creating new, indulgent, decadent, healthy (mostly!) and silly holiday traditions
Andy Warhol, the avant-garde Pop artist and astute social commentator aptly observed: “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” The holiday season is a time of tradition, yet sometimes traditions can become stale, we take them for granted and we indulge in unhealthy customs (ugh, full-fat eggnog, anyone?). Sometimes it’s fun, and very healthy, to start new traditions, stop un-fun ones entirely, and infuse our older customs with new energy. Following are ten ideas that I give my coaching clients so they create new, fun, indulgent, compassionate and creative holiday traditions. Enjoy!
1. Be radical: choose not to send holiday cards this year. Think of all the time you can save for other activities, and your card will not be lost among the throngs that crowd your mailbox. I personally find that it is much more fun to receive cards with personal notes at other times of the year, like Valentine’s Day, Groundhog Day, or even an impromptu “Christmas In July”!
2. Be revolutionary: instead of pigging out during the holidays, do the opposite: detox and/or fast! I spent the last three years fasting over the Thanksgiving holiday, and if you don't have big plans for this month's affairs, it's also a good time to do one . . . I called it the “un-Thanksgiving,” though what I really was doing was celebrating and honoring my health. I love the low energy of the city around the holidays, and I felt like I was indulging and taking exquisite care of myself as I sipped vegetable broth and freshly-juiced warm apple juice with cinnamon.
3. Wear sequins EVERYWHERE. Wear them to the office, to the grocery store, to the gym (toss a sequined scarf over your track suit). Notice how being uber-sparkly makes you feel.
4. Indulge your chocolate passion: make handmade chocolate truffles while drinking champagne and watching the ever-incandescent Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp in “Chocolat.” A wonderful vegan (cholesterol-free!) truffle recipe is located at: www.veganchef.com/truffles.htm. Package truffles in festive Chinese food containers and give them as gifts!
5. Change the world: make a decision to forego 2 lattes per month (or one martini!) and dedicate that amount of money to a worthy charity. My favorite: The Ten Dollar Club (www.thetendollarclub.org), profiled in this issue. Every cent of your monthly $10 donation is dedicated to helping people all over the world. Examples: buying solar cookers for elderly refugees in Africa, blankets and medicine for street children in India, surgical instruments for hospitals, building wheelchairs for handicapped children in Jordan. Think of all the good karma you will generate in 2008!
6. Be silly: give footsie pajamas (remember the kind we had as kids?)(check out www.footedpjs.com or www.pajamacity.com) to all your friends and family! Or sponsor a rescued farm animal for each giftee (I always love sponsoring pigs and chickens!). Check out www.animalsanctuary.org or www.farmsanctuary.org for adoption possibilities. It’s sweet and helps animals, too!
7. Instead of going crazy buying presents for all your friends, lovers, siblings, parents, etc., make an agreement that you will choose ONE name and you can spend twice as much as you normally would have on a present for that person. With the remainder of your funds, buy presents for elderly people in nursing homes or childen in homeless shelters!
8. Give something handmade to everyone – bake cookies, go to one of those paint-your-own pottery places, write personal poems, mix up some sugar scrubs with organic sugar, oils and fragrance (via essential oils). Be creative – we don’t always have time to be creative, but creativity taps us into our essential joy and is tremendously energizing.
9. Go traditional: order prints and stationery that contain your black-and-white silhouette. I love how it looks so glamorous and old school (think Victorian era). Check out www.petiteprints.com for ideas and products.
10. Gild everything! Add edible gold flakes to champagne (available from Williams Sonoma www.williamssonoma.com), or gild chocolates, strawberries and other fruit with 23 karat gold leaf, which is a European tradition going back centuries (check out www.gildedplanet.com or www.goldleafcompany.com). How extraordinarily indulgent and fabulous!
Happy Indulgent Holidays!
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Did you know . . .
Holiday factoid: the "classic" Santa Claus suit was developed in the 1930s by the Coca-Cola Company. The company hired American artist Haddon Sundblom in 1931 to redesign Santa Claus. Sundblom not surprisingly chose the official colors of Coca-Cola, red and white.
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how $10 can change the world : a short Q&A with Adam Roberts, director of the ten dollar club
We all know the drill: to get more out of your life, give more! We here at Modern Venus Ltd. know no-one who gives more, or is more dedicated to helping others, than Adam Roberts, President of The Ten Dollar Club, a non-profit that funds international relief projects all over the world. The Ten Dollar Club just celebrated its 5th anniversary, and in those 5 years, it has funded 60 humanitarian projects in 49 countries. Adam sat down with us and gave us this short interview about his work, and what we can all easily do to uplift our sisters around the planet.
Q: Can you give me a snapshot into the lives of working women in areas assisted by The Ten Dollar Club?
A: I find that all too often women bear overwhelming responsibility on behalf of their families. They have to care for themselves and their children—often without a partner. Women in Zambia struggle to gain literacy training; women in Mali need a boutique to sell their shea butter products to earn a modest income; women in Ethiopia yearn for a simple water tap in their community to provide safe drinking water for their families; women in Ghana and their children are at constant risk of malaria because they don’t have access to a mosquito nets that cost only a few dollars. So many of the simple provisions available to modern women in western countries are distant dreams for the impoverished women living in countries on the lower end of the Human Development Index.
Q: Our newsletter readers are very busy . . . what kind of difference can they make around the world sitting at their desks?
A: Everyone can make a difference whether they are rich or poor. Ironically, with The $10 Club, it’s entirely a desk job! I do research on the Internet, read a lot about problems in developing nations, find good people working on the ground in need of assistance, raise money, and fund projects. I wish I were traveling the world meeting people in need and seeing first-hand the outcome of our project grants each month—but I’ll gladly settle for the pictures we get!
Look, life is about simple (and, yes, sometimes complex) choices. But in this instance the question is: do I want to make a difference? If the answer is yes, then all we have to do is find an outlet for that “difference-making” lifestyle. For supporters of The $10 Club, a simple sacrifice each month—two fewer gourmet coffees, for instance—can literally save lives. That $10 donation makes a world of difference indeed.
Q: What is your very favorite project that The Ten Dollar Club funded?
A: This is a question that I’m often asked. The story that touched me most was from Nepal. A man there had a stroke and was taken to the hospital. The ventilator that kept him clinging to life had to be pumped by hand. Over time, the nurse had to leave the man’s bedside to see other patients. His sons took turns pumping the ventilator; his wife pumped the ventilator. At some point in the night she tired and dozed off. Her husband died. So The $10 Club bought Scheer Memorial Hospital an air compression system for the Intensive Care Unit ventilators so they would be pumped by machine instead of by hand.
I am also very touched as each month I get emails from different members telling me how touched they were by particular projects—surgical implements for eye operations in Madagascar; specially-fitted wheelchairs for kids in Jordan; water tanks at an orphanage in Sierra Leone; winter boots for orphans in Ukraine. Each project has very specific, concrete results. I was particularly touched by a housing project in India, where we funded the construction of simple brick rooms for people with leprosy. It was devastating to me to think of these poor people who first are struck with this debilitating disease and then have to suffer the further humiliation of being cast out of their families and their communities as a result. To give them a safe place to live was remarkably rewarding.
Q: We have clients that wish to start nonprofits, but feel intimidated by the prospect. How and why did you start the TDC, and was it a difficult process getting it off the ground?
A: In 2002 I attended the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa and was terribly disappointed in the lack of commitment by the developed countries of the world to ending global poverty. So I decided I would do something—I couldn’t do everything, but I could do something! And I enlisted all of my friends and family and colleagues to help. If it didn’t work, people are out ten bucks. But if it did, we could save the world. I genuinely believed that. And now, five years later, we’re about to do our 60th project in nearly 50 countries! Small idea. Simple construct. Huge results!
And it was very easy to start. I established a small board of directors, filed Articles of Incorporation in DC, and then did the paperwork to become a tax-exempt corporation with the IRS. I did it all myself (I’m not a lawyer) and, in fact, did the IRS application by hand… There are so many needs in this world that need to be filled and we need more and more energetic and determined people to take the initiative, and perhaps a leap of faith, to try and address those needs. Personally, I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I had an idea that could make a difference in the world and I refused to act.
Q: It's the holiday season. What is on the wishlist of the Ten Dollar Club?
A: Members, members, members! I’m not ashamed to ask… For five years I have run The $10 Club entirely myself—a real one-man-band. And for the first two years or more, I paid all expenses out of pocket. I take no salary at all and 100% of member donations go toward the projects each month. What is my dream? My dream is to have a staff, an office, marketing outreach plans, foundation and corporate underwriters, etc. But the most important thing until we get to that point is the compassionate individual who decides that at the end of the month, when all bills are paid, investments are made, and fun is had, they can still contribute $10 to this project. I wish for 100,000 members so that each month I can write a check for a million dollars. Imagine that! We could take this small charity and go from buying medicines to building hospitals; from buying books to building schools.
The message is clear: you don’t have to have Bill Gates’ money to save the world—as long as we pool our resources and do it together. My motto is “Saving the world, ten dollars at a time.” I’m in for $10. So are you, Marianne. I hope all of your readers will join us. Personally, I can think of no greater holiday gift than a year’s worth of tangible improvements in the lives of the poorest people on earth. How can we afford to say no?
MV Ltd.: Thank you so much for spending time with us, Adam! You are doing amazing work and are so inspiring. Thank you for making us realize how easy it is to make a difference all over the planet. We wish you and your family very happy holidays!
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