Having fun is Leading Chaos.
Leaders of chaos are all about keeping the holiday season Chaos Free and there is no better way than easy, affordable gifts. Find 4 affordable gift giving ideas in this episode.
The wildly popular Gift of Chocolate is always a winning ticket throughout the year. So why not keep it easy and go with a winning ticket?
You can buy chocolate or Listen to this episode as I explain how to make a really…(and I mean really) simple chocolate that everyone will “ooo” and “ahh” over.
Get the recipe here for “Bark” a delicious and easy to make chocolate candy recipe for kids and the “kitchen challenged”. Thanks Martha Stewart for the easy to make recipe. I love it! “Wink Wink so good for you with those antioxidants keeping life Chaos Free!”
Second gift giving idea is a Gift Certificate to Amazon or iTunes for the tech savvy loved ones in your life. You know you would use that gift certificate. It is always a winner for teens and 20-somethings…especially if it comes with some chocolate.
While online why not gift a copy of my book Leading Chaos; An Essential Guide to Conflict Management. Also found in eBook. This is a great present for the teachers and emergency responders in your life that are interested in an easy protocol for managing conflict safely. It is available in hard copy and eBook and is both in English and Dutch.
The fourth and final gift idea is a gift that keeps giving.
First let me set the stage for this gift giving idea. If you have seen the movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory you all know how important it was to get a golden ticket. A golden ticket allowed the bearer to get into W.W.’s Chocolate Factory. Remember that song? “I got a golden ticket.” That is about the only line I remember, which is fine, because that is all you really need to know. With that premise you are well on your way to your own Shiitake Inoculation Party.
Instead of giving out golden tickets (much too expensive and gaudy) you hand out silver tickets this holiday season to all your loved ones (actually they look silver, but are really sheet metal business sized cards). On the ticket, you can etch with a pen “Shiitake”.
For my party I bought via the Internet (you will not find this at most local malls), wooden plugs of shittake spawn. Each bearer or bearers (like a family) of a silver ticket were entitled to 150 plugs of shittake spawn. Fungi spawn does not come in egg form. The plugs are pretty innocuous. I left mine in the refrigerator up till the day we had the party.
One hundred and fifty plugs will inoculate five 40-inch oak logs with thirty plugs per log! I sometimes harvest a pound per log during a good fruiting. In all, I had on hand 3000 plugs when I held my party.
Shiitake logs are indeed a gift that keeps giving. If you carefully tend to your mushroom logs you will get up to two fruitings per year, for 5-8 years depending upon the size of your log.
Is the stress beginning to melt away from your body yet? Perhaps this is a good time to pause and take a deep breath “In”, and now – “Out.” Good job.
All you have to have on hand this December are the silly silver looking cards. How easy is that? Now you will have more time to enjoy the company of friends and family or time walking your dog or just simply kicking back and slowing down.
Come the following March you can give every silver ticket bearer their 150 allotment of plugs or you can do like I did, have a Shiitake Inoculation Party. Why March? This gives you more time away from the holiday hustle and bustle, plus it is more temperate in March, especially if you live like me in the northeast.
The benefits of this gift plan are endless. Consuming Shiitake is good for you. Not only are fresh mushrooms unbelievably tasty (I took some on a business trip and cooked them up for a colleague of mind who I thought would spontaneously combust because the taste was so fantastic.) they are good for your immune system! What better way to combat stress then build up the good old immune system?
Word traveled quickly throughout my county when we held the Inoculation Party. The local hardware stores were selling out of 5/16-inch drill bits needed to make the holes for the shiitake plugs. Mushroom fever was taking over the town. The winter had been pretty snow free right up to a couple days before the gathering. Then a snowfall of 24 inches hit the ground. The soon proud to be Shiitake mushroom log owners were not fazed by a little snow. We inoculated over 80 logs that day!
A year later phones calls started coming in from the silver ticket holders, “We are cooking up our mushrooms right now as we are speaking”, “Uh, We have something growing on the logs, it is large. Are you sure we can eat it?” “We had a huge meal of Shiitake mushrooms last night. They were so tasty, I nearly swallowed my tongue.”
Three years later the calls kept coming in every time someone gets a fruiting. Those mushroom logs have gotten friends and family members who we rarely see, calling on a regular basis.
Cheers to a Chaos Free Holiday Season!
Find mushroom gift ideas here.
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