Planting for the Future

By Judy Baehr

New Holiday Traditions

 

Masthead-PlantingI admit that one of the reasons I was eager to move to Mexico was to avoid spending the last two months of the year shopping, decorating, baking, cleaning, polishing, cooking, wrapping, mailing…well, you get the drift. Having come of age in the era of Julia Child’s effortful French recipes, and having hit my productive peak of housekeeping during the Martha Stewart era, my sense of “I need to do things for the holidays” started earlier every year. It had gotten so bad, I felt the need to decorate not just for Christmas but for every season and every holiday. When I got to seriously thinking about adding on a storage room just for seasonal decorations, I realized things were out of hand.

Now that I am living in Mexico, I am liberated! I can avoid doing this stuff and NO ONE WILL NOTICE! (Our house has high walls.)

I do not have aching muscles and joints from hanging decorations on the rafters. My husband is not mad at me for making him climb on the roof. My head doesn’t hurt from bumping into the snowman mobile in the laundry room. Come January I am not sick from eating all the leftover cookies and cheesecake and brownies and chocolates that I made, plus all the ones that well-meaning friends brought over. I feel great come January and so can you!

This year, I recommend seriously asking yourself NOT “What do I NEED to do?” but “What would I really LIKE to do for the holidays?” Write me for pledge cards; I may form a support group.

So what do I do now when the holidays arrive? Last year, instead of baking cookies, I bought fresh fruit and made gift baskets with jams and flavored oils from the ACÁ store. The year before I bought gift herb planters from ACÁ. And the year before that, I bought charitable ACÁ gift cards to give turkeys to deserving Mexican families to help restore the raising of indigenous breeds. All these are available this year at Gg’s Organic Market located in Jaltepec at the ACÁ Eco Training Center. The market sells Great Greens and other local organically grown produce; potted, fresh and dried herbs; products from local producers; and gardening supplies and plants.

Call for details or go to www.greatgreens.org. Orders can be picked up at the farm or at the Lake Chapala Society.

What’s new this year? I’m flocking together (so to speak) with friends to raise funds for ACÁ to build quarters for producing fresh organic eggs. You can help! And yes, I promise I’ll try to avoid thinking about whether I can decorate the eggs for Easter.

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