The entire Mrs. Green’s World team wishes you and yours a spectacular, sustainable, healthy holiday season and new year. We hope this season is filled with moments of creating memories with those you love and celebrating life on this beautiful planet of ours. Here are a few of our favorite holiday traditions that we wanted to share with you – JOY!
Gina Murphy-Darling, Founder and CEO
We have had a number of fun holiday traditions over the years but there are two I really love. One of them is getting everyone new, warm, fun pajamas and everyone wearing them on Christmas Eve. We have even been known to wear them for most of the next day. Full disclosure: Mr. Green is not a full participant on the last part. He is not much of a pajama guy (leave that comment to your own interpretation) but is willing to participate in the Christmas Eve tradition provided it is family only. Some of us are working on making it expand to an “all matching” pajama night but we aren’t there yet. Everything in it’s own time. Another one that we all enjoy is the “Holiday Sandwich Feast.” As much as we love all sitting down to dinner together, what we all REALLY love are the sandwiches that James (Mr. Green) makes. Chicken or turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing (yes – stuffing!), plenty of mayo on some delicious bread. We have even been known to add gravy. This is how much we love it: this past Thanksgiving we were invited to someone else’s home and did not have leftovers! Not to worry. The next day we baked two roaster chickens (organic, anti-biotic free, and cruelty free of course!), made stuffing, bought some cranberry sauce and found some delicious whole grain bread – just to have the sandwiches. Since my daughter married Mr. Right, our son-in-law has taken over the gravy responsibilities and Ben makes the best cream gravy known to human kind. This year my sandwich has to include some Ben Nichols gravy. Voila! The tradition lives on.
My holiday wishes for the Planet? That there is a miraculous and phenomenal awakening that millions of people wake up to the urgent need to love, protect and preserve our planet and all its bounty. It is my hope, my dream, my passionate wish that millions more people begin to live with intention when it comes to taking care of Mother Earth – consume less – intentionally; waste less – intentionally; eat healthy – intentionally; fight for the right to clean water for everyone – intentionally; work to end world hunger – intentionally. And that’s just the beginning. It’s a big wish list but we have miles to go before we can all sleep.
Dave Labrecque, Sound Editor
My favorite tradition was going to bed on Christmas Eve with intense anticipation of the next morning’s gift-opening spree. Such happy angst would result in kooky hijinks over the years. There was the year I was awakened from my long winter’s nap by the click-click-click of what I was sure was St. Nick’s footsteps coming down the hall. I was petrified! Days later, while putting on my socks one morning, I heard the same click-click-click coming from the electric baseboard heat registers as they warmed up. D’oh! Then there was the Christmas morning my sisters and I converged excitedly at my parents’ bedside to get the day’s events under way, only to shrivel in disappointment upon hearing my dad yell — glancing at the clock radio on his night stand — “It’s two AM!” Years later it would occur to me that they’d probably just finished up downstairs at that point. Wishing you and yours lots of unexpected “we’ll laugh about this someday” fun this holiday season!
Bonnie Gonzales, Graphic Designer
Nearly every year since becoming a parent in my mid-20’s, making Christmas ornaments has been a holiday tradition. It’s one that my adult daughters remember fondly as many of those years were spent making ornaments together with them. Our creations included sugar cones, fabric, tissue paper, lace, home-made corn starch clay, paint, glass, glitter glue, beads, my sewing machine, stencils, yarn, crochet hooks, metallic markers, ribbon, and long strips of paper. Each of my daughters would keep an ornament for their own collection and the rest were given to friends and family. As I’ve gradually moved toward a more simple, downsized life-style, a small pre-lit table top Christmas tree has replaced the fresh, grand Scotch pines that graced our home each year. The tradition has waned as a natural course of things, but many years later when I spot one of my creations adorning a loved one’s holiday tree, my heart floods with warm and joyous memories.
Meredith Lipscomb, Operations and Social Media Manager
My family holiday tradition centers more on preserving little pieces of the past by keeping our family history alive. We put up a tree every year and I would describe it as a “family tree” in that it doesn’t have any particular theme or color scheme. What it does have is all the ornaments that have been made or given to me throughout the years. Starting with my Aunt Emma who sent me and each of my cousins a box of handmade ornaments every Christmas from the time we were about 5 until we all graduated college. She was an “OG” crafter, doing the Pinterest thing LONG before it ever existed. Her purpose was to make sure that we all had some ornaments to start with when we went out in the world and had our own Christmas trees. My tree also has all the ornaments passed down to me – from my grandmother’s old fashioned angel that she was pretty sure she got sometime in the 1930s, to my favorite ornaments from my mom’s tree which she passed on to me long before she died herself, so that they would be part of our tree and our tradition. Our tree also has every popsicle stick and bead and paper clip that went into every ornament my daughter ever made from pre-school on. The combination of all these elements makes for a tree that definitely doesn’t look like it’s from a department store showroom but instead is comprised of all the memories and beauty of a lifetime. Each year when my daughter helps me decorate my tree, I have the great pleasure of telling her the story behind each ornament we hang so that one day, when she’s hanging these on her own tree, she can pass their stories on to her own children should she choose to have them. My tree will never win any photo contests but it’s #1 in our hearts.
Kelly King, Executive Producer
My father comes from a large, German family. As part of their family tradition, they celebrated St. Nick’s Day. When my parents married, they continued the tradition with my siblings and I. Now that I am married, with children of my own, we have continued the tradition in our home. On December 5th, my children place their letters to Santa in their stocking. If they are on the good list, Santa will leave one item in their stocking when he comes to pick up the letter. If they are not on the good list, there will not be a surprise awaiting them on the morning of December 6th – so they have some time before Christmas to work on a few things. HA! It is a fun way for children to send their letters to Santa and adds a special day of surprises during the holiday season.
I wish each and every one of you the most joyous of holidays. May we continue our work of planet preservation and sustainable living into 2019 and well beyond. We have a lot of work to accomplish but together – we can.