I wish you the happiest of holidays

 Well Christmas is almost here and it feels as though the time has flown by. I've been spending my time creating last-minute gifts and stocking up on the Christmas cookie dough for the freezer. Next week I will have a marathon of baking and decorating for all the Christmas tins. As usual, I think I want to make too many different recipes and I end up with more than I need. It is fun though.

This time of year I'm always reminded about how much more we do have in this part of the world and how lucky we are. My only real complaint about Christmas is that it proves that we consume way too much and produce way too much garbage. We are very lucky to have such problems.

This time last year I wrote about a couple charities that I donated to and I'm happy to tell you that I was able to make a second Kiva loan and help support another entrepreneur. I hope to keep rolling my loan paybacks into new loans to help more people. For this year I've decided to donate to Charity:Water and support projects that give the most basic necessity of life. I live in an area that has some of the cleanest and most readily available water in the world. Again, I know that I am lucky and I want to help make clean water a reality for others.

Next week I'm going to take a little break and spend it quietly with my family. I hope that you enjoy the rest of the  Christmas season  and I will be back before the year ends. Happy Holidays!