Thank you all for a wonderful 2009! We send warm wishes to you and your family this holiday season. Merry Christmas!Similar Posts:

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This Christmas eve, take a moment to relax! Tomorrow will be a busy day for sure, so for now, grab a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa and settle in with a good audio story or book.

For the kids – Storynory has a few Christmas stories for the wee ones. Download A Christmas Carol or one of the many other available stories.

For you – Get started on one of many public domain audiobooks available at OpenCulture.com.Similar Posts:

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Christmas is almost here, and if you’re looking for something to do with the ones you love, there are still two holiday events happening tonight that you can enjoy together.

Holiday Lights Tour
Take a festive tour through some of Wilmington’s best decorated neighborhoods on an authentically reproduced trolley. Music and narration included. $10 adults, $5 children, $25 for family 2 kids 2 adults. Departs at 6pm 7:30pm. Call 910.763.4483 for more information.
Downtown Wilmington
Water & Dock Streets
Wilmington, NC 28401
www.wilmingtontrolley.com

Caroling by “REINDEER” Drawn Carriage or Trolley
Come and sing Christmas carols with Santa. See the beautiful lights of old Wilmington, snuggled under warm lap blankets in our enclosed Christmas carriage or trolley. Free candy canes for children. $12 adults, $5 children under 12. Call Springbrook Farms at 910.251.8889 for more information.
Downtown Wilmington
Water & Market Streets
Wilmington, NC 28401
www.horsedrawntours.com

Subscribe to the blog to stick around with us through December 25th for our Christmas Countdown. We’ll be posting fun, festive, and useful things each day!

For all things real estate, visit Century21Sweyer.com.Similar Posts:

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It’s inevitable… Just when you think you’re all done with your shopping, a neighbor or acquaintance stops by unexpectedly to drop off a little gift to you when you realize, you don’t have a gift for them! Don’t sweat it. Just whip up a couple of these no-fuss recipes and keep them on hand for the unexpected guests.

Pumpkin Butter

Gingerbread Biscotti

Berry Cordial

Subscribe to the blog to stick around with us through December 25th for our Christmas Countdown. We’ll be posting fun, festive, and useful things each day!

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Christmas is getting close, the kids are out of school, and you’re busy getting ready for the big day. During this hectic time, don’t forget to take a step back and enjoy the small things. Here are 10 new holiday traditions that will give you a reason to pause and reflect. Incorporate one or two this year, and start your own traditions next year.

Remember the Animals

Legend has it that on Christmas Eve, all animals are granted the ability to speak until daybreak. While the following tradition doesn’t guarantee you a verbal thank-you from the neighborhood wildlife, it’s a nice way to treat your animal friends when food is scarce.

You don’t need to be elaborate–putting out birdseed or peanut-butter sandwiches for the squirrels will suffice. But for a truly lovely twist, you can take a cue from the Waterman family of St. Charles, Missouri. Inspired by Eve Bunting’s book Night Tree, the Watermans get together each year with friends and family and trek into the woods to decorate a tree for the animals. The evening begins at home, with the preparation of appropriate goodies: pinecones rolled in peanut butter and birdseed, popcorn and cranberry garlands, orange and apple slices suspended from pipe cleaners. Once the feast is complete, the assembled throng bundles up and heads out into the night. Tree-decking is followed by sharing hot chocolate, holiday cookies and Christmas carols.

Read a Holiday Story Every Night

What better way to invent a new tradition than to combine two old ones? In this case, we’ve melded the classic Advent calendar– perennially popular with kids and adults–with another favorite family pastime: holiday reading. Begin by collecting a stack of holiday and winter books and picking a date to start reading. Choose a title for each night you’ll be reading, and write each title on a scrap of paper. (For longer works like A Christmas Carol, select an individual chapter.) Then stash all your scraps in a jar, and at the appointed reading hour let each family member take a turn picking the night’s literary fare (no peeking, please, to maintain that Advent calendar element of surprise). You can also take turns reading; preliterate family members get to choose a designated reader.
• Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• The New Testament
• The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
• Seven Candles For Kwanzaa by Andrea Davis Pinkney
• Inside-Out Grandma by Joan Rothenberg
• How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
• The Twelve Cats Of Christmas by Kandy Radzinski

Create a Photo Ornament

For most families, ornaments are more than decorations; they’re memories in miniature. Especially the homemade creations, whose cockeyed charm so perfectly captures the creativity of your child at a particular moment in time.

This year, why not take the idea a step further and let your kids put a little bit of themselves into the decorations–literally. Each child gets to choose a photo of himself or herself to incorporate into an ornament, which can be as simple as a Popsicle-stick frame or as sophisticated as a decoupaged Styrofoam ball. The only requirement is that the finished product reflect the personality of its maker (and include the year in which it was made). Your kids will have fun comparing their faces over the years, and you’ll love seeing your tree transformed into a virtual family album.

Celebrate the Solstice

It’s no wonder that lights are part of every winter celebration. Twinkling againstthe backdrop of winter’s darker days, they stand out as festive and cheery, especially on the longest night of the year–the winter solstice (December 22). Marking this day with a simple celebration of light is not only a nice way to teach your kids about the seasons, but it can also be a calming break from the hectic holiday pace.

Keep your celebration down to earth–a candlelit dinner or trip into the backyard to stargaze is ideal. But to really banish the darkness, set aside an hour or so to make luminarias–decorative paper bags filled with sand and small candles. To make one, decorate a brown paper lunch bag by tracing a simple pattern in pencil on one side, then punching out your design with a hole punch. Fill each luminaria with about 2 inches of sand and sink a votive candle or tea light in the center. Place the luminarias along a walk, patio or deck, light them (a grown-up’s job) and bask in the glow.

Start a Toy Workshop

Here’s a tradition that will put your little elves to work and, in the process, redirect their preholiday energy toward giving as well as getting.

Set aside a day during the holidays to transform your playroom into Santa’s workshop. Unlike the original at the North Pole, yours won’t be turning out new toys but recycling old ones–all those outgrown, no-longer-beloved playthings. Have each of your kids select a few old toys to rejuvenate and give to a needy child. They won’t be doing any major surgery; truly broken toys should be given a solemn farewell and tossed in the trash. But for the rest, have on hand a damp dust rag (for spiffing up grimy plastic), a bottle of white glue (for attaching googly eyes to a puppet or severed arms to an injured nutcracker) and a hairbrush and ribbons (for dressing up old dolls). Using zip-top bags, your kids can collect small items like doll clothes and action figures and even assemble special themed packages, such as an outer space set made up of miniature aliens, toy rocket ships and glow-in-the-dark stars or a rain forest pack of plastic jungle animals.
When all the toys are groomed and ready to go, arrange to donate them to kids in need. Contact local shelters, church groups and civic organizations to find out how. Your kids will take pride in a good deed well done and you’ll marvel at all that extra storage space, at least for a few weeks.

Light a Rememberance Candle

Gone for most of us are the days when the entire family assembled for the holidays at Grandma’s. Today, Grandma is just as likely to live across two time zones, as are uncles, aunts and cousins. So, how do you bring loved ones together? The Console family of Malden, Missouri, inspired us with a tradition they devised: Each year on December 12 (a birthday shared by a grandmother and two cousins), family members get together in spirit by lighting a candle and wishing one another a long-distance happy holiday.To make the tradition your own, set a date for the big event and send invitations to all involved. Ask that everyone light a candle and send out wishes at an appointed hour (take time zones into account). To add resonance to the candle lighting, play some favorite holiday music and pass around mugs of hot cider.

Send Off a Holiday Box

When the Hampson family moved to Round Rock, Texas, several years ago, they suddenly faced a 2,000-mile gap between themselves and their cousins. Their Christmas box–the Hampsons’ clever way of bridging the distance during the holidays–became an instant tradition, one that just might bring comfort and joy to your family, as well.Unlike your average holiday parcel, the Christmas box is short on glitz and requires minimal assembly. It’s just a cardboard box your kids can fill with things that tell a story about where they live and the lives they lead there: seashells, pressed flowers, pinecones, postcards with a local theme, edible items, trading cards, ticket stubs–anything that says “me” and “mine.” (Don’t forget drawings and photos.) The idea is to make the box a reciprocal affair–while your kids are assembling one for their cousins upstate, their cousins will be putting together a similar box for them.

After the boxes have been exchanged, ask your kids which was more fun: making one or receiving one. They’ll probably be hard-pressed to choose–and isn’t that what the holidays are all about?

Surprise a Public Servant

It may shock your kids to learn that not everyone gets to take time off around the holidays. Firefighters, police officers and many other public servants give up their holidays to make sure that ours are safe and happy. The Kelner family of Muskegon, Michigan, decided to give back something to all these good-hearted folks, so for the past several years they’ve gathered holiday cookies and other treats to bring to the local fire station on Christmas Eve. The first year, they were surprised to find only one firefighter on duty; he was so thrilled to see them, he invited them in to share the feast. For the Kelners, that one small act of generosity turned out to be the highlight of the Christmas season.If your family would like to play Surprise Santa, start by contacting someone in local government (town hall is usually a good place to begin) to find out where to go. But make sure your visit stays a secret–the element of stealth adds a little extra zip to your act of holiday charity.

Make a Global Wish List

Last December, it became apparent to me that my daughter’s holiday wish list was beginning to rival the Congressional Record in length and complexity. And while I’m as eager as any parent to satisfy my child’s deepest desires, I began to feel that the act of list making had become an exercise in–I hesitate to use the word in reference to the apple of my eye, but, well–greed. So my husband and I devised a different kind of list, one that we thought truly reflected the holiday spirit: a wish list for the world.To make your own global wish list, ask each family member to contribute at least one idea that would make the world a better place. (Don’t worry if the ideas seem overly optimistic–that’s the point.) After you’ve made your list, choose one (or more) that you can actually help to implement. For example, if your kids want to save the rain forests, you might make a contribution to the Rainforest Action Network; to help end world hunger, you could volunteer at a soup kitchen.

Okay, so you may not save the world, at least not all of it, but you’ll be teaching your family a lesson in giving. And I guarantee you’ll find your own misplaced holiday spirit in the process.

Cure the Postholiday Blues

If my daughter ran the world, it would be illegal to take down the Christmas tree before summer. And while I sometimes greet the end of the holidays with relief, I can’t help feeling a little sad when that last ornament is packed away. So, I was thrilled when a friend shared her family’s method for banishing the postholiday blues.Every year, usually on January 6 (the Feast of the Epiphany and the end of the traditional 12 days of Christmas), her family has a quiet supper before taking down the tree. Beside each plate is a small package holding a single button, which has been chosen for its significance to the recipient: a flower button for a gardener, an anchor for a sailing fan and so on. Each person sews the new button on his or her stocking before packing it away until next year. My friend marvels that her kids are as excited to unwrap their buttons as they are to tear through the packages on Christmas.

Adapted from Disney’s Family Fun

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Today, we’re sharing some advice that will help make this weekend and the next week less stressful and more enjoyable.

Speed through your to-do list

Map out the stops you have in counterclockwise order and you’ll never have to sit in a traffic line or make a left-hand turn.

Avoid supermarket crowds by shopping on Mondays and Tuesdays, when grocery stores are usually least crowded.

Forget to pick up the pumpkin pie spice? Check Foodsubs.com for ways to replace the missing ingredient with something you already have on hand.

To stave off a whinefest during errands, make your kid her own picture shopping list. She’ll be so busy trying to find the onions for the stuffing that she’ll forget she’s bored.

Fake a great dessert by sprucing up a ready-made mix

Duncan Hines Devil’s Food Cake Mix
Add one package (10 oz.) of peanut butter chips to batter and frost with dark chocolate frosting. Top with a dollop of whipped cream for extra holiday flair.

Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix
Add 1 Tbs of lemon juice to the mix and sprinkle decorative sugar on top.

Pillsbury Pumpkin Quick Bread and Muffin Mix Follow quick-bread directions and drizzle raspberry sauce over slices. (For raspberry sauce, melt 1 Tbs of seedless raspberry preserves per slice in the microwave.)

Be prepared for spur-of-the-moment company

Don’t let your family attack the homemade fudge or cookies your neighbor gave you. Hide the goodies and serve ‘em to your guests (who may assume they came from your kitchen).

Got a sink full of dishes — and a full dishwasher? Pop the dirty plates in the oven till your friends are gone.

Steer everyone to the room that sees the least kid traffic. Or have a chat wherever you have the most of your holiday decorations: Those’ll distract guests from the Legos underfoot.

Keep a stash of store-bought eggnog in the fridge, sprinkle with nutmeg, and serve in pretty glassware. You’ll look like a festive, happy hostess — even when you’re at your wit’s end. 

Gift-wrapping secrets

Buy solid-color or striped paper, which can work for Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza, and birthdays throughout the year. And if you run out of paper, don’t run to the store. Instead, improvise with comics pages, maps, or aluminum foil.

Think outside the box — literally. Paper towel tubes and empty oatmeal containers are good for more than art projects. Slip Dad’s new tie into one so he won’t guess what’s inside.

Keep wrapping supplies in one place to avoid a mad search for scissors or tape. We love the Portable Gift Wrap Organizer from The Container Store ($13; containerstore.com), which has lots of pockets and zips up so you can carry it to any room.

Clutter buster: The dining room table

Set the table. No need to be elaborate. By putting out just a tablecloth and a centerpiece, you’ll create the idea that it’s ready for a meal — not the contents of your child’s backpack.

Take out additional leaves: A smaller surface means less space for things to pile up.

Keep a basket in the corner of the room for stashing stuff until you can sort it.

Adapted from Weather.com and Parenting.com.

Subscribe to the blog to stick around with us through December 25th for our Christmas Countdown. We’ll be posting fun, festive, and useful things each day!

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We’re celebrating the Countdown to Christmas with another day of holiday treats, and today it’s all about local finds and deals.

This Saturday, December 19th, enjoy 25% off the entire store at Sole Searching!

Stop by Tavernays Jewelers for their Silver Star Sale and savings up to 70% off.

(via Focus on the Coast)

Are out outside of the Wilmington, NC area?

No worries! We can still help you find shops and deals in your area.

Find anything at Yokel, the online local shopping directory. Milo is also good for local finds although with both sites, you might get a few big box stores mixed in with the local finds.

Looking for an artisan product? We love Etsy’s Shop Local feature.

Find products from local farmers at the Local Harvest store. You’ll be amazed at what you can find – jams, cheese, spices, fiber, flowers, and soaps to name a few.

For books, try IndieBound, the best resource for local, independent bookstores.

Happy local shopping! Subscribe to the blog to stick around with us through December 25th for our Christmas Countdown. We’ll be posting fun, festive, and useful things each day!

For all things real estate, visit Century21Sweyer.com.Similar Posts:

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It seems that everyone is publishing a gift guide of some sort this season, so for today’s Christmas Countdown, we’re sharing some of our favorites with you!

The New York Times Holiday Gift Guide covers books, home, entertainment, electronics, style and travel.

Find a gift for the techies in your life with Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide.

New York Magazine’s 2009 Gift List includes a list of 100 things under $100.

Gift giving for your favorite gamer just got easier with Game Trailer’s Holiday Gift Guide.

Stylish gifts abound in InStyle’s 2009 Holiday Gift Guide.

Elle’s Holiday Gift Guide covers gift ideas for women based on interests – the partygoer, the bookworm, the collector and more.

For the men, the Art of Manliness’ Gift Guide will make shopping a no-brainer.

Making gifts this holiday season? Better get started! Craft’s Holiday Gift Guide can help you out, especially in a pinch.

Style Bakery serves up stylish gifts including the 25 under $25 and the 50 under $50.

And last but not least, some local picks from Focus on the Coast.

Happy shopping! Subscribe to the blog to stick around with us through December 25th for our Christmas Countdown. We’ll be posting fun, festive, and useful things each day!

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Put your walking shoes on! Today, we’re covering some local deals to make your shopping adventures a little sweeter. Ready to save some money?

The shops at Lumina Station are getting into the holiday spirit by offering some spectacular deals and savings.

Alligator Pie

• Holiday outfits and selected fall items 25% OFF!
• Several items Buy 1 Get 1 Free…perfect for stocking stuffers and gifts for friends!
• 25% OFF holiday outfits and select fall items! View Coupon
• Buy 1, Get 1 FREE select gifts and stocking stuffers! View Coupon

Beanie + Cecil

• 15% OFF Phillip Lim Dress featured in “Love It @ Lumina” video! View Coupon

Harbour Club Day Spa

• 15% OFF on a spa service with the mention of the December “Love It @ Lumina” video! View Coupon

Jennifer’s

• 50% OFF during our Remodeling Sale! *Excludes “Not Your Daughter’s Jeans.”

Lumina Fitness

• 15% OFF any new client on their first session or first package with the mention of the December “Love It @ Lumina” video! View Coupon

Monkee’s

• 25% off select fall & winter items!

Open House Boutique

• 20% off all items throughout the month of December! View Coupon

Sole Searching

• 15% OFF boots featured in “Love It @ Lumina” video with the mention of the December “Love It @ Lumina” video! View Coupon

The Dirty Martini

• Book your FREE PRIVATE PARTY now! Limited space available. Services range from catering and photography to limo services and music. Perfect for any occasion, especially during the holidays!

Give the gift of music! Sign up with the Wilmington Academy of Music and enjoy one month of free lessons. Full details here.

TJ and Company has organic hair products on sale, buy one get one free. Full details here.

Burchetta is offering wholesale prices and free shipping on their website. Full details here.

Don’t get the newspaper? No problem! View weekly local circulars full of sale items at ShopLocal. This week, there are 18,948 sales right here in the Wilmington NC area!

Heading for Mayfaire or Independence Mall? Take some coupons with you! Deal Catcher is full of printable coupons for stores in our local area.

And last but not least, be a savvy shopper with the Shop Savvy phone application. Scan any barcode anywhere and get real-time pricing from online and local vendors. It just doesn’t get easier than that!

Happy shopping! Subscribe to the blog to stick around with us through December 25th for our Christmas Countdown. We’ll be posting fun, festive, and useful things each day!

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Starting today, we’re counting down the days until Christmas with fun holiday goodness for you to enjoy each day! Today, it’s all about coupons. Since this is the biggest holiday shopping week, we thought we’d give you a heads up on some really great online deals…

Restaurant.com

Purchase gift certificates for yourself or your loved ones at 80% off! Offer ends today.
Click here.

Books-A-Million

Over 600 children’s books are on sale, starting as low as $1.77!
Click here.

Lands End

25% off sitewide and free shipping!
Click here.

Sears

The Craftsman 10-piece Air Tool set is on sale for $49.99!
Click here.

Amazon

Amazon’s 6-hour GPS blowout sale! Ends today at 3pm EST.
Click here.

Check back tomorrow for more holiday deals!

For all things real estate, visit Century21Sweyer.com.Similar Posts:

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