Traditions, Gifts and Giving Back

TEEN STUFF, December 2008, by Brittney Haines and Jessica Haines


New Traditions
Cool Gifts
and Giving Back 


BRITTNEY: I love this season! The skiing and tobogganing, yummy foods cooking, the fireplace going, and hanging out with our family.

JESSICA: Me too. And don’t forget the lights, the decorations, the wicked shopping deals, and of course: presents! Remember when we were little and we used to stay up all night for Santa?

BRITTNEY: I Do! And remember the time we camped out in the living room and roasted marshmallows in the wood fireplace with Mom?

JESSICA: Ya, those were good times. I love how we always make our own traditions and do stuff to give back to others around us.

BRITTNEY: It doesn’t matter what religion you are or what beliefs you have, we can all incorporate ‘giving’ into our holidays.

JESSICA: In our family, we take turns talking at supper time about what we are grateful for.

BRITTNEY: Here are some other traditions we have that you can do too!

JESSICA: Think of ways to give back like helping out at your local food bank of starting a food or mittens drive at your school or your parent’s companies. Try also to be more aware of kindness toward others around you.

BRITTNEY: We make ginger bread houses with our parents and then give the away or share them with our friends at a New Years party.

JESSICA: As much as we love presents, it has always been important in our family to give Memory Gifts to eachother too… where instead of a ‘thing’ we can give time to be together to create good memories. We have gone to the ballet, out for a fun day in the snow, made crafts headed out for hot chocolate and a movie, gone shopping then out for tea and lunch, gone for manicures at the spa, and we have made chocolate fondue and played board games all afternoon!

BRITTNEY: We are lucky to have friends of all nationalities and religious beliefs, and we find that they all incorporate gratitude and having FUN!

JESSICA: And you know what… as much as we all like to receive gifts and open presents, the ones Brit and I remember most are the Memory ones where we had fun together with the people we love.

BRITTNEY: That being said, part of our role with GCDA was to help come up with product ideas that girls would think were cool, that they would like and that sent the message of ‘be real. be you.TM’

JESSICA: Drum roll please… so here it is, our new line of cool GCDA products that we hope you will love (which are finally available at GCDAmagazine.com Just click on ‘shopping’.)

Do nice things for others... you receive more from it than you could imagine!





~ Brittney and Jessica (article released in 2008)

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