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Short of Money for Chrismas Gifts, Great Food & Fine Wine this Year

It?s this time of the year that the shops start to put their decorations up, and you start getting thousands of mail-outs in the post (or thousands of emails from online shops).

It?s a great time of the year ? isn?t it? Or is it? Well - for some people it?s not so great. It?s the time of the year when you have to fork out a lot of money (for gift shopping, for food shopping or for decoration shopping) ? and if you don?t have the money ? you can really get yourself in trouble. Especially ? if you need to be paying the bills at the same time (and the bills always seem to come right when you don?t need them!).

You want to be able to give your kids, your friends, & your family the best Christmas possible. You want to be able to shop for awesome gifts that will make their mouths fall open. You want to be able to lay out the best service possible ? turkey, ham, roast meats, roast vegetables, trifle, pavlova, the works? And most importantly ? you want to give them a Christmas to remember.

But ? the power bill & the phone bill are also due this week - so? what do you do? Well of course you have to pay the power bill, so the decorations, food & gifts will just have to wait?

There are some ways to get around the problems though:

They always say you could get the kids involved ? get them to make their own crackers, & decorations. But - I'm not going to pretty this "saying" up - generally this method will cost you more. You will pay around $2 for a six pack of crackers down the road. If you do this separately - , you have to buy the snaps (the centre bits that go BANG) , the paper for making them, the trinkets to put inside them, the paper to fill the crackers out etc?? Sure - you can get the kids involved - just do it wisely - they can make cards out of paper (with felt-tip pens etc) - but fancy things are generally more expensive than at the shops - remember that.

You could get cheaper meats (chicken instead of turkey etc..), sides (potatoes instead of kumara), and deserts (bread & butter pudding instead of trifle) ? but is this something you want to do? If you normally have a ?traditional Christmas?, it is sure to be a let-down if you have lesser foods.

And? you could get smaller pressies ? there is nothing wrong with this ? you could buy a whole sack of $2 pressies (or even $10 pressies), and the kids would enjoy them (maybe not your teenagers ? but the young ones will never know the difference).

So ? what do you do? You just have to spend the money unfortunately. There are two ways to do this:

a) Get your friends & family to contribute some money and have a co-joint christmas experience (we personally do this & it works out great ? we have a ?family? Christmas where everyone contributes something).

b) Get a loan, or a cash advance. There are several companies that will do this - so you can do plenty of online shopping for gifts, food & decorations. Just do a google search for "apply for loan online" or "apply for cash advance", and you will see lots of companies willing to help you out. Of course, you should try to avoid this measure. It's just going to end up getting you in more debt. If you are just looking for something to tide you over (until you get the next pay cheque), by all means - go for the cash advance. But the loaning of money is dangerous, so be very careful!

So in closing, yes ? there are options for xmas! Just make sure you make it a good one, and most of all - enjoy it!

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Short of Money for Chrismas Gifts, Great Food & Fine Wine this Year


It?s this time of the year that the shops start to put their decorations up, and you start getting thousands of mail-outs in the post (or thousands of...


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A Featured Barefoot Wine Article

How to Grow Grapes for Excellent Wine

I think it quite safe to say that more has been written about the cultivation of grapes than has - or ever will be - written about any other fruit. This is not surpris?ing, considering that the grape is probably the oldest of known fruits.

Surprisingly, grapes do not need loads of manures and fertilizers; they grow well on quite poor soils and need little after-attention. The roots will search out and find what they want; all we have to concern ourselves with is where to put the top-growth - the vine itself.

If one wall of your house faces south, south-west or even west, that problem is solved very easily. If you cannot plant the vine under that particular wall, plant it round the corner and train the vine round to the sunny side of the house. Grapes may be grown in the open garden in similar fashion to loganberries, or they may be trained over sheds, garages, out-houses and such-like.

Vines are not expensive, and if two are planted, the yield may be regarded as fantastic when considering the value of the wine that may be made for many years.

Planting is best carried out in autumn and in any case before Christmas. If planting against a wall, take out a hole about two feet each way and plant so that the stem of the vine is about fifteen inches away from the wall itself. Dig deeply and work in any compost that may be available and some builders' rubble if you can get some. A dusting of lime forked in will be helpful. Spread out the roots well and plant as recommended for fruit trees.

Having planted the vine, spread a little manure above the roots: this will not be necessary in subsequent seasons, but the vine will benefit from a mulch each spring if you can give it one.

Vines must not be allowed to fruit the first season; therefore they must be cut back to about four buds.

Having planted the vine and cut it back, we must decide how to train it to cover the wall.

The best plan is to use special wall nails, run wires to and from these and train the vine to the wires.

The four long growths that come from the four buds you left when cutting back are stopped at the bud nearest the growing point. These four leaders are the basis from which the vine will be built up to cover the wall. If flower buds form during the first season, they should be nipped off so that the vine uses its energy producing wood for subsequent fruiting. First-season fruiting often permanently weakens a vine.

When pruning, remem?ber that next year's fruit will be borne on the wood made this year. But we do not want masses of long, straggling growths hanging about all over the place, so during the summer it is best to cut some of them out. Those left to bear next year's fruit should be cut back to five or six buds in autumn or early winter. Only new growth should be cut during the summer; never cut old wood during summer - indeed old wood must never be cut after Christmas, as this can cause profuse bleeding which may be quite impossible to stop. By all means cut away some of the old growth to make way for new wood, but if this has not been done before Christmas leave it until the next winter.

Many varieties ripen in September - or earlier if the summer has been good. This is especially advantageous because the weather is still warm enough for a satisfactory fer?ment when you come to make the wine. This is not so important to those who carry out their fermentation in the house, but where it has to be carried on in a shed or outhouse the warm weather is a great help.

About The Author Brian Cook is a freelance writer whose articles on home wine making have appeared in print and on many websites. You can find more of these at: www.makinggreatwine.com

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How to Grow Grapes for Excellent Wine


I think it quite safe to say that more has been written about the cultivation of grapes than has - or ever will be - written about any other fruit. Th...


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