Rethink Your Holiday Gifts

The holidays tend to put me in a mellow sort of  mood.  I guess, for me it is a time of hope and healing.  Now though, is not the time to slack off my prepping because I am feeling the moods of the holidays.  More than ever I should be increasing and focusing on getting ready for the storm on the horizon.

One big thing I am doing this year is slashing my gift budget.  I refuse to go into debt with credit cards and at this point it would be insane.  Penny and I have worked so hard on reducing our debt.  For Christmas this year we have decided to give just a few meaningful gifts, not our typical wow gifts of the past like everyone got used to, practical and useful is the theme this year.  Instead of wows I am sure there might be some "uh… this is nice" politeness's and that's okay.

You see, I have grown past the "need to please" in the last few years.  My Christmas gift goal is to bring the awareness of prepping to my friends and family who are not doing anything to change their lifestyle and to add to the the preps of those who are.  I feel very strongly about the need to change the way we as a people live our lives.  The madness of unbridled consumerism is destroying us both individually and collectively.  The Christmas holiday season is the most blatant, in your face example of this and has been for decades.

Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute, predicts that the most popular gift of Christmas 2010 will be food. I think the most popular gift this year should be the gift of producing and storing and preserving our own food. Everything from garden tools and seeds to books, canning supplies and dehydrators. We need to learn to provide for ourselves again and eliminate our dependence on others. Below is a list of some of my favorite links for shopping this year. Happy shopping and Happy Holidays!

Seeds and Garden Supplies:
Non Hybrid Survival Seed Bank
Henry Fields Seed and Nursery
Arbico Organics
Yardiac.com
Cooking, Storing and Preserving:
Cooking.com
The Shelving Store
KitchenSource.com

Books and DVD's:
Four Season Harvest
All New Square Foot Gardening
Carrots Love Tomatoes
Be prepared for the coming food shortage.