One of the largest homes in Boston with 250,000 lights. Homeowner Luberto hopes the lights will serve as a reminder to some 47,000 people who drive by his home each day that Christmas should be celebrated in style. Photo Paul Keleher

While the earliest origins of celebratory lighting during winter festivals predate Christianity, it’s the European, and later North American partly secularized traditions associated with Christmas which are now commonly recognized and enjoyed as festive Christmas Lights. (more…)

Tissue Rectangles with Cutaway Label Reveal

Combining bits of papers lends a personal artistic touch with surprisingly incredible results. Anything goes — from pieces of foam rubber to paper bags and even fake credit cards!

All you need are fragments of paper, tape, glue sticks, hot glue or double sided tape. For added interest, try making use of unusual materials not typically used for wrapping such as twigs. Go ‘green’ by using colored paper shopping bags that you receive while buying gifts and recycling pieces of ribbon.

The center of attention is the front of the package, so don’t worry about the back which only plays backstage — it’s perfectly OK for the back to be a little untidy. The wrapping usually gets ripped off in a frenzy anyway! (more…)

(more…)

Little known fact about cats: They love Christmas!
But what they love more than anything is to get into the spirit of the season and wear their Christmas hats.

from flickr, by mo ba ca na (more…)

Shopping Strategies to Avoid Crowds and Find Gifts Everyone Will Love

Whether you’re shopping ahead of time or doing some last-minute shopping for Christmas, you’ll find some of our ideas helpful. Avoid the crowds, spend less money, and find gifts that everyone will really appreciate.

Try some of these ideas if you like to get your shopping done early, but want to be sure to get it right:

Shop Online

Almost every major retailer and specialty store has a website and offers online shopping. If you’re familiar with the quality of the products of the company, go for it. You can take care of all your shopping on one or two sites and find something for everyone. Books, plants, small appliances, toys, and clothing are easy to find. (more…)

The holiday cacti are colorful, easy to care for plants. Learn how to grow these plants, how to get them to re-flower as well as how to propagate them.

The holidays are just around the corner and who can resist the brightly colored blooms on the holiday cactus? Flowers in shades of red, purple, pink, white and yellow seem to glisten as they dangle, first as tightly closed buds, then as fully opened flowers, from the end of the green segments of stem.

Schlumbergera truncata, the Thanksgiving cactus, is aptly named because it begins to flower in November, which is a month before Schulmbergera bridgesii, the Christmas Cactus begins to flower.

When you first purchase your plant, look for ones that are already in bloom or at least have little buds forming. To convince your plant to bloom in consecutive years you will need to make sure nighttime temperatures are below 68 degrees F but above 60 degrees F. If the temperature is too low the flower buds may fall off. Temperatures that are too high at night will cause a delay in flowering. (more…)