas, my mom and I had a cookie day in the kitchen. We made other items such as candy and pies, but cookies were our big thing. My mom had a list of extended family and friends that we would bake for. The list included her best friends, coworkers, and distant cousins. We would bake shortbread, dip Oreos in chocolate, make caramel corn, and yogurt-covered pretzels. We then filled tin after tin and wrapped/labeled them. That weekend (usually the weekend before Christmas), we would have a “Santa day” as my mom would call it, and we would fill our car full of baked goods and drive around town and drop them off. 

My favorite person to visit was my mom’s old boss and his wife, Jack, and Liz. Their house was a magical, enchanted house full of musical instruments and music boxes because Liz was a former music teacher. Jack was a former owner of a restaurant and my mom was his manager when I was really little. My mom and Jack would talk and I would turn on every one of Liz’s music boxes while Liz played me songs on the piano. We did this every year until Jack passed away when I was in middle school and Liz went to live with their son out of state. 

Over the years, as life gets busy, my mom started a new career and slowed down on holiday baking. However, in high school, I picked it up when my grandma taught me how to make cake cookies. Cake cookies are not traditional cookies. They are done by using cake mix instead of cookie batter, oil, and eggs. When they are cooked, they have a fluffy, cake-like consistency that is appealing. Smaller than a muffin top but larger than a traditional cookie. My grandmother traditionally used the strawberry batter to make strawberry cookies because those were her favorite.

As I grew older, I began to experiment with different combinations of cake batter, toppings, and colors such as lemon cake with vanilla chips and red velvet cake and sprinkles. For events and holidays, I typically like to use this method to make cookies in bulk because I can knock out 200-300 cookies in a weekend and begin to package them up to distribute. It is a process that I have been doing for years. I make a lot of different flavor combinations and distribute them between different containers of various different sizes. Who do I give these cookies to? Everyone, of course!

Since I am a teacher, I make a small container for each of my bosses and coworkers. I make a large container for my classes (one cookie per student). Then, I make medium containers for my friends and extended family that I don’t individually buy gifts for. When it’s all said and done, I typically make around 300 cake cookies every Christmas for friends and family.

Why cake cookies and not more traditional cookies? They are a great time saver when it comes to making cookies because it typically only takes eight minutes to make a batch. Also, they are not cookies that you can typically go to a store and buy unless you know a baker that makes cake cookies. Since I have been making these for years, my friends, family, and coworkers expect me to bring them a container of cookies or bring them to family dinners. If I don’t bring them, I get asked, “where are the cookies?”

The recipe is simple enough to make:

Print Recipe Here:

*I typically don’t measure add-ins. I just put what I think looks good but this is for those that need a measurement.

My Favorite flavor combinations (they are endless):

• Red Velvet + vanilla chips
• Red Velvet + chocolate chips
• Lemon + vanilla chips
• Strawberry + sprinkles
• Strawberry + vanilla chips
• Classic butter + peanut butter
• Classic butter + butterscotch chips
• Fudge + sprinkles
• Fudge + chocolate chips
• German Chocolate + German Chocolate Frosting

This past Thanksgiving, I whipped up a batch to take to dinner with my boyfriend’s family and they were well received. Jason told me when I brought them over that he didn’t think he’d ever had a cake mix cookie. So, I was able to share my family tradition with his family this year and introduce them to the love of cake mix cookies. That is what holiday traditions are all about.

Jason and I at Thanksgiving

A Sugar-Free Twist on a Classic Cookie

In our podcast this week we talked about sugar-free recipes for the holidays. This is a subject that hits close to home in numerous ways. When I was in middle school, my dad was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and when I was in high school, my mom was diagnosed as well. For most of my life, I tried to remain conscious of that fact. My family does not have the best genetics. We have a lot of health problems, but I’ve always considered myself lucky that I don’t have many health problems. The doctors always told me that it wasn’t a matter of if I have diabetes, but a matter of when. I don’t believe that to be true. I may not be able to stump genetics forever, but I can slow down the inevitable outcome.

In high school, I actually stopped drinking sugary drinks and switched to sugar-free sweeteners. While I wasn’t gaining weight, I wasn’t losing weight either. In fact, sugar substitutes can sometimes do more harm than good if they are not consumed in moderation.

In general, I avoid sugar substitutes because I just can’t stand the taste. However, a couple of years ago, I started cutting the carbohydrates from my life, which included refined sugars. It’s hard to cut sweets if you have a sweet tooth like I do. So, I went on a mental and spiritual journey to find a great-tasting sugar substitute to appease my sweet tooth. In the end, I found Swerve.

My favorite candy is a Reese’s Cup. In fact, peanut butter is what I crave most. My ex-husband used to make the best three-ingredient peanut butter cookies, but they were incredibly high in sugar. Last year, I resolved to find a keto-friendly recipe so I could enjoy my favorite cookies while eating low-carb. I wanted something sweet(er) that I could eat that was more than just peanut butter out of the jar with semi-sweet dark chocolate chips mixed in. I found a keto twist on the classic peanut butter recipe on the blog The Big Man's World.

The cookies came out great! With all sugar-free sweeteners, the taste is not going to be exactly the same. I’ve found that Swerve does not taste as artificial to me as other sweeteners. The taste is very similar to real sugar. Check out the recipe conversions below.

Unfortunately, cutting sugar and trying to make it taste the same is not going to be an exact science. I am still working it out. Swerve has been a life-saver. I use the brand in most of my low-sugar recipes. It even tastes great in my tea! I took these cookies to a birthday party thrown by a friend on the keto diet and they were well-received. If you love peanut butter as much as I do and you want a cookie or two, don’t feel guilty about this recipe.

Print Recipe

Let me know what you think in the comments below if you’ve tried this recipe. Also, if you have any sugar-free recipes to share, e-mail us at info@modernmusings.net.

Sugar-Free Baking: Converting a Family Favorite

If there’s anything I’ve learned about trying new recipes, it’s that it is always a good idea to have a backup plan. Especially when you are experimenting with sugar-free baking. Especially when I am the one doing the baking. Because I can never be satisfied with just finding some tried-and-true sugar-free recipe...I have this insane desire to make all the recipes I love into a sugar-free version. And sometimes it just doesn’t work.

I remember well the early days of sugar-free baking. My younger sister, Patsy, was a Type 1 diabetic and dependent on insulin. This was back in the days when we called it “Juvenile Diabetes”, and doctors thought the main difference was the age at which you developed it. It was a lot harder to control back then, and there weren’t a lot of options for diabetics with a sweet tooth. Almost everything had a chemical aftertaste, and it was always either way too sweet, or not sweet enough. I almost gag every time I think about that pie my mom made one time using a can of sugar-free pineapple pie filling. It was so gross.

These days, there are lots of sugar-free products out on the market, and you can find hundreds of recipes on the internet, but so many of them still lack that special “umph” that a well-seasoned family recipe brings to the table. Store-bought sweets are dull by comparison, and when you’ve enjoyed every Christmas eating a big pile of cinnamon oatmeal cookies, well...Voortman’s brand of hard, dry, oatmeal wafers just don’t cut it.

It wasn’t long after I found out I, too, was diabetic, that I started playing with my family recipes in hopes that I could still eat them. I’ve dabbled with quite a few, and some have turned out much better than others.  Take, for instance, the age-old “Jell-o Cake” that I’ve been trying to perfect. It’s never just a matter of swapping sugar for artificial sugar...sometimes it changes the recipe completely. A sugar-free apple pie will wind up too watery because the artificial sweetener doesn’t caramelize while it bakes, and a sugar-free glaze on top of a cake will turn back into crystals when it cools, rather than stay moist and syrupy. So you have to have a bit of knowledge about the chemistry of baking before you begin, and backup options are always a good plan.

And that’s exactly where we’re going with today’s blog post. So, I had a plan to remake my mom’s moist and delicious Jell-O cake using sugar-free Jell-O and the newly discovered, Duncan Hines Keto Yellow Cake Mix. It sounded like it would be easy. The original recipe called for “any” yellow cake mix, combined with the ingredients listed on the box, plus one small box of Jell-O, one extra egg, and an extra ⅓ cup of cooking oil. A sugar-free/Keto version should work pretty much the same, right? Not so much.

If you want to see all my mistakes, and the numerous variations I’ve tried when I made this recipe, head on over to our YouTube channel, but for the sake of brevity, let’s just say there were way too many variables, but I did finally figure it out. In the mean time I had to come up with a backup plan….

Since I promised a sugar-free recipe for the holidays, I thought I’d take a step back and talk about a really yummy sugar-free dessert I made for another holiday...Easter. One of our favorite desserts at Easter has always been my mom’s Banana Pudding, and I never dreamed I would be able to make it sugar-free because it contains a key ingredient that is absolutely not sugar-free -- Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk. It’s nothing but milk and sugar, right? And I have never seen a sugar-free version of it in any store, so I just assumed it couldn’t be done. That is until I ran across this recipe from Arman Liew at The Big Man’s World. This simple recipe has changed my sugar-free baking forever and has allowed me to cook up many of our family favorites without the worry of too much sugar or carbs. It uses just 3 ingredients and has only 1 net gram of carbs per serving. We’ve tried it with ice cream recipes, Magic Cookie Bar recipes, and, of course, Mom’s delicious banana pudding. 

The first time I made this recipe, I had to swap out several ingredients to keep it sugar-free, but they were easy swaps, and did not affect the flavor or consistency of the dessert, so it worked very well for our needs. However, once I sat down to write this blog, I found that one of the key ingredients, Murray brand Sugar-free Nilla Wafers, was no longer available for purchase. There are some sugar-free and/or Keto Nilla Wafers on the market, but I haven’t tried them yet, so I cannot make a recommendation. I also found this simple-looking recipe for homemade Keto Vanilla Wafers that looks like it might be worth trying. In the meantime, if you’re okay with a little sugar (less than 10g per ½ cup serving), you could make the recipe as written above and use the regular Nilla wafers. You could even substitute another type of sugar-free cookie or skip the wafers altogether…the cookies were never my favorite part anyway….

But conquering the sugar in a recipe isn’t the end-all of making our family desserts healthy. A more thorough examination of the nutrition facts revealed that it still wasn’t quite as low-carb as I thought it would be. And that’s one of the hard facts about sugar-free baking -- just because it’s sugar-free, doesn’t mean it’s low carb or even healthy at all. When made to Mom’s specs, I estimate that a ½ cup serving contains about 7g fat, 26g carbs, 195 calories, and almost 3g protein, but when I made it sugar-free, I wound up with 13g fat, 13g carbs, 188 calories, and less than 1g protein. Yes, it was ½ the carbs, but it was still almost the same calories and it had twice the fat. The extra fat came from the homemade condensed milk, and, unfortunately, after the condensed milk, the banana itself was the biggest contributor to the calories and carbs, and what would banana pudding be without the bananas? 

At any rate, I’ve included the recipe below. Make it sugar-free, make it fat free, make it the normal way, I think it will still be delicious no matter what you do. Just keep in mind that often when you swap out sugar, something else, like fats are added to make it still taste good, and it’s best to keep a close eye on the nutrition facts before you decide to chow down on the whole bowl. 

So the point of all this is to say, sometimes cooking sugar-free is an easy swap that tastes great, and sometimes, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. I will say it was totally worth making the sugar-free version of Mom’s pudding because it was delicious and in the process I discovered the Keto condensed milk recipe, which has made it possible to bake a lot of other things. So my advice is to give experimentation a try. Calculate the time, the expense, the carbs and all the other details to see if it’s worth it and go for it! You never know whether you’ve found the next great family recipe until you try it. And if not, well, hopefully, you made that backup plan….

And now, without further ado, here is Mimi’s Banana Pudding (the almost sugar free version), and I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Print Recipe

* For the record, I do not know the origin of this recipe. My mom got it from my Aunt Dena, who has long since passed, and we have no idea where she got it from. If you know the original source of this recipe, please send an email with links so I can give credit where credit is due!

 

Sugar Free Recipes for the Holidays

One thing I really enjoy about this time of the year is the baking. My mom and I spend quite some time together in the kitchen. Even my daughter Reyna enjoys partaking in this holiday tradition. There is usually a great deal of laughter, a little swearing, at least one bickering session over techniques, and a lot of bonding that goes on. Each year Mom and I sit down and pre-plan out what sweets and treats we will be making, and the cookies, candy and holiday bread start churning out of the kitchen shortly after thanksgiving is over. Most of the candy is shared with others, but that doesn't mean there isn’t a mountain of candies on the countertop at both of our homes. We make these sweet treats to enjoy and share but too much can be dangerous for our health. 

Cindy and Christen making Fruit Cake Cookies 

also known as Christmas Crack

You might not be aware, but my husband is diabetic as well as my mom. I am also working hard on maintaining my own healthy diet, as I am very close to being diabetic myself. I had weight loss surgery in 2018, and I need to keep a close watch on my carb and sugar intake. It is a real challenge when the winter months come around to stick to our diets because we all want warm fulfilling foods, and to top it off the sweet tooth really seems to come out too! In the past, Mom and I would just make lots of candies, and not be concerned with the amount of sugars we were consuming. As the years have gone on, and we are more self aware, we realized that some changes need to be made so that we can continue our baking traditions, but not kill ourselves and our family with all the excess sugars and carbs.

One thing I want to specify is that there is a wide spectrum of food, recipes and replacement sweeteners out there. You will want to watch things closely; just because something is sugar-free does not mean it is low in carbohydrates. I am not a health food expert or nutritionist by any means. Infact, I regularly depend on others' expertise to make sure that I am making healthy choices and selecting the right products. I have been learning some tricks though. It seems that this past year especially, Mom and I have been exploring various family recipes that we have enjoyed over the years, but with a twist. We will take one of the ingredients (like the sugar) and convert it to a sugar-free substitute, or exchange the flour for a lower-carb or no-carb option. We have even tried some keto recipes that were very similar to some of our all time favorites. 

There have been some successes and some major failures. My best advice I can give you at this time is to try it at home for casual dining first to ensure that it tastes good. Don’t volunteer to make someone’s birthday cake and then try to make a keto cake from an unfamiliar method without trying it first. Sometimes you will be blown away by the similarity, and other times gravely disappointed. For example, we made a keto dump cake while camping a couple of months ago, and it was a little disappointing. I was just glad that it was only our family eating it, and not something we had to take to a potluck!

The absolute best recipe conversion that we have done to date was an old favorite of mine since I was a kid called “Mexican Wedding Cookies”, also known as “Russian TeaCakes” and “Snowball Cookies”. I think I have seen them called “Danish Cookies” as well. Mom and I have made these cookies time and time again. They have a short ingredient list so the taste is very specific and consistent year over year. This is a simple recipe if you want to try something sugar free and are still on the fence about the taste of sugar free desserts. It's also a great way to bake and give someone the gift of a sugar free dessert, which would be totally awesome, because you can ask anyone who is restricted to sugar-free options and they will tell you that there is hardly ever anything sugar-free for dessert.

So bust out your apron, you will want it for this delicious sugar-free recipe below:

Be sure to listen in on the Podcast on Wednesday and we will be taking a deeper dive into sugar-free baking. If you would like a printable version of the recipe click here.

Holiday Tipping Guide

In Monday's post Cindy discussed the art of sending Christmas cards. Another holiday tradition along those lines that many people may not be aware of is tipping. Technically it is considered proper etiquette to send tips to those who you regularly conduct business with during the holiday season. If you are in the mood for a little extra giving or would like to give back to those who work hard to provide you services on a regular basis, then you are in the right place. Today, I would like to introduce you to three great ways that you can easily work tip giving into your regular holiday traditions, handmade gifts, purchased gifts and what I like to call, drop-ins. I will even discuss some ways that won't break the bank! 

Before I go over what you can expect a typical holiday tip to be I would like to list some examples of who you might consider giving one to. Here is a list of common service providers, but please keep in mind, this is not an all-inclusive list. I actually threw in some examples that are common in my life that may not be widely recognized.

• Lawn service
  
• Maid or housekeeper
  
• Babysitter
  
• Pet sitter or walker
  
• Pet groomer
  
• Mail carrier
  
• Mechanic
  
• Hairdresser
  
• Nail tech
  
• Masseuse
  
• Pest control tech
  
• Your regular pizza delivery guy
  
• Mass transit driver
  
• Newspaper delivery person
  
• Wait staff at your favorite restaurant
  
• The barista that gets your tricky order right all the time
  
• Healthcare provider
  
• Bartender
  
• Doorman
  
• Trash Valet
  
• Plumber
  
• Maintenance superintendent
  
• School crossing guard
  

Ok ok, so you don’t have to tip all off these guys, I just wanted to list off as many as possible! I encourage you to identify the ones that you come into contact with in your everyday life. Now that you have a list of who you want to give a tip to, let's talk about what is an acceptable gift amount and any restrictions you will need to consider. 

I always thought that it was acceptable to leave an envelope for my neighborhood’s postal worker, but did you know that they are prohibited from accepting any type of gift that is in the form of cash or could be exchanged for cash, like a check or gift card? So you will want to ensure that you leave a gift for your mail carrier that can be accepted without breaking the rules. I'll be going over some of those options here in a bit. 

You might also be wondering about dollar amounts for other service providers. How much should you give really? For your routine services where you are cared for by the same staff member that charges a fee for service, consider giving ½ to a full amount of the regular service rendered in a month's time span. For example if you regularly pay your lawn care giver $40 every 2 weeks consider giving them $20-$40 in cash tip. If they come to provide the service on a weekly basis then you will want to provide a tip that is equal to the cost of one regular service. Any service providers that do not charge a direct fee, like the doorman of your high-rise apartment complex or your trash valet, should be tipped $25 and up depending on the area where you live. 

So, if giving money is not an option or you have something else in your heart that you would like to give this season, that is also completely acceptable. Here is a fun list to get you started on what you might want to provide. Please keep in mind that some service providers, like postal workers, will need to be given a non monetary gift, like one of these below.

Handmade items:

Baked Bread

A dozen homemade cookies

Hand knitted or crocheted scarf or hat

Home made candles or soap

Purchased items:

Pre-made gift set (easy to find these at Walmart and other box stores)

Holiday florals such as poinsettias

Candles

DIY gift baskets

Christmas ornament

As for drop-ins, who doesn’t like a surprise every now and then? If you are in the area and know that your service provider is nearby, consider stopping by their place of work and bringing them a warm drink from the coffee shop or some of your home baked goodies! It really makes someone’s day when you go out of your way to show them your appreciation or that you were thinking of them. 

I hope that I was able to give you some information that gets you into the spirit of gift giving and inspires you. I really do enjoy giving out gifts, making cards, and spreading joy during the holiday season. If there is something that I left off as far as gift suggestions, please share in the comments. I would love to hear from you!

A Different Take on Holiday Cards

This week on our podcast we talked about Christmas cards. I just want to start off by saying that I am a bad card giver. I like the idea of Christmas cards and every year I make the quintessential Facebook post where I ask people to give me their addresses (even if I already have them) if they want a Christmas card.

After I collect these addresses (and they are usually from the same hopeful people that still believe in me), I go out and try to find the wittiest Christmas card that I can find. I feel like I can’t just send a regular card, I have to send a funny card. Last year, I bought Christmas Vacation cards with a smiling Chevy Chase on the front. Every year, I go through the motions of writing out my Christmas cards and packaging them. I address my Christmas cards and then I sometimes even go as far as putting a stamp on them. If it’s a lucky year, the cards even get mailed -- usually in January. However, until I moved earlier this year, I had a box of un-mailed Christmas cards spanning back for as long as seven years. We have already talked about how weird the last few years have been for me anyway. I figured the cards were past sending and when I moved to my new place, I tossed them.

This year, I asked again for addresses. However, I’ve decided to do something different for Christmas cards this year. I’m going to send my favorite holiday recipes to my small address fanbase instead of a generic message in a generic Christmas card. 

They say all of the great ideas are stolen and I decided to steal my idea from a post I saw floating around on Facebook. The post said, “for Christmas, I would love to receive Christmas cards. Will you write your favorite recipe inside of the card? Even if we hardly talk, message me for my address if you don’t have it. I would gladly send you one also if you’d like!” So, I shared the post along with this picture and I was flooded with addresses.

As the post became more well-known, I saw other friends sharing the message as well so I sent them my address and they sent me theirs. So far, I have twenty cards to fill out. I’m hoping for more and to get some recipes in return. I would also like to share my recipes with my readers as well. Christen and Cindy will also be participating in this recipe exchange. We have each picked our favorite recipes to share with our readers. Please send us your address by joining our mailing list using this secure form and we will each send you a recipe.