During this season of gratitude and thanksgiving, I wanted to write about something we do every day with very little thought. Something we’ve been doing since we were very small. Most of us did it before we even talked. I’m talking about walking.

The way I see it, there are basically four reasons we walk

1.Travel – To get from one place to another. We don’t even think about getting up each morning and walking from our bed to bathroom, but I watched my elderly grandmother as an invalid for many years and gained an appreciation for my ability to get up and go wherever I wanted without help from anyone else.

2.Pleasure – I remember taking walks with my grandfather and my dad as a child, and that tradition has continued with my own grandkids. When grandkids come to visit, they love to walk down to lake in our neighborhood to feed ducks. Part of enjoyment, I believe, is just being away from everyone else. We walk, we talk, and we just enjoy one another’s company. When I was in Las Vegas for birth of a new granddaughter, I walked other two kids to school one day. My granddaughter, Olivia, who was 5 at time, stopped other kids along way to say, “My grandma is walking me to school.” She was so proud, and I am so thankful to have health to be able to walk with her.

As my children were growing up, it always bothered me to buy wrapping paper only to see it ripped open and thrown in fireplace or trash after Christmas gifts were opened. I tried using comics but soon discovered I didn't like black newsprint it left on my hands and everyone else's. For me, gift wrap was right up there with fireworks - we spent good money only to see it go up in smoke. I began to look for a solution.

I bought craft paper and stenciled things on it, but still, I felt paper was going to waste. Then one year after Christmas I saw holiday fabric on sale and had an idea! I bought yard after yard of it on clearance and brought it home to make gift bags.

I cut fabric in various sizes. Sometimes I only got 2-3 bags out of a yard, but I knew that they would be able to hold bigger items, and better yet - I would be able to reuse them next year. I basically cut and sewed them like a pillowcase. I sewed a seam up three sides and left top open. Then I turned that edge in slightly and stitched it on machine to finish it off. Then I folded it in about 3 inches (or more on bigger bags) and hemmed it. I then put another row of stitching about a half inch above that one to create a casing for ribbon. I slipped a piece of ribbon through casing and tied it shut. If you have nosey kids, you may want to tie a knot!