Birthdays & Holidays

To Ring in 2012: a Young & Old New Year’s Eve Party and a January Organizing Challenge

December 29, 2011

If you’ve been with me for a few years, you know how we whip up a wild yet family-friendly New Year’s Eve celebration, without calling a sitter. I recapped how we do it this year in this post for Parentables: 5 Essentials for a Super-Fun New Year’s Eve Party with Kids (It’s Possible, Really!) To [...]

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Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2011

From our house to yours, I am wishing you a warm and cozy, magical and merry Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa. Thank you for joining me in this adventure of finding the fun in the little things, so we can really enjoy the big things. Take good care of yourself and your family. Wishing you a [...]

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Got Enough Plastic Toys? Try These Notes Instead of Stocking Gifts (+ Another Free Printable)

December 21, 2011

Christmas to me has started to feel “too”: too many gifts, too much stuff, too much money spent on things. Too much wrapping, too many ribbons, too much trash. Stockings are fun, but in order to “stuff” them full, we end up with more and more stuff. Stuff that parents end up cleaning up, taking [...]

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Free Printable Coupon Favor Book for the Kids + Easy Step-by-Step Instructions

December 19, 2011

We want to show our children our love on birthdays and holidays. But we don’t want to clutter our houses with more toys, or spend money that should really go into a savings account. A book of coupon favors is a perfect solution. Even though I vaguely remember favor tickets from my childhood, I was [...]

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How to Make Gourmet Hot Chocolate Mix (+ Cheap Gift Packaging Idea & Printable)

December 15, 2011

Make extra of this hot chocolate, because you’ll want to keep some luxury for yourself. I looked a long time to find the perfect recipe. I wanted one that would be complex-tasting yet simple to make. Plus I wanted one that was deep and chocolatey, not sweet and cloying. I’m happy to say, this hot [...]

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Money- and Stress-Saving Holiday Tips & Tricks (and a Peek at My Personal Christmas Frenzy)

December 13, 2011

We are busy-busy making hot chocolate mix, double-batches of chili, and toffee-chocolate bark. Our toddler Luke is making some pretty spectacular messes by shattering his applesauce bowls on the floor, scrounging in the cabinets for candy (and finding it), and ripping delicate paper snowflakes off windows and doors. (By the way, Sara noted hilariously in [...]

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How I Simplify Christmas Cookies

December 6, 2011

This post is part of a new series called How I Simplify. I make the same Christmas cookies every year. We discovered our favorite recipe a few years ago at a cookie exchange in New York City. This super-fast recipe for chocolate-covered toffee satisfies all my cravings for butterscotch and chocolate, sweet and salty, crunchy [...]

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How I Simplify Thanksgiving

November 24, 2011

This post is part of a new series called How I Simplify, in which I’ll share how I try to make life more simple. Readers: please send in your own simple ideas to tips@frugal-mama.com. We have been hosting the Thanksgiving feast for years now. Enrico’s family in Italy doesn’t celebrate the holiday, and my parents [...]

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The Best $10 Birthday Present You’ll Ever Need

June 14, 2011

I’m sharing one of my secrets in this post today at Parentables. What is your favorite go-to gift? When my daughters were given this unisex, low-tech, all-ages, indoor-outdoor toy, I knew we had found the birthday present panacea. Read more…

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Go Shopping to Celebrate Earth Day: 5 Inexpensive Products to Save the Planet

April 21, 2011

Making fairy beds out of walnut shells and pinecone birdfeeders are great and all, but sometimes a mom needs to celebrate Earth Day with manicured fingernails and a glowing laptop. Here are my top guilt-free ways to ring in April 22 with a credit card and a clean conscience. Please click over to Parentables, where [...]

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Easter Cupcakes: Make These Robin’s Nest Beauties in No Time

April 15, 2011

There is nothing un-fun about making these cupcakes. Kids love to sort out all the blue eggs and press them into the coconut icing. My son Mark has an April birthday, and so we’ve gravitated towards an Easter theme. The year before we made these Chick and Egg Easter Cupcakes, but we wanted to try something [...]

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How to Throw a Last Minute New Year’s Eve Party

December 29, 2010

In case you missed this post last year, I thought I’d update it and republish, because the message is worth repeating: even though we have kids, it doesn’t mean the party’s over! When I was single, New Year’s Eve always presented a dilemma: restaurants and organized parties charged an arm and a leg, but how [...]

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The Most Fun Way to Downplay Gift-Giving

December 10, 2010

This week I had fun writing an article for Slow Family Online about holiday traditions and their power to take the pressure off presents:  Downplay Gift-Giving and Bring up Ritual, Meaning and Fun. Ever heard of the Slow Movement?  Slow Food “was founded in 1989 to counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance [...]

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9 Ways to De-Stress and Spend Less Over the Holidays

December 7, 2010

Check out Dagmar’s Momsense, a refreshingly opinionated blog about attachment parenting and much more, where I wrote a guest post this weekend called 9 Ways to De-Stress and Spend Less Over the Holidays. The words of wisdom come not from me (I don’t feel very wise anyway), but from a grandmother to six and mentor [...]

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Simplify Your Giving to Teachers and Friends: a Loving Low-Cost Solution

November 27, 2010

Twinkling lights, Christmas carols, and the smell of pumpkin pie make me feel all glowy and wanting to do nice things for others. However, I have to be careful to not overdo it. All this talk about simplifying the holidays gets thrown into the bonfire if we pile on too many craft projects, baking enterprises, [...]

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Don’t Cut Off Your Hair:  Ask For What You Need

November 18, 2010

Remember the story about the young and poor married couple who wanted to surprise each other for Christmas? The man sold his treasured pocket watch so he could buy a fancy hair comb for his wife. She sold her long beautiful hair to buy a chain for his pocket watch. That’s the problem with surprises. [...]

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