Christmas Spirit

I have nearly finished the Christmas Shopping just a couple of more Santa gifts to buy, wrap the presents, do some cooking, decorate the tree and tidy the house. Our gift giving for Christmas is smaller than the birthday gifts we give.
For us a Christmas gift is an acknowledgement of our Christian beliefs and therefore is a special thing.
Mind you we do go crazy over the grandchildren mainly because there is no joy compared to seeing the pleasure on a childs face when they receive a gift they love and no fun as great as a little one with a great big box and a pile of Christmas paper balls to throw around.
Sharing food and feeding family and friends is a great joy for me. I love my cook books and the whole cooking process. For me there is no greater thrill than having someone say unprompted "This tastes great I love it".
Sharing with others should be what Christmas is about and yet every holiday is becoming more and more about what is given. Commercialism, shops and the media pressure us to prove our love by buying big.
Personally, I find the best things are knowing my family are around me, we are blessed to live in a country at Peace, we have an abundance of food and what could be better Peace, Joy, Love, and Faith.
I was reading a newsletter from Punch with Judy a really great on line craft shop. Judy gave an excerpt from "All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum. If the whole world lived by these simple guidelines we would all have Peace, Joy and love. The faith part is a personal thing and each to their own. Robert has the important bits though.

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned
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Share everything
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Play Fair
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Don't hit people
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Put things back where you found them
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Clean up your own mess
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Don't take things that are not yours
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Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody
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Wash your hands before you eat
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Flush
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Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you
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Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some
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Take a nap every afternoon
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When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together
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Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that
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Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we
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Remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK!

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm.

I really love all these rules but for my food blog I think that "Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you" should be the beginning of every meeting of every group be they government, social or anything else. If they started off with a big warm cookie and a glass of milk the World would be a happier place.
I will be making cookies or biscuits later today. My family have some very firm favorites. Cat Biscuits are at the top of the list. Gingerbread is a close second and the Taste website has lots of Christmas Gingerbread recipes Lebkuchen is a real favorite of mine and I'll be making those as well.
I'll make lots and send them home with the kids and take some to work.
That's the other kindergarten rule, Share Everything.
Merry Christmas