Christmas shopping can be viewed as an absolute thrill or as a compulsory evil. It is a thrill to be out and about amid the sights and sounds of the...
Christmas shopping can be viewed as an absolute thrill or as a compulsory evil. It is a thrill to be out and about amid the sights and sounds of the season and the cheerful crowds. But for the same reasons, others fear shopping at Christmas time. These days, you do not need to leave your home much or at all to get your Christmas and holiday shopping completed. That is because the Internet puts shopping at your fingertips and rather than contending with conventional retail stores, the Internet has actually expanded the aptitude of traditional stores to sell more products to a larger number of people in a larger quantity of places.
Both large and small retailers can be found at their specialized Web sites on the Internet. Most will also offer items that can be found in the store. However, online retail sites will often have additional products for sale, or access to additional products, that are not yo be found in the store.
Another benefit of shopping on the Internet is that it offers admission to stores situated anywhere in the world. It has therefore become easier to order a unique present from a niche or specialty boutique store in places that you otherwise would not be able to reach. It is also easy to do comparison shopping using ’shop bots’ or simply by comparing prices yourself.
If Christmas shopping is done through the Internet, you have to pay careful attention to the order times and any cut-off dates to get an item delivered in time for Christmas. Based on anticipated volume, most sites will give a date or the number of hours within which orders have to be confirmed for guaranteed delivery of the products before Christmas.
The mall is a popular place for conventional Christmas and holiday shopping. Precincts offer one-stop shopping and have a huge assortment of merchandise, which can reduce the endless searching of dozens of stores for some exclusive item. The stores will also be delightfully garlanded for Christmas, have splendid displays and a Santa Claus to interact with children. These and other activities that are usually at the mall during Christmas and the holidays also make them an attractive setting to take children to enjoy some of the season’s delights.
To maximum benefit from shopping at the mall, you will need to know the discrepancies between the mall department stores. You will need to find out which stores have exclusive brands, which stores are moderately priced and which are more up-market.
There are also the specialty stand-alone stores and spinoff store branches for children and adolescents that try to fill a particular niche. As an example, stores have emerged that carry only styles associated with hip-hop culture or styles that have an ‘urban’ look. So it may be worthwhile beginning your shopping at a specialty store, because they are more targetted, and then continue onto a department store that has a wider selection.
Another interesting place to shop in malls are the stand-alone kiosks that are frequently located at intervals in the open areas of a mall where there is a lot of foot traffic. These kiosks are more likely to carry one-of-a kind items, which can provide ideas for Christmas presents.
Also at precincts will be dedicated shops that offer home/household products, books, music and movies, electronics, sports gear and shoes.
All of the types of mall stores previously mentioned can also be found at Outlet or Factory Precincts or Warehouses, which offer lower prices. These stores often carry clearance items from their related precinct store, merchandise with minor flaws and merchandise that is made for the outlet. Those items of merchandise frequently have minor style variations from what is found in mall stores and may also be made from different materials.
A final place to consider for Christmas shopping is downtown businesses. They are frequently small and intimate, have unique offerings and offer more personalized support. Although city center businesses are also likely to be crowded at Christmas time, there is likely to be less of a crush of people than that found at the precincts.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a lot of topics, but is currently occupied with . If you would like to know more about , please go over to our website for some great offers.
As the Christmas holiday season begins to approach, a large quantity of people and their families will begin decorating their home for Christmas. While almost anything in the house can be decorated, a largest focus is sited on the Christmas tree. Since there is a good chance that you may want to purchase a tree for yourself, you might be thinking about about decorations. a lot of people put a toy train set running around the tree too these days
Maybe, the most common ornaments used on a tree are fairy lights. Fairy lights are a string of small lights that are usually multicolored or just plain white, although various colour combinations can be bought. Most people who put up a Christmas tree use these lights to decorate their tree. What is lovely about fairy lights is that you have a broad diversity of options when using them. For example, some lights flash to the rhythm of a tune or even play the music too.
Aside from lights, ornaments are another one of the most commonly used Christmas accoutrements. These ornaments come in a broad selection of sizes, shapes, and styles. In general, most ornaments are in the shape of a ball. They are typically colored red, green, silver, or gold, although, many Christmas ball decorations also come designed with messages or Christmas symbols. Ornaments are most commonly hung from tree branches using ornament hooks, yarn, or thread.
Christmas tree toppers are other items that can regularly be found on Christmas trees. While tree toppers, like all other decorations, come in a broad selection of sizes, shapes, and styles, they are most commonly angels, stars or fairies. Other popular toppers include crosses and Santas. In addition to coming in varying sizes, you will find that many Christmas tree toppers are designed to light up and some may even play a Christmas tune.
In addition to tree toppers, lights, and decorations, garland is also used on the majority of Christmas trees. In fact, it is rare to find a decorated Christmas tree that does not have tinsel on it. Tinsel, when used to decorate a Christmas tree, is often entwined with the fairy lights.
Tinsel also comes in a variety of different kinds. Popular tinsel styles include floral tinsel and beaded garland . It is also possible to find tinsel with lights already attached to it. The main purpose of such tinsel is to reduce the amount of time it takes to decorate the Christmas tree.
If you are interested in decorating your Christmas tree with lights, ornaments, tree toppers, or tinsel , you will need to buy these items, unless you are using your decorations from last Christmas or you may just have to replace the broken bits. Because all of the above mentioned decorations are widely used on Christmas trees, you will be able to find these at a huge number of merchants, both on and offline. For affordable decorations, you ought to check your local dollar stores, discount stores and department stores. For the largest assortment of Christmas tree decorations, I recommend that you try a local market near to Christmas and don’t forget the Polar Express model train set.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a lot of subjects, but is presently occupied with . If you would like to know more about , please go over to our website for some great offers.
How do kids celebrate New Year in China? Take a look at what the Chinese kids do at the time of the New Year.
In China during the New Year all men women and kids have a fabulous time doing all sorts of traditional rituals but those who enjoy maximum are the very young children.
This is feasible because as they are too young, they are free from the chores of arranging and coordinating activities for the events which is taken care of by the elders. They do few things like helping the adults in their arrangements but more or less they are free to enjoy at the time of Chinese New Year and elders let them have fun.
Chinese New Year is the best time of the year in China for adults and kids alike as they bring back the old customs for the festivity. But amongst all this fun it also has educational value as the children find out a lot about their ancient tradition and their origin while having fun.
Such an educative process that permits them to have fun while they are being educated serves great benefits in terms of teaching them a history lesson that they will never forget or fear all their lives. Rather New Year celebrations for kids are amongst the most memorable things that the youngsters will never forget all their lives.
The richness of Chinese tradition is apparent during the New Year when it manifests through various activities. The China in its true colors is presented to the children in such a manner that the kids easily understand them. The fun begins with the permission of staying awake till late at night and taking part in all sorts of activities.
The various games that are organized for the night revolve around historic traditions of the country hence contributing as a lesson in history while providing them with entertainment. Creating patterns with dominoes is one of the major activities for kids who get to learn about the origins of the sport which are from China and date back to a thousand years ago.
There are few games which especially interest kids. There is one game which started in 8th century, a card game where parents create playing cards by drawing on them and the kids are given the cards to write a story based on the drawing. Another ancient game that is quite widespread is jianzi which truly represents Chinese culture. This game is similar to hacky sack, a modern game played by the kids.
The normal practice of Hong Bao which is the red envelope accepted by children from their elders. The red envelope contains cash which is meant to bring them good luck. Of course the kids love this ancient Chinese tradition which finances their holiday treats.
The New Year festival is spread over a couple of days when dragon dance ,lantern festivals and other parades are also held which aregood learning experience for the children. All in all they have a gala time.
is wholesome, lively and tasty . If you want some ideas about follow the links.
We will hereby see the characteristics of the Chinese symbol that make them honorable and their association with the important event of Chinese New Year.
The two most vital ingredients of the Chinese culture are the pictures of the Chinese dragon and the auspicious event of the Chinese New Year. They have been an integral part of the Chinese culture for thousands of years now and continue even to the present day. Besides, these two things have an uncanny link between them.
The dragon has become a symbol which is immediately linked to the Chinese culture. The west has come to know of this dragon symbol from martial art flicksand art work from China. For the Chinese people, this symbol of dragon is a highly honorable mythological animal that is respected for its rarity, magnificence and spiritual powers.
With regardsto the Chinese New Year, first of all we must understand that the Chinese New Year is not the same as the New Year the rest of the western world celebrates. This is because while the west makes use of the Gregorian solar calendar the Chinese have always maintained the use of the lunar calendar. Hence their New Year depends upon the cycle of the moon and falls on a totally separate day than the western New Year.
New Year is a special time in China. It is a time when the festive spirit is high and there are all kinds of celebrations going on. As has been the old tradition of the country they have animal signs associated with the change of time. There are twelve animals that are repeated after every twelve years. So the year of the dragon returns with all its might and power after every twelve years.
The Chinese New Year symbol of the dragon holds good to indicate overwhelming power. Generally the dragon image is imagined to be a symbol of spirituality and unforeseen power and rage. The anger of the Chinese dragon however, is somehow always justified and is used to indicate the correction of any mistake. In this way the angry dragon image is a positive image and often inspiring.
Chinese people believe that the streets have rights over you. When you are walking on the streets and come across evil the task of stopping it falls on you if you have the strength or with your speech if nothing else. If you are unable to stop it then at least recognize the evil act to be wrong.
What the image of a dragon does is to eradicate the wrong doers. It does not represent wrong deeds but works in counter-action. The best option is to avoid doing evil and engaging in doing right things. Hence the Chinese New Year symbol of the dragon is nothing but a movement to bring about peace in a festive and spiritual way.
The is a symbol of good fortune in many Asian cultures. If you are interested in reading more on click on the hyperlinks.
Definitions of some English words can change quite rapidly these days. In the recent past the meaning of words was often very fixed. Today the meaning can change in the blink of an eye. With faster and newer ways to exchange ideas such as Twitter and with wider and more culturally, socially and educationally dissimilar groups connecting together – words are put back on the anvil of evolution and changed into something new and more reflective of current life.
There is a growing significant movement happening global where consumers are asking businesses to look after the things they care about such as the environment and the less fortunate in society. The request is still mainly tacit and despite it being an ironic request it still signals we are in a time of great change. Consumers these days want their ‘toys’ but they don’t want the environment to be destroyed in the creation of these. They want cheap products but they do not want workers to be paid a pittance to create the cheap products.
Until recently there was no real answer to this complex puzzle but today one actually exists. It exists in the reforging of a simple single word – GET. Today there is a new movement of consumers wanting to get and at the same time give. They are reforging the word GET into the word GIVE.
Every day I receive a notice from Google Alerts for two words – B1G1 and BOGO. It tells me all the new places that these words are being used on the Internet. I can now see that the new meaning of these words is coming alive ‘poco a poco’ [Italian: poco, little + a, by + poco, little].
B1G1 and BOGO, despite sounding like characters from a Marvel comic are acronyms for Buy One GET One free. You buy one and they give you an extra one for the same price.
Look up BOGO on Wikipedia.com (there isn’t a definition yet for B1G1) and you will discover these definitions for BOGO:
* An acronym in the retail industry that stands for Buy One Get One. For example, you could say “Buy 1 DVD, Get 1 FREE!
* An acronym in slang British that stands for Britons Of Greek Origin or Greek Britons.
* Bogo, Cebu, a city in central Philippines.
* An alternate name for the Bilen ethnic group of Ethiopia or their language, Blin.
* Norway, a village in Norway.
* The mascot of the ITESM CEM.
* Bogosort, an ineffective sorting algorithm
* Bogosort, an ineffective sorting algorithm
BOGO lights
There is an organisation in the USA called SunLight Solar founded by a gentleman called Mark Bent. He has created a special torch that not only is an amazing and robust solar-powered light; his company also gives a free torch to a family in need in developing nations for each one purchased. If you look on their website you will learn about their “BOGOlight”.
“The BoGo – our Buy one/Give one – program has successfully provided lights to many, many thousands of people in the developing world, changing lives because of your purchase and participation.” – BOGOlight.com
Mark Bent has managed to flip the meaning of the BOGO acronym upside down. For Mark along with thousands of his customers, BOGO now means Buy One GIVE One. A light is given whenever one is sold. Now each sale supports people in remote parts of the world who don’t have the benefit of electricity. They can now tap into solar power support themselves.
There are many other well known and less well know businesses now doing Buy One Give One giving or transaction based giving as it is becoming known. Some of the famous ones are One Laptop Per Child and TOMS Shoes. Some of the less well-known ones (in the USA at least) are based in Australia, New Zealand and the UK – Maple Muesli, Blinds Couture, Earthstar Publishing, Figure 8 Body Chains, Honestly Women magazine, Sunsplash Homes and Thavibu Gallery based in Thailand are just a few special businesses that are leading the Buy One Give One movement in their parts of the world.
There are many Buy One Give One businesses now uniting under the common brand banner of Buy1GIVE1 managed by a Singapore based social enterprise which is becoming the home of transaction-based giving. Any business in the world can now integrate Buy One Give One giving with ease. It’s like a ‘CSR plug-in’ allowing a business to instantaneously start giving from each and every sale, starting from just 1 cent. It’s also no longer about giving an equivalent product to someone else. Instead it is about contributing to a project that resonates with a company’s activity. For example a restaurant can feed a child, a television retailer can give a cataract blind person the gift of sight (Get Vision-Give Vision), a magazine publisher can plant a tree every time they sell a subscription and a property developer can build a low-cost family home for those in need (Buy1BUILD1) – the list is simply endless.
The stats now add up saying consumers do care. The 2008 Goodpurpose global study of consumer attitudes revealed that nearly a huge 68% of consumers would remain dedicated to a brand during an economic slump if it supported a charity cause. This study also highlighted some other key points as well such as:
* Half (52%) of consumers globally are more likely to recommend a brand to others when it supports a good charity cause over one that does not.
* 54% would sing the praises of a brand to promote their products if there was a good cause behind it.
* Consumers are now voicing a clear desire for marketers to associate their brands to social causes. 42% say that if two products or services were of a similar quality and price, commitment to a cause outranks factors like innovation, design and brand loyalty when selecting one brand over another.
Transforming Getting into Giving
In the minds of consumers, Buy One GIVE One is sure to replace Buy One GET One as the global giving movement led by Buy1GIVE1 ripples out. Certainly with the large consumer demand shown for products from companies like BOGOlights, TOMS Shoes and One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), this tide will continue to spread.
I did a Google search on the 25 topmost key words connected with the keyword BOGO as an experiment to see what would show up. The results were interesting so I have displayed them below. You may notice that right now the word Give doesn’t show up. It will be interested to do this test again in twelve months time to see what changes. Consumers are now driving change and yes they want to receive free gifts (traditional B1G1/BOGO) but equally they also want to give to others or see others being given to.
Unlike normal charitable giving Buy One Give One giving is transactional. What is meant by that is: every time you buy something you give something. In the case of SunNight Solar they give a physical light for every light sold. In most cases, businesses that become part of this special form of transaction-based giving, give in a different way. At Buy1GIVE1, giving can start from just USD 1c contribution per sale. At this amount no business in the world can say they cannot give and 100% contributed goes to the cause.
The amount contributed from each sale is not the point of focus with Buy1GIVE1 transaction based giving. The focus is instead on the story and sharing the simple joy of giving. In the end, if you think that 1c is not a lot to contribute and is unlikely to make much of a difference think again and consider the following idea.
From its origins in Ethiopia, where the main coffee production is still from wild coffee tree forests, coffee consumption has spread globally. Brazil is still by far the largest coffee producer in the world producing on average 28% of the world’s total coffee. In 2006 Brazil produced enough coffee to make 216,400,000,000 (216 billion four hundred million) espresso coffees. If we were to calculate across global production then we get a daily global consumption of around 2,117,416,830 cups of coffee – wow. The figures are somewhat hard to track down but let’s guess that 40% of the world’s coffee is sold and consumed in coffee shops then we would get that 846,966,732 cups are sold commercially each day globally – nearly 900 million. This would equate to about’5,485,714 cups in the US on its own seeing they purchase around 21% of the world’s coffee.
Now imagine that for every cup of coffee sold a child was given clean drinking water from its own well. It costs just 1cent per person per day to do this. Any coffee shop could afford to contribute this amount from the sale of a cup of coffee. Instead of clean water a coffee shop could contribute for the education of coffee farmers’ children, costing from 23cents per child per day. The options and stories are unlimited as well as the potential difference that Buy One Give One transactional giving can make to the lives of many.
Transaction-based giving is the story of a thousand-mile journey starting with a single step. Digging a well costs a few thousand dollars, however when you break the cost down it only takes the sale of a single cup of coffee to give clean water to a single person for a day1. This is the incredible and simple power of transactional giving. It is like the compound interest of giving – a little turns into a huge amount very quickly.
Of course any company can do transaction-based giving with any of its products or services and do it on their own as some are like TESCO in the UK giving school uniforms to kids in Africa in partnership with Save the Children. And yet if companies choose to join together under a commonly recognised banner/brand they can have a powerful effect. The ripple that a single company creates is added to that of another and the ripple grows into a tidal wave of giving. This is the power of giving and doing things together.
The final power of Buy One Give One transaction based giving is that everyone wins – the consumer wins – at no extra cost to themselves they have made a difference through their purchasing choices – the business wins in so many ways – and the worthy cause or charity wins because they can now receive small amounts from many sources all aggregated and paid as a lump sum from a single source if done through the Buy1GIVE1 service.
A new start
If you check Wikipedia today you should find that a new definition has been added for BOGO. It is time for a change. A change from focusing on GETTING to focusing on GIVING. The subtlety in the words that we use so often point to a deeper underlying meaning. I added this small addition to Wikipedia, “… an acronym in the marketing industry that stands for Buy One GIVE One.”
Just imagine our world where every time you shopped and bought something you gave something – automatically and seamlessly. This is the simple joyful magic of transaction based giving.
This is the world I want to be part of.
And remember – you don’t ‘get’ giving till you get giving.
Footnotes: 1 Calculated by taking the average cost to dig a well, dividing it by its average expected life without major maintenance divided by the number of people in the community benefiting from the well on a daily basis.
Find out more about how Buy1GIVE1 () can transform your business using .
Seton curriculum is a spiritual based home-school choice for Catholics. The Catholic home-school movement increased in size quickly in the 1980s and demand for the institution’s innovative home school curriculum was highly sought after.
The school’s founder, Dr. Anne Carroll, decided to have the curriculum taught at the school to be offered by correspondence. She acknowledged the fact that many parents didn’t have the resources to board their children at a private educational institution. This was when the Seton Catholic home school course began. The Catholic home schooling notion gelled and out of it originated the Seton home schooling lessons in the year 1980. It was further improved by Dr Mary Kay Clark in 1985.
Nowadays this course is employed by more than 10,000 predominantly Catholic students all over the world. Seton has also turned out to be the biggest Catholic home school curriculum publisher in the United States textbook and workbook industry for young children. The home education curriculum with its numerous home school materials is famous worldwide.
You can be convinced that Seton Home schooling Instruction is not a function of a “degree mill” but is well known on a national scale as an accredited instructive curriculum for home school students. Seton home study course requires children to undergo twenty-two credits to finish from high school, with each credit representing a year taken in a certain subject area for kindergarten through twelve. Appropriate secondary curriculum accreditation makes it better for home schoolers who are enrolling in college to get accepted.
Seton’s course offers the essentials when it comes to study curriculum such as English, Math, Science as well as more Christian oriented lessons. The lessons give a moral basis of Catholic teachings to increase the abilities of the parents to be the main instructors of their own children with home-based schooling. The course gives a moral foundation of Catholic instruction to increase the abilities of the parents to be the primary educators of their individual children with home school.
Seton Home School Lesson Plans is provided by the church to support parents to teach their children each and every day with a wide variety of home schooling curriculum such as Christian based lesson plans, home schooling software, religious-based videos, online courses, and a wide variety of other educational materials to augment the catholic home school setting for the young person.
So if you are a Catholic and desire to make a genuine difference in the child’s upbringing, think about home school. Seton is plainly the best choice. You will be happy you chose it.
As I looked at Eric and Joey, they did not seem to be very impressive simply laying in the box. Their puppet bodies were lifeless as they laid there. I simply slid my hands inside the puppets and lifted them out of the box. Just like that the lifeless puppets came to life. Like all puppets, Eric and Joey just needed some help from a puppeteer to help them give the impression of life.
Moving-mouth puppets are very common because they are readily available and easy to work with. All you need to do to give a moving-mouth puppet the appearance of life is to open and close the mouth to match up with the words that are being spoken. Each movement of the mouth should correspond with a syllable of the word.
For example, if you were saying “Hi,” with the puppet, you should open the mouth one time and close it. If you wanted to say “today.” you would open the mouth two times because “today” has two syllables. To say the sentence “Hi, how are you today?” the puppets mouth should open six different times because there are a total of six syllables in the sentence.
A good way to practice with this type of puppet is to “sing” with the puppet to a song that you know well. Choose a song that is not too fast, and one for which you know the words. All you need to do is move the puppets mouth in sync with the words and the syllables. Being able to do this will show that you are ready for puppetry!
Glove puppets are different. They fit on your hand so the index finger operates the movement of the head while the thumb and middle finger control the two arms. Since their mouths do not open, realism must come through their gestures.
To simulate life you should cause the puppets hands to move during talking, and also use some light head nodding. Don’t move the puppets head sharply as it can be too intense and distracting for watchers.
Other types of puppets include finger puppets and stick puppets. With these puppets you can create the illusion of life just by making small movements back and forth. Use you wrist to make the puppets sway from one side to the other. Making realistic movements is the key to giving the illusion of life with the puppets.
Several principles are essential for effective use of any puppet.
(1) Be sure to keep each figure on stage “alive” even when it isn’t his turn to speak. A gentle nod of agreement or disapproval, a turn of the head, or slight wave of the hand will keep a puppet from turning to stone and becoming uninteresting.
(2) Keep the puppets visible to everyone in the audience. Avoid “hiding” puppets in the back or corners of the stage that will make them impossible or difficult to see. Puppets who are speaking should be facing the audience, but others can be looking at each other.
(3) Don’t forget to hold them up above the stage at their waist-level. It’s easy to let your little friends slip nearly out of sight as your arms tire.
(4) Having the puppets walk on and off the stage is important for realism. Use a gentle bouncing motion as the enter and exit rather than quickly moving them in and out rigidly.
As I put Joey and Eric back in the calico box, I saw how much they needed me and a verse tiptoed through my thoughts. Jesus said, ” . . . without me ye can do nothing.” Indeed HE is my source of life and strength.
Father, thank you for being me source of strength in my daily life.
Dr. Ann Shorb is a , speaker and writer. If you are working with puppets in your own ministry, check her website for .
