Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Fun Christmas Socks Gift Idea ~ Keeping the Mistle “Toes” Warm

by 10 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

I picked up several pairs of fun Christmas socks before Thanksgiving, so as expected, I bought some toothpaste and pencils to go with them. This is the obvious action to take when gifting Christmas socks. Everything I do is normal.

What actually happened is that I bought the fun Christmas socks with our adopted college students in mind. I figured I would package them up with some other goodies and put them in their campus mail. But then I came across the fun idea on Pinterest to fill the socks with treats and little gifts, and before I knew it (which really translates to several days and hours later) – I had six sets of these:

Christmas Sock Gift

These gifts were terrifically fun to put together! I went with basic wool socks for our three male adopted students, as you’ll see below. Since I’d gotten so many pairs of fun girly Christmas socks on sale, I decided to mix theirs up a bit. While it looks like they’re receiving mis-matched pairs, I actually rolled up the second sock of each pair and stuck it down inside the toes. So the girls are getting two pairs of cute socks. Sorry boys – yours are much more practical!

Christmas Sock Gifts

Speaking of practical – I included a few other practical items inside the guy’s socks. What college student wants to actually spend money on toothpaste and soap? Not to worry, I’m here to help. Their socks included soap, toothpaste, pens, candy cane chapstick, a small flashlight, gum, and candy (because not everything must be practical and at least I included toothpaste to brush away the sugar).

The girl’s socks were a little more on the fru-fru side because my inner girl rarely gets to come out in this household of men and all that I’d been holding back exploded in the dazzling Christmas aisles at Walmart. I got the girls sparkly lip balm and glittery nail polish, Christmas nail files, snowman pencils, face scrub, gum, and candy.

Our family then worked together to come up with a punny gift tag idea to attach to our socks. Our gift tag creativity hadn’t woken up yet that morning, however, so all we came up with was “Hope your Christmas doesn’t sock.” (Get it? Don’t try too hard.) Since that idea didn’t come close to making the cut, I searched online and came up with this:

mistle toes4

Yes. That’s better.

I then created a generic tag for all of you in case you’d like to steal this idea.

Mistle Toe Socks Gift Tag

Download FREE Mistle Toes Gift Cards

As I’m writing this, I realize that this would be a very good idea for those of you who live in a community with a large homeless population. Filling wool socks with practical items and turning them into fun gifts like this would surely be a blessing to the recipients. In my town, we don’t have many homeless, but we do have many low-income individuals and families. I’m working on putting together packages for several people we’ve met and become friends with this year while volunteering at our local mission. I’ll write more about this experience sometime. :)

Ideas to include in practical and fun sock gifts:

  • Chap stick
  • Nail clippers
  • Lotion
  • Soap
  • Candy/Chocolate
  • Pens
  • Small notebook
  • Toothbrush
  • Toothpaste
  • Kleenex packet

This time of year is so much fun!

Subscribe for FREE to Heavenly Homemakers so you won’t miss all the new Simple Recipes and ideas we share to save you money!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Your Home is Beautiful

by 65 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Your Home is Beautiful

Do you live in a house? Apartment? Duplex? Trailer?

Then you are very, very blessed.

Do you have a bed with a pillow? A kitchen with a skillet? A chair to sit on? A shower with running water?

Wow. Then you really have it made.

I’m guessing you might have more than a backpack to hold your clean clothes? Blessing upon blessing.

Since going to Colorado with my family a few weeks ago, serving alongside those who minister to the homeless, feeding families who don’t have enough food to nourish their children through the week, and learning more about those who have no place to call home – I can’t quite see my house the same as I did before.

It’s been easy for me through the years to find fault in the house we’ve lived in for the past eleven years. Our abode is well over 100 years old. That means it has a lot of “character” right? Yes. If by “character” you mean that the toilets don’t flush well, the basement looks like the Adam’s Family lives there, and the dust from the Dirty Thirties is still stuck in crevices around each of our fifty drafty windows.

That’s how I look at my house when I have a self-focused perspective. The world tells me I need new, shiny, perfect, better, best, improved, highest quality, and spotless. Pinterest tells me I need my home and the contents therein to look like as though they climbed out of a magazine – completely unique, yet altogether trendy (which is oxymoronic, yet true). We must have the right color scheme, a lovely furniture arrangement, and classy wall decor. Otherwise, we must feel guilty, deprived, and less than.

What if we just decided to be thankful instead?

We don’t have central air in our house. Below is a picture of our kitchen window air conditioner, sporting white cardboard and clear packing tape to seal off the window. (Which I felt was better than brown cardboard and silver duct tape, yes?)  I used to be embarrassed by this. Now I just appreciate that we have air conditioning on 100 degree days.

air_conditioner

Go ahead. Pin this. I dare you. You know you want one just like it in your window.
Perhaps we could start a unique trend.

Undoubtedly, God gave each of us our home and has called on us to use it for Him as we raise our family and offer hospitality. We need to keep it clean, take care of it, and create a space that will tell all who enter that our home is a place of peace and joy.

But beyond that, should we really lose sleep over the fact that our “to-do” list of needed home improvements is as tall as the pile of clutter in the corner? I’ve come to realize that having a foundation, walls, a floor, and a roof is more than many people have. Even if some of our furniture is old, worn, and stained – at least it’s furniture.

Look at your home through the eyes of the homeless. Your home is perfect – a gift. It is beautiful, and truly, you are blessed.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Our Family Service Trip Journal: Day 2 – Handing Out Food to 100 Families

by 3 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see our disclosure policy.

Two days before we were to leave for Colorado, we still did not have plans worked out for Day 2 (Friday). Eek! It’s not like we hadn’t tried. In fact, we had emailed several ministries that we knew of in the Denver area. Answers kept coming back like, “Sorry, we don’t have anything available for you to do that day” or “We have a minimum volunteer age of 10” or “We are closed only one day each year – and the day you are coming just happens to be the day.”

Seriously. Doors closed one after another. We weren’t worried though. We figured those doors had closed because God had something else in mind for our family that we just hadn’t figured out yet. We continued to pray for direction.

We finally heard of a ministry run by a church in downtown Denver. They offer free groceries for low income and homeless families, available for pick-up on guess which day? Friday, of course. Could they use our help? Yes, they sure could. Perfect.

We showed up just after 8:00 in the morning. Food was being unloaded and sorted. We introduced ourselves and were put right to work. Malachi was put in charge of setting out shoes. (They offer free clothing too, not just groceries!)

university_3

Mountains and mountains of lettuce, potatoes, breads, eggs, canned goods, granola bars, and so much more were brought out and organized on tables. We put our boys’ muscles to work. I can’t believe how much they enjoyed the jobs they were given to do. We all did! I think it may have had to something to do with the fact that we were dealing with food and obviously – we love food. Even when we aren’t the ones eating it.  It felt great to be working hard at a task that would bless so many families. This church group is really meeting a need in their area each week. We were so blessed to be a part of it.

university_1

Right before doors were opened to hand out the groceries, we were all put in charge of “stations.” We were to replenish the supplies of food at our table, letting each person know, “You can pick one of these, fifteen of these, three of these…”

university_2
Asa was thrilled because he got to have his first “real” conversation in Spanish. He and Justus have been studying it for two years. A man from Honduras came through the food line, and Asa struck up a conversation with him. I’m not sure who enjoyed it more –  Asa or our new spanish speaking friend. (Of course, then the man assumed that the mother of the spanish speaking child also knew spanish. I hated to disappoint him!) 

After several hours, doors were closed, leftover food was put away, and we were able to help clean up for the day. All throughout the day, the boys kept saying to me, “This is so much fun” and “I really like doing this.” Ah yes, just like we had told them as we prepared:  Serving others is such a joy when you do it with a Christ-like attitude.

We left that day tired, yet completely energized by the people we worked with and for. Our prayer is that those we were with felt equally blessed. 

Stay tuned for more details of our trip!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!