Wrapping up the one-year bloggiversary celebration, I’m finishing this up with a giveaway of sorts. Inspired by other giving bloggers around the blogosphere this month, and also by the 30 Day Giving Challenge, I’ll be giving away a donation, to the winner’s favorite charity. At the same time, I’ll be passing on to the selected winner a small token of my appreciation – a $25 gift card to Gevalia Coffee that I have but am choosing to pass on rather than keep it for myself.

I am going to make this REALLY simple. You like simple don’t you?

Here’s what you need to do to enter:

1. Leave a comment telling me which charity, ministry or organization you would have me make a donation to if you win. You must include a link to the charity, and they must have a way for me to make a donation online. You must also enter a valid email address so that I can contact you about you Gevalia gift card.
2. An alternative way to enter: If you would like to join me in my final gust of giving for this carnival…I offer to you, the opportunity to turn around and do the same thing on your blog and offer to give away a donation of a reader’s choice. If you choose to do so, write a post and leave a link in the comments. Don’t forget to leave a link to your own favorite ministry and your email address.

The “rules”:

1.) If you don’t leave a link to the organization website, accept online donations, or your email address your entry will be invalid. (Leave your email address in the comment entry form, not necessarily the comment itself – your email address in the entry form will not be publicly displayed, only allows me to reply by email to your comment and will not be used for any form of solicitation in the future.)

2.) The charity donation is open to bloggers and non bloggers alike, worldwide. Gevalia may or may not make shipments to your destination. It’s up to you to determine if Gevalia coffee is available in your area.

3.) Comments will close Friday, November 27, 2009 at midnight central standard time. At that point in time a winner will be chosen by random draw.

That’s pretty simple, right?

If you have enjoyed any part of my Give-Thanks-Giving Bloggiversary party, consider subscribing to updates from Classic Housewife, joining the fan page on Facebook or following me on Twitter. Thanks for celebrating with me!

UPDATE: This giveaway is now closed. Find the results here.

Pumpkins are NOT just for Halloween – they’re good ALL SEASON LONG! In fact, I think pumpkins have more to do with the autumn harvest – even though they’re used for both the jack-0-lanterns and the common shape for the trick or treat bags. But Pumpkins are a common fall harvest vegetable, good for Halloween, Thanksgiving and all throught the fall. They’re good for baking, decorating, and yes – for jack-o-lanterns, too.

For many years, I’ve bought and painted pumpkins – it’s easier than carving, the pumpkin lasts longer, and it disassociated with the Halloween jack-o-lantern. Any kind of acrylic paint will work, and you can paint any kind of happy or silly face that you want. Top it with a wig or yarn hair, a hat, whatever you want. Have a blast with it.

Several years ago, I decided that I wanted to actually carve one, harvest the seeds, harvest the flesh and make a pie and roast the seeds. So we did. Now, let me tell you – if you just want fresh pumpkin there is an easier way to do it. But I remembered carving a pumpkin once as a kid and I wanted to do it. So we did. We carved a castle on the front. We saved and roasted the seeds. We scraped and scraped and scraped and cooked and froze the pumpkin to use the next month at Thanksgiving. The kids really enjoyed it. And it got me thinking.

The next year, we carved pumpkins again. This time, I carved the girls’ faces, a pumpkin for each. I carved their names also. As we placed a candle inside, we talked about how the pumpkins represented each of them, and we read the passage in Matthew about not hiding your light but letting it shine before men. I’m pretty sure I also threw in the passage from Philippians about shining as lights in a crooked and depraved generation and the admonition to shine so brightly by doing things without grumbling and complaining. ; ) We prayed together and declared that these pumpkins would serve as our reminder to shine brightly for God, for as long as the jack-o-lanterns lasted, and beyond.

We did this two years in a row before I found the book, The Pumpkin Patch Parable. I LOVED IT. It took what I was doing just a little bit farther, but it fit in so well with what I had in mind. The story line and the illustrations are simple and sweet and it’s a story that any kid would enjoy. I’ll admit that we don’t own this book – yet. When I found this book, I didn’t have the money for it. But I read it, I held it in my hands, I looked it over…. it’s a GOOD book. I’m hoping to pick it up for this year, even though I’m not sure we’ll have a chance to carve any pumpkins, as the kids will be with my mom until the night before Halloween.

Pumpkins are for more than carving, too, as I’ve already mentioned. I like to decorate with pumpkins as well. You can use an assortment of pumpkins outside, on your tabletop, a mantle… wherever. You can paint them, use a pumpkin as a head and make a pumpkin man/scarecrow. You can fill a bowl with mini pumpkins. Mini pumpkins and GOURDS. I adore mini pumpkins and gourds. With some wheat. Or hay. And berries. You get the idea.

You can use real pumpkins, or fake pumpkins. I have an assortment of fake gourds mixed with real gourds and mini pumpkins on my piano – you can’t really tell the difference, but I get to reuse some of them year after year without replacing them. Truthfully, if I had been able to find decent looking faux gourds at the time, I wouldn’t have bought the fresh ones, but I want my money to be spent on items that are worth it – even if it is only a dollar. So I’ll look again next year.

And of course we all know pumpkins are great for baking! There’s the most famous pumpkin dish of all – THE PIE. I love me some pumpkin pie. Why is it that we feel the need to reserve pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving? Have it in October I say! Or if not, there are always pumpkin cheesecakes, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin breads and pumpkin soups. YES, I said pumpkin soups! My favorites would be the pies and the cookies – YUM!

And the pumpkin crafts are endless! I adore these tea light candles made with mini pumpkins! A quick search of the internet will give you tons of craft ideas. How about these pumpkin funny faces, any one of these fun pumpkin crafts, or this “Bear-y” cute Pooh Bear lookalike craft complete with honey pot! (or any of the other 14 craft ideas – Bear pumpkin pictured above.)

GET CREATIVE. Pumpkins are part and parcel of the fall season, through Halloween and into Thanksgiving. Don’t be afraid to use pumpkins around your house for fear that someone will mistake them for Halloween decorations. Add some corn stalks or even a hay bale and add a sign – “Fabulous Fall!” Pumpkins are yummy, and pumpkins are beautiful and pumpkins are good!

Do you have a favorite pumpkin recipe, craft or decoration? Tell me about it!

This post is a part of the Hallow-What? Halloween Special. Hop over and join in!

Easter is a holiday surrounded in controversy and emotion. Even amongst Christians, there are many different opinions over which are acceptable traditions. However, how you celebrate Easter does not matter as much as what you celebrate about Easter. Do you celebrate a big, fuzzy bunny? Do you celebrate new life and re-birth and mother earth? Do you celebrate a risen King, one who was sacrificed for sin and then resurrected by a Sovereign God? These are the lines that divide the most. The many different paths that take you there are open for interpretation.

For me, my dissatisfaction with our Easter celebrations began three years ago. My eldest daughter was five. For several Easter’s prior, we had attempted to happily integrate some common childhood celebrations into our Easter tradition. We own a set of Resurrection Eggs, and we held an Easter egg hunt at our house. Afterward, we tried to read through the Easter story together the way the set instructs. However, I found that no matter what I tried I couldn’t keep my daughter’s attention. She was more interested in her bounty from the hunt. What did all the other little plastic eggs contain? What treasures lay inside to be discovered?

One Easter I attempted to read through the story first, but that didn’t work much better. My daughters wanted to know when the egg hunt was going to begin. When sweets and treats are in the picture, it seems, little else can compete for the child’s attention. When my daughters were 6 and 3, I began to get very anxious as Easter approached. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I did know what I did not want to do. I did not want to lose focus of the real holiday. But how? I lucked out of doing anything that year. By the time the next easter rolled around I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Today is the 1st Day of our new tradition: “The 12 Days of Easter.” What is that? you may ask? Lemme ‘splain.

It all started last Easter with a certain dissatisfied feeling that I couldn’t really sort out. I knew going into Easter that I didn’t like any of our current traditions. Nothing was really BAD or WRONG about them. They just didn’t seem RIGHT enough. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn’t want to do. By a stroke of luck, (and maybe a little manipulation) I got out of planning anything outside of our service at church and I got a whole year to think things over.

As Easter began to near the horizon this year, I really hit on the main thing that was bothering me. Easter doesn’t get nearly enough attention. It doesn’t get half the attention and traditions that Christmas gets. And it’s just as important! We start thinking about Christmas at least a month – or two – before it even gets here. We start planning get-togethers, pulling out decorations, selecting gifts, singing songs… It’s a smorgasbord of celebration. And what does Easter get? A weekend? If it’s lucky. Maybe only just a day. Perhaps a special Easter service somewhere on the weekend, and probably a Christianized version of an egg-hunt with good intentions and a lot of heart but still struggling to really focus everything on Christ. I wasn’t satisfied with that. I should say, I’m not satisfied with that.