UsedEverywhere.com

Holiday Gifts: Do They Have to be New?

‘Tis the season for holiday shopping… I was walking through the mall the other day, looking for that perfect gift. It’s funny how, with so many stores under one roof, it’s still so tough to find that one item which you just know that certain someone will love. And then I got to thinking… does it have to be new? Does it have to come out of a store in the mall? Why not buy a used gift?

Here are some reasons why something used might actually make the perfect gift for your friends and family:

A vintage gift has memories.

Picture yourself receiving a gift from a friend. Picture the wrapping paper and bow, maybe a card. You open it up, and it’s your favourite toy from when you were a kid. You thought you would never see it again. And here it is right in your hands. And it takes you back. Now that’s a great gift. All you have to do is go on one of the UsedEverywhere.com sites and find someone selling it.

Adding a little glue and glitter can make all the difference.

Remember when you were a kid and you handmade all your Christmas gifts with finger paint and macaroni? Imperfect as they likely were, you can bet they were very valued by the receiver. Why not still create your own gifts? Find something used and give it a fresh coat of paint, add an embellishment or print a monogram on it. Give a gift with the D.I.Y. touch.

Why pay full price?

Need I say more?

It’s environmentally friendly!

By buying a used gift, you’re also giving a gift to the environment. Buying used keeps items out of landfills and also diminishes the use of all that packaging. Buying local also reduces the need for transportation and keeps those harmful emissions out of the air. Everyone wins.

Keep it in your community.

Buying something used not only results in a gift for your friend. You’ve also put your money into the hands of the seller, not a giant store. And, who knows, maybe they’ll be using that money to buy a gift for their friends or family. Now isn’t that a vision of a perfect circle in which neighbours are helping out neighbours?

Would you consider buying a used gift to give to your friends and family this season? How would you feel about receiving something used? Can you add to our list of reasons for giving used gifts? We’d love to hear your comments!

Have Yourself a Meaty Little Christmas

The holiday season is a time to come together. A time to honour traditions with family and friends. And for me that tradition involves meat. A lot of meat.

I’m talking about Season’s Meatings – an annual, all-meat potluck that celebrates the Christmas carnivore is all of us. Well, maybe not all of us. My vegetarian wife, for one, is a conscientious objector (but God love her for taking the kids to her folks’ house). It’s really just a group of 4 or 5 of my male friends who gather for a night of conversation, the occasional cigar, the more-than-occasional drink and lots of meat.

My friends and I aren’t the most traditional male archetypes, so it’s fun to embrace some of the stereotypical “male” trappings with a certain sense of irony. While the conversation draws more inspiration from Applied Arts than the locker room, the protein and camaraderie are enough to buoy our testosterone well into the New Year. If you can stomach the meat hangover, it’s an awesome way to celebrate the season.

Think you’d like to get your meat on this Holiday season? Hear are some tips I have learned from experience:

• You can never have enough tin foil.
• Consider having people bring one meat-based course to build a meal (appetizer, side, main, dessert). Or stagger the meat, with people serving their dish at different times throughout the night. The full-on meat feast buffet at once can take the fight right out of you.
• Set your buffet table close to an outlet to accommodate crock pots.
• If you’re switching between beer and vodka, you don’t really need to add schnapps to the mix (you really never need to have schnapps at all).

This year I decided to go Huxtable with my Cosby Show-inspired Bacon Burger Dogs. The recipe is below. I kind of made it up as I went along, so feel free to take liberties with the cooking times and measurements (I know I did).

Wishing you a Meaty Christmas season,

– Brodie

Brodie’s Boozy Bacon Burger Dog Sliders

Makes about 24 oversized sliders

INGREDIENTS:

• 150 g diced pancetta
• 500g peppercorn bacon
• 3lb ground chuck/sirloin (80/20 mix)
• 2 heads of garlic, roasted
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup fresh breadcrumbs
• brick of aged cheddar (2 – 5 years)
• 2 large white onions
• 1 large yellow onion
• stone ground mustard
• yellow mustard (for cooking)
• jalapeño tabasco Sauce
• worcestershire sauce
• salt & pepper
• 2oz of whiskey
• 1 coil of good kielbasa (in Regina? go to the Ukrainian Co-op)
• 2 dozen tray buns

1. Roast garlic – preheat oven to 400; cut tops off garlic heads; place in muffin pan, drizzle with olive oil and cover each with foil; bake for 35 minutes or until cloves are brown and soft

2. On the stovetop, put bacon, pancetta and half a white onion (diced) in a frying pan. Add few dashes of Worcestershire sauce and a tsp of ground mustard, and cook until done. Spread on a baking sheet and place paper towel on top. Add mixture to food processor. Add roasted garlic, tsp of fat from frying pan and whiskey. Pulse until a smooth-ish chunky consistency.

3. Add mixture to beef. Add eggs, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, tbsp of ground mustard and hot sauce. Mix together, then form into slider-sized balls. Add a chunk of cheddar to each burger and wrap burger around it. Push flat.

4. Preheat electric griddle to 350 – 400. Add a squirt of yellow mustard on griddle and place burger on top (forms a really nice crust) push sliced yellow and white onions into top of burger. Flip after a few minutes and cook until juice comes out clear. (Tip: I found adding a little water and covering with a lid made them juicy, but kept the nice crust.)

5. BBQ kielbasa and slice into dill pickle-sized pieces. Garnish burgers with kielbasa.

Smart gift-giving: Feel good, save money, and support the economy

We are in the thick of the holiday season, and the obsessive compulsion to shop-shop-shop is upon many of us. I admit, it’s been getting to me despite my commitment to stay away from the malls this year. It was as I was getting my gym bag out of my car today that I realized how overwhelmed I’ve become with the holidays: I had been planning to buy my brother-in-law a gift this week, yet there sitting beside my bag was something I’d put aside just for him. I think the constant barrage of advertisements was finally getting to me, and I found myself getting swept up in the shopping spirit. Well, no more. Let me show you some ways we’re having a more ethical, eco-friendly, frugal, and meaningful Christmas.

WRAP IT UP:

In the USA alone, it’s estimated that holiday gift wrapping contributes 4 million tons of garbage to the landfills. Crazy, right? Yet we’re all going to contribute, for two reasons:

1. It’s cheaper than a lot of the clever DIY wrapping out there, using fabrics, etc.

2. We’re novelty junkies, and we think each present has to be wrapped in a unique, thematic piece of paper.

 My solution: brown paper packages, tied up with string. These are a few of my favourite things. You can get a roll of brown parcel paper at your local box store. Wrap all your presents in this simple paper, then go old-school and tie it with old fashioned twine. Or, if you want a splash more pizazz, get a few rolls of different ribbons and tie up those packages with a bit of festive colour. The best part? These rolls of paper are pretty huge, so you can keep the leftovers and use it year-round for all your gift-giving needs. Too plain for you? Make a potato stamp (easy tutorial here) and stamp for the specific holiday; or buy a cute rubber stamp set and stamp the paper. It takes only a moment of extra time, and it will actually look more suave than the usual whacky-coloured paper.

GO LOCAL.

Project: Priceless (our family of blogs) is very pro-local buying. So is UsedEverywhere! Whether the gifts you’re looking for can be bought off your local Used site, or if you need something fresh from the manufacturer, buying local is easy. There’s a few ways to do this:

Handmade locally in Ottawa, posted on UsedOttawa.com

1. Schedule yourself with 3-4 major craft shows during the season; bring your gift list, and you’ll find something for everyone. Having troubles with manly gift ideas? Remember that culinary crafters offer a range of BBQ-specific meat rubs and sauces. Some artisans craft wonderful wood statues, ceramics, or even cufflinks.

2. Choose a locally-owned shop and buy ALL your gifts there…or at least as many as you can. It’s actually pretty fun, and if you meet the owner, you’ll get to see what a happy impact you can have on them with your relatively large bulk purchase. If that’s too difficult, choose a couple local vendors to support. Hint: a local shop that carries various local brands may be an easier first attempt at this, rather than, say, one shop that makes only cat sweaters.

RE-GIFT.

Yup, I said it. Re-gift things. Tacky? Not as tacky as holding onto gifts for a couple years ‘til you finally get the nerve up to toss ‘em in the trash. Why not re-gift, say, that set of cupcake-scented body products if you’re allergic to perfumes? If you have a sweets-lovin’ person on your list who’ll squeal with joy over the set, it seems only right to pass it along. Re-gifting, in my eyes, is only tacky if you’re not trying to match the person with the present. Our culture is obsessed with the idea that everything has to be new from the store. Ask yourself why you believe that, and if it really jives with your eco-viewpoint.

MAKE IT WITH YOUR HANDS.

In a nutshell: you can make something. And if you’re not crafty, handy, or coordinated: think smart, not hard. You have a best friend? Get a really pretty cigar box (available at cigar shops for $10 or less) and fill it with photos of the two of you. Try the same idea, but with recipes. Get tee-shirt transfer paper and print off your kid’s favourite superhero, then iron it onto a hoodie. Assemble a ‘Guy’s Night In’ package, complete with (locally brewed) beverages, popcorn, pretzels, a magazine, and a DVD, all tucked creatively into a milk crate or toolbox. You may have found some handmade snacks at the craft show to include!

IN SHORT: THINK SMART, NOT HARD.

The average Canadian is spending over $600 this year on Christmas gifts, and we produce 25% more waste during the holiday season through all this gift-giving. For your budget, your planet, or your desire to get creative, ‘tis the season to try something new! Once you conquer the notion that ‘expensive, elaborate, and over-packaged is best’, you’ll find a whole new world of gift-giving opens up to you..and best of all, you’ll find people notice the extra effort and will treasure your gifts for longer! Give it a try; I’m certain you’re gonna love it