From the L.A. Times
Considering everybody on your holiday gift list – friends, family,
co-workers, neighbors, your kids' teachers – you might be needing a
stimulus package before you even get to the big-ticket items this year.
So why not take a page from your grandmother's playbook and make the
smaller gifts yourself?
Not only are homemade gifts less expensive, they also capture the
spirit of holiday giving in a way that purchased gifts simply can't.
And if you consider the ubiquitous traffic and holiday crowds, a
leisurely morning spent baking breadsticks or whipping up a batch of
homemade marshmallows seems positively Zen-like by comparison.
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I thought it was time to
experiment with some turkey recipes. Some years I have a house full of
people and often cook two big birds, but other times it’s just a small
group and cooking a huge turkey just seems to be too time consuming.
A couple days before Christmas, my sister and I were having our annual bitch-in about all the kitchen time we were putting in that week, when Lindsay mentioned she was making a Clementine Cake. I assumed this was something akin to a 
Still looking for the perfect Christmas gift that is easy, inexpensive, and loved by all?
Americans in particular love a good chocolate chip cookie. That's in large part do to