The Local Christmas Rundown

We spent the beautiful, sunny, almost-70-degree day scouting apartments around Raleigh, and I just kept thinking "We'll have proper internet soon! Hooray!". But for now, we're sipping tea at a Starbucks and ganking wi-fi.

Moving to Raleigh was a massive green trade-off. We have given up the low CO2 emission commute (by estimates in a recent National Geographic article, the #1 eco-benefit of living in a city is the walking/public transport lifestyle), but hope to earn at least some offset by committing to REALLY shopping local, which is much easier to do in a place where fresh fruit and veg are growable almost all year round. Not only that, but other cool things that we use regularly are produced right here in the Carolinas. So Christmas shopping was a fun treasure hunt of locally made treats. Here's what I snagged:

Cold Mountain Winter Ale for Les, made in NC

Chapel Hill Toffee for the Christmas Eve party with my fam, and one for Les's fam.

Local Chocolatier

Woot! Burts Bees is made in Durham! I gave my fave new lip balms to my best girls.

Home-made local jam from the Farmers Market for my siblings

Tippy's Treats, made a few towns away, for my Dogs-in-law (Aug got some in his Stocking)

Aug wanted to open his early.

My elf.

Yes, I know, the ingredients for all these lovely finds were probably not native of NC (like cacao for example), but they were all made by local companies and didn't have to be shipped across God's Green Earth to get to me. Which is a start. I was planning to buy everything from the local farmers market, but didn't think my family and friends would appreciate hearty kale or a bunch of turnips as much as I appreciated that they were still plugging away this late in the season.

The New Year is almost here, and my Green Gray and Grace year is about to wrap up. But I feel like I'm just getting started, so I'm not going to quit now. I just need to get some real internet so I can blog all the new ideas I have for the next Year of Awesome.