It’s hard to believe, Christmas is just over a week away. If being good wasn’t your style this year, there’s still time to come up with some mitigating circumstances that might reduce the load of coal crashing down the chimney. For the rest of us, the shopping is nearly over, just those presents for the wives and girlfriends that send grown men into the stores Christmas Eve. But in retrospect, this year seemed a turning point for the holiday season and our twittering tin can played a large part of that change. Here’s some of the ways PC’s changed my Holiday paradigm.
Emily Post is turning, no spinning in her grave now that I decided to move from Christmas Cards to Christmas emails. But adding up the cost of cards, envelopes, paper and stamps, I felt the need to cut back. Two ways to save. One, cut a bunch of friends and family from the card list, or move into the 21st century and utilize the Internet. So here we are. This year’s infamous Family Letter was composed on the computer, mail merged on the computer, converted to a PDF file on the computer and attached to an email that found it’s way to the email boxes of friends and family. Tacky? Several years ago, I would have said yes, now it’s more of a necessity.
Shopping: I am probably the only person in the world born without a shopping gene. I hate shopping. There, I said it. (Martha, there are pills to treat that.) This year, I decided what gifts I would give, used my computer and the Internet to compare price/warranty/service, and then ordered it online. Even items I could have run down to the local big box stores and picked up, I ordered online and had shipped to my door. A big decision maker was all the retailers offering free or very low cost shipping this year. http://www.freeshipping.org lists over 500 merchants that offer free shipping. As a bonus to the procrastinators out there, Amazon Prime still offers free shipping and one day shipping on many items. The idea is that items ordered on the 17th can still be delivered by Christmas Eve.
If the joyous sounds of small children are filling your home this year, perhaps this site can quiet the little rug rats down. A site located at http://christmas-coloring.com/ has a collection of coloring pages that can be printed and handed out to the kids. Give them a box of crayons and this should keep then occupied for a few minutes Or at least until the linoleum lizards find our computer and change all the settings to make it “better.”
Once they have commandeered our digital domestique for their nefarious plans, send them over to http://www.primarygames.com/holidays/christmas/games.php for a collection of online holiday games they can play. There they will find games like Deep Freeze, Where’s Santa and Run Santa Run. It will keep them occupied while we prepare the holiday eggnog.
Always bought eggnog from the store? Don’t actually know what eggnog is? Fire up the pernicious PC and surf over to https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/homemade-eggnog/ for eggnog recipes. Try one or try them all. Eggnog has been a holiday staple for hundreds of years. It has even spawned this gem of poetry. If you see a fat man, who’s jolly and cute, wearing a beard and a red flannel suit; And if he is chuckling and laughing away, while flying around in a miniature sleigh; With eight tiny reindeer to pull him along; Then – let’s face it – Your eggnog’s too strong!! (Author unknown)
On a more serious note, tis the season for giving. Not only are many of us feeling philanthropic, but many organizations and folks offer themselves as worthy recipients of our hard earned dollars. It behooves us to make our charity stretch as far as it possibly can. Take a few minutes to surf over to http://www.charitynavigator.org. Founded in 2001, Charity Navigator has become the nation’s largest and most-utilized evaluator of charities. Thinking of donating to a charity? Check their ratings and efficiency. If they don’t rank at the top of the heap, maybe a charity with similar goals but with lower overhead would make better use of the money we worked for. Consider outcome based giving. Can you see feel and touch the results of your gift?
Is there still time to amend my letter to Santa?
Court Nederveld owns his own computer consulting and fixit service –Bits, Bytes & Chips Computer Services. He can do remote repair. You can reach him at adakeep@hotmail.com
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