A South Sound "Santa" Captures The Heart Of Holiday

Before this 2009 Christmas Day disappears into fragments - I'd like o share a lovely little letter that a famous older gentleman associated with the more contemporary celebration of the holiday reputedly left at the home of a inspirational South Sound family who can be easily described as truly salts of the earth by most anyone who has had the pleasure to know them.

While the nitty-gritty details of the particular family referred to in this note are understandably of a private nature - American families of all ages, colors, income levels and backgrounds across the country share similar concerns as larger and more initially unconsidered losses continue to roll out as a result of last year's unprecedented economic woes which have already significantly impacted our collective immediate and future expectations.

However despite the fact our budget conscious"Santa" was clearly forced to trim back significantly here in Pierce County - what available reserve stockpiles of love, encouragement and hope clearly were not relegated to the budgetary chopping block - which is something we can all find a bit of light and warmth this most special night!
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Christmas 2009

Hello - (name of family) - I mean - oh, Howdy, y'all. You're confusing old Santa this year. I had your house slated for a fly-over and here I see there are a couple of little guests.

Veronica and Vivian, you are such smart, beautiful little girls. You make your mama (and Santa) proud! I didn't want you to think Santa forgot you or couldn't find you, so there is a little something under this tree for you. And, of course I can't forget mom. I've not forgotten how you three helped out the head of this household last summer. I know she appreciated the help more than you can know. And girls, I just want you to know that I told your mom where the rest of your gifts are.

John, David and Sean. My, it's been a long time since you three have lived together. I see you are getting along better that you did when you were younger. Warms ol' Santa's heart.

Eric, your mom and aunt and I cooked up something special for you. But I let your grandma put her name on it. I expect you to make Santa proud. You have grown so much in the past year. Always remember that you are loved.

Debbie, I know you were going to skip the gifting this year because of tight money situations all the way around, but Santa thought you should all have at least a token. I hope you enjoy what I picked out for you.

That said, I apologize for the mess I left in the kitchen. I helped myself to some milk and cookies. You left them out by the stove, so I was sure you meant for me to have some. Sorry about leaving the mess, but this was an unscheduled stop when I left the North Pole, so I had to be especially quick. The cookies were delicious, by the way. Thanks. I know you meant to leave me a plate.

So head into the New Year with heads up. I think it's going to be a good one. Remember, things will work out for all of you. It always does.

Love Santa

The 21st Century American Family

A Return to the Past?

Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see.” Our family tries to live by our principles and constantly strives to do better. We try to be the change even in a down economy.

Recently NBC Evening News did a feature on the changing dynamics of the American family during this recession. More and more nuclear families are returning to the extended model either with grandparents moving in with children or vice versa or grandparents helping out with childcare to alleviate expensive daycare costs while still living in their own home. We are doing some of all of the above and apparently are not alone.

My husband and I had planned to be retiring about now, but instead we have half the children living at home. I’ve written about Amy, my adult daughter who has Down’s Syndrome. We’ve chosen to keep her at home because we can’t imagine having her anyplace else. Her personal care provider money helps to off-set the extra money for a tutor and water aerobics classes. My middle son, who is a teacher, his wife and a very nearly five-year-old grandson live with us. It allows our daughter-in-law to be home with our grandson and saves childcare. She helps take care of her sister-in-law, too. The children pay rent which will become a nest egg for them when we finally do sell our house.

My oldest son is a graphic designer who’s struggling to make a living. Two and a half years ago he quit his job for an advertizing company and began to work from an office at home, but the jobs are drying up. In the past he’s made extra money selling thrift store and auction finds on eBay and has gone back to that, although things aren’t selling as easily as before the recession. My daughter-in-law has had to take more days of work as a court reporter, but they can’t afford the daycare for their four-year-old to allow her to get her transcripts typed and rock a four month old baby. Enter yours truly, Grammy, and I now I get to hang out with our granddaughters twice a week. I’m not a fan of daycare anyway and I’m happy to be able to spend time helping to raise our grandchildren.

My youngest son is twenty-five and currently living with his father. His dad travels a great deal, but we are glad he has a job and our son house sits when he’s not at his own job at a yogurt stand, which he was very lucky to get in this economy. He's looking for a better job, but we are not holding our breath.

I’ve already written about our garden and our attempts to continue as organic as possible of a lifestyle and our commitment to supporting local producers. My oldest son and his family are also putting in a garden this year and both households are following in the footsteps of my youngest who had a garden last year. By shopping Costco and dividing up bulk items between households we get the benefit of buying in bulk without the actual bulk.

Extended family ties provide important social and economic advantages in terms of shared labor, socialization of children, and support. It would seem that many families, whether through choice or necessity, are returning to an extended model and rediscovering the benefits of multiple hands and hearts.

I was raised an only child who felt a great longing for a big family so our situation, the lack of money notwithstanding, suits me fine. We were already an extended family when the stockmarket took a nose dive. Our grandchildren are being raised around their grandparents with bushels and bushels of love and attention. Our children may be struggling a bit, but so far it’s only character building, not a disaster, and they know that they have many arms to catch them. As my daughter-in-law said when she first heard about my husband’s impending loss of job, “We have each other. We’ll be all right.”

More Making Do in Hard Times

I always believe that if I’ve figured something out that everyone else must figured it out long ago. Based on what I’m seeing in newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet I’m old. The current economic crisis has made all the things I learned through experience “news.” I find myself preaching to my children who are having difficulty making ends meet. I’ve said it a hundred times and I’ll say it again, food is one of the few expenses somewhat within our control.

Since the neighborhood as well as the whole Puget Sound Area has been engaged in talking about ways to stretch your dollars I thought that I’d share a few things that you can probably find in several other places. If you’re interest in reading more about making do in Hard Times and living green in a Down Economy, click here.

Living Green in a Down Economy

KUOW's Ruby de Luna has been covering how people are living green in a down economy. Her interview with us aired yesterday and you can reach it here.

Getting Started on Our Victory Garden

Making Do in Hard Times

Yesterday my husband Dave and I tried to get prepared for our visit from Ruby de Luna of KUOW. She had phoned and asked if she could be present when we began to create our Victory Over the Recession vegetable garden. Although the recession made us commit to growing vegetables this year, it is something that we’d talked about for years. We even had a bit of a foundation lain in the form of a shallow box of two by sixes that a previous owner had used in the exact place we chose. Our yard is shaded by many Doug firs, but the unused space behind the garage gets lots of sun in the summer. Ruby wanted sounds and I wanted a deeper box so we went to Home Depot and purchased cedar two by sixes to double the depth of our box.

Ruby arrived at 11:30 AM. KUOW is going in multiple rooms of our house all day every day so I feel as though the staff members are friends and have developed pictures in my mind of how each looks. Ruby is as beautiful as her name and more beautiful than I pictured in my mind and is shown here at work. She isn’t bigger than a minute, but refused help with her equipment. We chatted a bit while she set up her equipment and discovered that she knows my brother Tim Haeck of KIRO radio.

While Dave measured and sawed the pieces of wood Ruby captured the sounds of his work and our grandson Gabriel helping GrandDave attach the new wood to the existing frame. When the box was completed we took Ruby in the house to warm up and she interviewed us about how the recession is impacting our family of six.

In all honesty, we know that there are people who are suffering much more than we are. So far ours is more the anxiety of what the future holds than what is happening now. We are a thrifty lot by nature and so far the recession has only effected us in theory since Dave will likely lose his job at Seattle Flight Service sometime in the next year and lay-offs in the Peninsula School District are likely. I am not likely to be laid-off, but my job may look different next year because of the potential loss of 50-75 clerical staff and who knows how many certified.

So we continue to save money however we can, always happy to learn new ways to do that. You can bet that anything I discover will be shared here!

Making Do in Hard Times

My husband frequently clips interesting articles and cartoons from newspapers and magazines. He generally leaves the cartoons on the refrigerator and the articles on the banister on the catwalk that runs between his den and our bedroom. Last night, because I was still awake when he came home from work he brought a little snippet from Time Magazine into the bedroom and placed it on my computer table. I was too engrossed in "Blazing Saddles" to pay close attention, but this morning took the time to check out the scrap he’d given me.

The little nugget that my husband had clipped from the magazine was a small sidebar of information on websites for penny pinchers like me. There were three listed with brief descriptions. Wisebread.com is a group blog with the slogan “Living large on a small budget.” They share advice from their own lives and link to penny-conscious personal finance advice around the Web. Frugaldad.com centered on making the hard choices of finances. “Spend less than you make,” he writes, “save money for a rainy day; live debt-free.”

I’ve saved my favorite for last. Frugalliving.about.com. When I arrived I went to the section on couponing. I’ve written before about my penchant for couponing and am always looking for tips to do better. If you’re new to couponing there’s a wealth of information that took me years to figure out and I suggest giving the tips a look-see. What got my spendthrift juices running was a link to organic coupons. It is hard to buy organic in these economic times and seldom are there coupons for organic products in the Sunday newspaper. I was excited to find links to print products from Organic Valley, Hain, Brown Cow, and many more.

Whether or not you are attempting to live organic or green during this recession, Frugal Living is well worth the time to see what tips they have for making those pennies scream.

Finally, we are preparing to put in a small Victory over the Recession Garden this year. Every year we’ve said we were going to do it and every year our tendency for procrastination has let another growing season slip away with the area behind our garage left barren. This year we have a stick poking us in the backside. On whim I answered an email from KUOW about a new feature of their website called “Insight.” Readers well know my predisposition for giving my opinion so I signed up and answered a few questions. When it came to the section about what we were doing to make it during the recession I mentioned our intention to put in a vegetable garden. Lo and behold I received a phone call from Ruby de Luna! Could she come and interview us while we put in our garden? Gulp. Time for us to put our money—er shovel—where our/my mouth was.

When I told my husband he rolled his eyes and said, “Now why would she want to do that? Does she know we don’t know what we’re doing?”

“Yes,” I said. "I think that’s kind of the point. She wants to get the sound of you building the garden boxes and me telling you what to do.” More eye rolling.

“When she coming?”

“Tuesday.”

So we are off to get more lumber to make our garden box deeper. Stay tuned for an account with our brush with fame.

Making Do in Hard Times/Anytime

I get more junk email than snail mail. I’m not always sure where it comes from. A few weeks ago I started receiving emails from BeatTheRecession.com, probably because I snoop around websites devoted to frugality. Today I received one from the above outfit with the “tip” titled “Coupons—not just for your grandmother.” Is this a news flash or am I just very old? Well, I am a grandmother. My age not withstanding, I have always clipped coupons.

If stretching your money is of interest to you, read more on The View From My Broom.

The Poverty Unit

For those of us who were raising families during the 1970s Oil Crisis and recession, the current economic crisis is like a trip down memory lane although maybe more frightening. Back then we learned how to make a penny scream from our parents and grandparents who had weathered the Great Depression which Grandma and Grandpa Frieze called Hard Times.

While mulling over how to make our pay checks reach the end of this month and have Thanksgiving, I wondered whether or not the young people who will be graduating from high school this year into the American economic recession and those who were raised in the more comfortable ‘90s will be able to cope. What real world skills do our educational institutions teach young people?

If you are interested in the lessons I learned from a special teacher, read on at The View From My Broom as I fly back to 1969--not quite as far as this picture.