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“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou To win the holidays one should spend a lot of time with friends and family and spend zero dollars. Yeah, that's extreme. We’ve already lost, especially since most gatherings are going to include food (we've all felt the effects of higher food costs so no explanation is needed there). Secondly, the holidays are about giving. We give thanks on Thanksgiving for all the blessings we have received. On Christmas, we give thanks with the focus of honoring God giving us the greatest gift of all. For those people who can truly stop at giving love and thanks, you are strong and admired. However, some of us can't help giving monetary gifts as well. Nothing wrong with this. We love it. And since I think we can agree, that most of us probably aren't going to win the holidays by 0 dollars spent, can we consider winning as coming away from the holidays with a cheerful heart and not in debt? After all, monetary gifts can make people feel blessed as well, but finding the right balance for the giver and receiver is key. To honor this goal, we put together a list of things we have tried and will implement in our holiday budget lives. Top Ten How To Win The Holidays List: Set a gift budget! If you have a yearly budget for the holidays, ask yourself if it needs to be adjusted. Creating budgets helps us to see what we can and can’t afford. They are the hard truths that can help remove the blinders when we want to splurge. Take the first step and create a budget, but the hardest part will be sticking to it. We use Excel for our budgets, but here are some great budget templates out there if you need them. Shop early to avoid big receipt shocks! A co-worker said she aims to buy a present each time she's out grocery shopping (starting months out) to avoid the big trips and lots of expenses at a time. This can also help space out the expense by paychecks. Don't be afraid or ashamed to ask not to exchange gifts! When you exchange with different friend groups, co-workers, and extended family, that all adds up quickly. Maybe opt for a friend night out or a cookie exchange. Yes, money may still be spent, but the friend night out could be in the future when you've built your savings back up. New traditions are always fun. Give out-of-season gifts! These items are usually on sale and that season will be here soon enough. For example, buy spring/summer clothes or water toys on sale for your grandkids in August. By the time December comes, they've only got 4-5 months before they are wearing them. If they're going somewhere warm for spring break it's only 3 months away. Or reverse it. Buy a discount sled in March and tuck it away. Now you bought out of season, but your gift will be in season when they get it. Acts of Service! If you have a special skill like cutting hair, doing nails, or changing the oil on a car these would make great gifts. I remember many times my mom would gift haircuts, perms, etc. to friends and family for the holidays. Homemade gifts! These especially come in handy if you have kiddos and need teacher gifts, bus driver gifts, afterschool childcare workers, coaches, etc. you want to make feel special without breaking your wallet. What makes creating special gifts fun for us is making them together along with our mom. We pick a day, get some carry-out, turn on a Christmas playlist, and get to work. It turns into a DIY party. Here are some of the homemade gifts we have had fun making: cookies, soap, fudge, eggnog, and pineapple lemonade “moonshine”. Home Adventure Coupons! If kids can gift homemade coupon books, so can we. These are great gifts to utilize for those 2+ weeks off from school during Christmas break. Camping in the living room with the old school sheet tents. They even have small indoor flames for smores roasting. Of course, the microwave or your oven will also work great. Movie night with a concession theme food menu Game nights - not just board games, don't forget the games like hide and seek and flashlight tag Social Media Night - Learn some family-friendly TikTok dances, and partake in some of the silly challenges out there. You don't have to post the videos, but they will surely be worth filming and keeping for your private memories. 8. Experiences! When my God goddaughters were younger, I quickly realized presents can easily get overshadowed, but memories last a lifetime. So I swapped out Christmas and Birthday gifts for experiences. Even now that they are 18 and soon to be 16, the prime gift card/money age, I still try to do experiences. Most of the time our Christmas outing includes ice-skating, the Nutcracker Ballet, and/or doing Christmas lights and dinner. Experiences are highly recommended not just for the memories, but because it’s something you can do around Christmas or months out when you have more time to recoup your expenses. This year, one experience we are doing is a Gingerbread house-building party with food and friends because teens can’t be without their friends for too long (wink, wink). Other experience ideas we’ve done or are planning to do: new restaurants, movies, water parks this summer, museums ( even better if you go on the free days like MLK Day or other holidays that offer free admissions - time, gas, and feeding them still cost money) 9. Gift things you were already going to buy! If you normally go on a summer vacation wrap a picture of that. If you know your kid needs a new bat or softball glove, then that would be perfect. 10. Change the rules! Limit the amount of presents your kids get. This may be easier done when your kids are smaller, but no matter the age they'll fall in line. A friend of ours limits their kids to 5 gifts each. You could do this and figure out what the right number is for your kids. This is not to say your kids aren't getting expensive gifts that still add up, but we love this idea because it helps kids look at quality versus quantity. Our friend also heavily focuses on Jesus as the reason for the season. As He should be. Another idea comes from a social media family. They have their kids create a list with something they want, need, and can read. There are some fun traditions out there! Bonus #11: Don’t buy Christmas decorations too early! We try not to buy any additional Christmas decorations until we’ve put our old decorations up. This helps us to only focus on purchasing items that we really want in rooms or areas that need a little more cheer. If you can afford a no-spending limit Christmas and that's what makes you happy, go for it. This is for those of us who want to go big w/o gifters remorse. We are not specialists by far. However, these are just our thoughts on how we can help ourselves now and as we grow our families down the line. We would love to hear from anyone who practices any of these ideas or has any original ideas. If we get any, we'll share with the group in next week's email. Need holiday gifts or yummy recipes for yourself? Don't miss the next recipe, subscribe to our weekly email list!

Sorry, this post isn't actually about Harry Potter. We just thought this photo of us representing our respective HP houses was a fun Halloween photo! What this post is about is how we approach and celebrate Halloween as followers of Jesus. We invite you to read and we invite you into our conversation! For many of us deciding on whether or not to celebrate or in our case how to celebrate Halloween, can be daunting. It can cause us to question whether we are being too stringent in trying to change too much or too flippant in not changing enough. How to celebrate Halloween as Christians will most likely be a lifelong study for us and we’ve made peace with that! Some of the practices or activities we participated in, in the past are not the same activities we choose now, and the activities we choose now may not be activities we participate in, in the future. Even as sisters, we don’t have the same views on celebrating Halloween because we don’t have the same personal convictions. In the past, we’ve decorated with ghosts, spider webs, skeletons, and anything that fits the season. Now we give a little more thought to the Halloween decor we bring into our home and it normally falls into the category of fall. We carved pumpkins growing up and we’ve had discussions about whether we would carve now or in the future. Keyen is leaning on the side of yes and I (Ricca) am leaning on the side of no. The history behind carving pumpkins is worth looking into. Questioning if we can truly change the root meaning of a tradition is what has us conflicted in our decisions. Our personal opinions around Halloween are minor and while we enjoy having conversations like this, we try our best to refrain from judgment and we keep an open mind as we discuss each other’s convictions. If we have a strong conviction towards a certain practice, we respect each other by not questioning those convictions. What’s important is that Jesus remains at the center of our lives and that we are constantly and consistently being transformed and conformed to the image of Christ. (Romans 12:2) 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16 NIV) In Matthew 5:13-16, following The Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus provides us with The Beatitudes, we are given two metaphors to describe how we are to be on earth and in the world. The verse in which believers are called to be the salt of the earth reminds us to be grounded in who we are as Christians. If we don't lose our saltiness, we are useful. The verse in which believers are called to be the light of the world reminds us to be in the world, not to hide. So as we celebrate a non-Christian holiday we keep these verses in mind. We celebrate Halloween mindfully and we have fun. Below are a few of our favorite Halloween traditions. Halloween Open House When Keyen and I were younger, we would always make sure to stop at Mrs. Marlene's house for homemade caramel popcorn. She would only give the homemade treats to those she knew (for safety) and it made us feel special. One year we went to our neighbor’s house and were invited inside for the first time to pick from her treat table. The table was decorated so nicely and was filled with candy and all kinds of other homemade goodies. We had some of the best sugar cookies, ever, and the experience was one we will never forget. A few years later, we also started making Halloween treats to share with neighbors and friends. The treats have evolved throughout the years and sometimes strangers will even take us up on our offer to eat homemade treats. This open house-style Halloween night allows for more conversation and good memories with people we don’t always get to see regularly. Trick or Treating Now that Keyen has a little one, we are tabling our Halloween open house for this year and he will be trick-or-treating for the first time! Keyen set boundaries around his Halloween costume, nothing evil and demonic, so he chose a good guy from one of his favorite video games. One thing I observed as an auntie was how well she taught him how to use his manners and made sure to thank each person who was passing out at our community trunk-or-treat. I look forward to walking around the neighborhoods in our community and making memories with the two of them! Food! Lastly, Halloween is a good day to make delicious food for your family and/or friends! For us, we make a version of our childhood church’s slightly sweet beef chili sauce. Every year our church had a Hallelujah party in lieu of a Halloween party. We dressed up (holy costumes encouraged) played games, ate candy, and were served the most delicious chili dogs and chips! Thankfully a church member was able to provide us with a recipe years later that we adapted only slightly. You can check out that recipe here! What food traditions do you have on Halloween that you look forward to every year? Let us know in the comment section below! Looking for fall recipes? Purchase our fall cookbook today! This blog post will probably live on our website for a long time. We will probably update it every year and that’s okay with us. We are learning theology is a lifelong practice. We will be studying God’s revelation for our entire lives within a community and with faith. So let us know in the comments below what you think of this blog post. Do you celebrate Halloween? What traditions do you have? Don't miss the next recipe, subscribe to our weekly email list!

Growing up our church served chili dogs for our annual Hallelujah party. The chili sauce was unlike any that we ate at home or in restaurants. It has a slight sweetness and tang that compliments the saltiness of hot dogs so well. Thankfully as adults, 20 years later we were able to track down the recipe from a church member. We adapted the recipe only slightly and now we make it from time to time on Halloween! This recipe has quite a few ingredients but is super easy to make. Allow about 2-3 hours to cook the sauce on low so it's flavorful and perfectly thick for topping hotdogs. Looking for other seasonal recipes? Check out our Fall, Winter, and Spring & Summer Cookbooks! Chili Beef Sauce Serves 6 Prep time: 10-15 minutes Cook Time: 2 -3 hours Ingredients 1 lb ground beef (80/20) ½ cup finely chopped yellow onion 10 oz tomato sauce ¼ cup ketchup ½ tsp. salt 1 tsp. ground black pepper 1 tsp. garlic powder 1 tsp. onion powder 1 TBS mild chili powder 1 TBS Worcestershire Sauce 1 TBS prepared yellow mustard 1 TBS plus 1 ½ tsp. brown sugar (we prefer dark but you can use light) 1 TBS balsamic vinegar 1 cup beef broth Pre-Prep: Chop onions and measure ingredients. Directions: In a medium-large saucepan or pot, cook ground beef with onions until brown. If you prefer, drain excess grease but do not rinse. Return the meat and onions to the pot and add the remaining ingredients. Cook on low for 2-3 hours or until liquid is absorbed, stirring occasionally. You can also put the cooked ground beef with the remaining ingredients in a crockpot and cook on low for 2-4 hours. Serve on top of hotdogs and add cheese or your favorite chilidog toppings. Enjoy! Don't miss the next recipe, subscribe to our weekly email list!

Bonus Recipes! Great cooks use their leftovers and know how to use the same ingredients and dishes multiple ways! We've taken recipes from your Fall 2020 cookbook and created bonus recipes! Check back soon Once posts are published, you’ll see them here.

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