Holy Christmas

Holy Christmas my dudes. I love/hate Christmas. I like fires, and snacks, and friends, and giving gifts, and getting gifts, train sets, eggnog, skating, and a bunch of other Christmas related things. What I do not love is spending tons of money on garbage I will immediately throw out or I don't love.
And I hate inflatable Christmas decorations almost as much as I hate potatoes,  aka the worlds grossest food. I'm sure we've all heard people bemoaning the commercialism of Christmas and blah blah blah, so you don't need to hear me say it. This year I'm doing our second year of Christmas together as a married partnership (I have a big crush on Josh) and I want to do it well. Not neglecting my values just because it's Christmas and all the stores are screaming CONSUME! CONSUME! CONSUME! How do I balance this? My first problem was decorations, which I will cover in this post and I'll write more about Christmas related things in later posts.

Christmas is coming like a train on fire. Or something else that going real fast and is very expensive. I find this season overwhelming in almost every way. But it still retains the magic and beauty I felt growing up. This time I just have to pay for it myself. I've been looking for ornaments and decorations that are beautiful, inexpensive, and create the least amount of waste. Different places say different things, but the amount of waste created around the holidays is exponential when compared with the rest of the year. Gift wrapping, packaging materials, and food waste all add to the dumpster fire that is the earth on Christmas. This year Josh and I have our own home and its large enough to have our own tree. Our apartment was so small that the tree would have taken over the entire space. So we avoided the problem of having to decide what kind of tree to get and how to decorate by just not doing any of it. It saved money, time, and annoyance in the tiny space. But I missed the coziness of Christmas.

Now we live in a 100 year old home with plenty of space in the living room for a tree and plenty of halls to deck. Josh and I both have some ornaments from our childhoods so we weren't desperate for any new ones. I wanted to see if I could find some cheap and nice ones to fill in the tree. First stop was the red apple in Blairmore. But everything was a mix of three things, ugly, expensive, with SO MUCH packaging, or poorly made.

So I decided it would be much better if I just made my own. I love the look of porcelain and clay ornaments, as I didn't have either of those materials I went to Pinterest. I had a couple requirements, I had to already own all the material that I needed to make the ornaments and it had to be inexpensive.

After only a little bit of searching I found a recipe for salt dough ornaments. This is an example of a recipe. I followed one very similar but I can't find exactly the one.

I already had flour, salt, and water. I also had paint and yarn to finish the ornaments. I love the feeling of creating my own ornaments, and as Josh said, "It's so easy a kindergartener can do it." I made them all and painted them all in a day and it wasn't frustrating or over ambitious. I had a little ball of left over dough that poked a hole in and I am using it to hold some of my incense. So I didn't waste any of the dough.

Soon Josh and I will head into the woods to find our tree and when we do I'll post pictures of it all decorated!

Beyond this I plan on using as many natural materials and things I already own or can make to decorate the rest of the house, alternatively I can also purchase things second hand at thrift stores and on the local buy and sell page. I'm excited to see what Christmas looks like at the Cassley Schulz house this year! I want to be minimal and cozy, beautiful and cheap. So we'll see what I can create!

FUM

Essential oils are the thing right now. Diffusers and oils have become ubiquitous in homes around Canada and the world. I love them. I recently got a diffuser from the thrift store for 5$! I've been putting some peppermint oil in there and it makes my home smell nice and cozy as well as the health benefits. I put lavender on every morning to reduce my stress and I love it. Who knows if they are as amazing as people say, they make my space and my person feel beautiful and so its worth it to me.

As I've just recently started using oils more regularly I was on the hunt for some easy ways to consume and use the oils I have. (All my oils were gifts from people so I'm not sure about the packaging and ethicality of the products.) While on this hunt I went for coffee with my friend Jaron who had started a company, along with his brother and two other friends. FUM creates essential oil pipes, essentially a direct diffuser, the easiest way on the market to inhale essential oils. They spent time finding the best wood and design til they settled on the one pictured above. I was very excited about their product and I immediately asked how I could get one.

Josh and I just received our pipes yesterday! I've already started using mine as a tool to fend off cold season and freshen my breath. Using it is simple and initiative, the packaging is compostable, and the inserts used to hold the oils are small and the benefits outweigh the garbage.

Another benefit of this product is how it can be used to assist in quitting smoking. If any of you have known me for a long time you may know that I used to smoke, casually, but still it was super unhealthy, gross, created TONS of waste, and costed me so much money. When I decided to quit I struggled a lot and wish that I had had a tool like FUM available to me now. If your FUM pipe is matched with black pepper essential oil it can help to combat the nicotine addiction, without resorting to vaping. I love that the 'core four' have used their passion for health and essential oils to help redefine peoples lives for the better. This product has all the health benefits of essential oils without the detriments of smoking or vaping!

Shower Stuff and Other Confessions

Shower stuff is nice. I love to lather up my whole head and let my hair soak up ALL the conditioner. Since I shaved my head I struggle to not use the same amount as when I had real long hair, lol whoops, whatever, force of habit, we've all been there. BUT even though I use some more ethical brands of shamps and conditioner I still don't feel great about the packaging aspect. My dream is that the universe would be a bulk store and we could refill any of our day to day necessities (and that Nestle would admit water is a human right and a lot of other things, I don't just think about trash all the time.) Since the universe is not the way I want it to be, alas, we have to make do with what we have. I have these containers. I bought them because the summer was coming and I needed something simple and quick that I could carry from my trailer to the old bathroom the showers were in or to my in laws with little hastle. So for the summer I used these products. I really do like them and appreciate the ethical aspect of the brand. I have not researched very carefully how ethical they truly are, I am basing this on their marketing and some brief skimming of their website please don't take my word on this and research for yourself.

Despite all that I do care deeply about reducing my waste. So once these two bottles are empty I plan on doing some research and finding a different solution. For awhile I used a combo shampoo and conditioner bar from bulk barn(I love bulk barn, ask me about it) and it didn't suit my hair well and I didn't love the smell, so I used it till it was finished and didn't replenish. I've heard good things about Lush having naked packaging!!! My intentions are to go to lush and find a nice shampoo bar that is low waste, replacing my bottles with a tin that I can refill. It's all in the little steps and doing whatever works for you.

Full disclosure I was given some body wash that I use and it also comes in a container, I like the smell, don't like the packaging, but I plan on using it until it is gone and then maybe finding a way to reuse the packaging. WHO KNOWS! The opportunities are endless.

Another confession, boy am I full of them today, my toothpaste ran out sometime ago and I have been using Josh's for awhile. It's been a good long time and I just haven't made more because sometimes simple tasks are hard. But tonight I washed my face and so I can do ANYTHING! My goal is to make another thing of it tonight.

This post has been a wild ride, thanks for reading. Be gentle with yourself and wash your faces. Bronwyn out.