You can buy cheap bows by the bag at the dollar store or spend more money on fancy ones. However, in the same amount of time and for no money, you can make a bow that matches the package and is much nicer.

I’m not kidding about the time needed. These bows take just a couple of minutes once you learn how to do it, and there are no special tools needed. I learned to make these from my personal librarian, Amy. She teaches a bow-making workshop at our public library around Christmastime, but they are useful year-round.

These are some of the ones I’ve made at the library.

Any colorful paper can be used. I find that the pictures from old calendars are the perfect weight and length. Save your 2019 calendars, and you will have year-round bow making material.

Here are the instructions to make your own bows. I’ve taught young and old friends how to make these, and they all mastered them. I’ll gladly teach you if you live nearby. Give them a try, and you may not want to stop.

Every nativity scene I’ve ever seen has animals in it. This makes sense since it takes place in a stable where the animals live. Plus, there are all those sheep that the shepherds wouldn’t have left behind.

I have two nativities. My smaller one that was a gift from my husband has only seven pieces. They left out the shepherd but included a sheep. That is how important animals are.

If you think about it, Jesus was already born when the shepherds arrived. Therefore, the first ones to see the baby, after Mary and Joseph, would have been the animals that lived in the stable (and probably ate from the manger where Jesus was sleeping) and the donkey that brought them to Bethlehem.

If you like to cry, watch “The Small One,” a Disney featurette about the donkey that carried Mary to Bethlehem. I only saw this movie once and remember bawling uncontrollably, so I’ll skip it, but it’s sweet to watch a familiar story from a different point of view. Remarkably, you can see this on Amazon Prime but not Disney+.

Rather than watching a sob story, you can do something nice for the animals in your life. Buy them a new toy. Give an outdoor cat a warm bed. Buy your fur babies a special treat. Christmastime can be stressful for pets so make sure you take good care of them.

By the way, I never see dogs and cats in nativity scenes, but I assume they were there. Shepherds use herding dogs and cats hunt mice in areas where there is hay, so I think they should be represented too.

In my Girl Scout Brownie and Junior Handbook, published in 1977, there is a story about two kids who wished they had a brownie in their house who would do all the chores so that their father, who was raising them, didn’t have to work so hard. The girl visited a wise old owl one evening to learn how to find a brownie, and he told her to go to the pond, turn around three times, and look in the water. When she did, she was to say the following words.

“Twist me and turn me and show me the elf,

I looked in the water and saw _____.”

Whatever she saw that rhymed with “elf” was her brownie. She only saw her own face, so she went back to the owl and complained. “All I saw was myself!”

The owl explained that the girl was the brownie and could do chores to help her father instead of being lazy. She didn’t want to be lazy, so she and her brother woke up early and did the chores. Their father was so glad that the brownies were back that the children didn’t tell him that they were the brownies.

This Brownie Story has many different renditions, but they all have the same message. It’s good to be helpful and not ask for anything in return.

Today, why not be a brownie for someone. Do their chores so they can have some time off to do something fun. You can tell them what you are going to do, or do it without them knowing. Either way, do it with joy so they can enjoy their time off guilt-free.

If I were going to do something special for my hubby, I would give him a day of no nagging. I’m sure he would appreciate that, and it would be tough for me to do, so it would be special.

There are a lot of ways to show someone you love them. I’ve made a list of nine things for Day Nine, but I’m sure you can add to it.

Nine Lovely Gestures

• Take them out to dinner at their favorite restaurant
• Give them a day off from chores
• Make them their favorite meal or dessert
• Get their car an oil change or fill the gas tank
• Give them a coupon book of activities you’ll do with them
• Spend time together just talking with looking at your phone
• Watch a movie that they want to watch
• Give them a greeting card (bought or homemade) that tells them how much you love them

After several ideas floated around my mind, I settled on the following plan. Many years ago, I made advent quilts for family members. This hanging quilt had twenty-four pockets, and each pocket held an index card. The cards had the day on one side and an activity on the other. The idea was that you would put the card in the pocket and do whatever activity was listed.

I didn’t make one for myself, but I still have my list of activities. So each day, I will blog about one of the activities. This will be fun for me because I haven’t read the list in years, so it will be a surprise and possibly a challenge to write about the activity of the day. Hopefu,lly, it will be fun for you because you’ll have an idea for a festive activity and you’ll learn something about the holidays.

The quilts I made were large, two feet by four feet. I think I’ll design a new, smaller advent calendar that incorporates the activities. That could be a nice gift for people next year. As you know, I like to get my gifts done as early as possible.

Thanksgiving is over. Hang the lights, decorate the house, and play the carols. It’s finally Christmastime!