Written By: Nicole, Customer Care Manager at Heritage Homes
‘Tis the season with the excitement of kids in the house and counting down the days until Christmas! There is always the “typical” countdown calendars with the chocolates behind each day. Instead of purchasing one, have some fun and make a countdown to Christmas as a craft activity with your kids.
Here are a couple of fun ideas that my girls and I have done over the years….
Sweet Garland Countdown…..this was yet another idea that I got from the Family Fun magazine – January 2008 issue. This is a nice & simple activity to get the kids excited for the holidays and a way to decorate the tree as well. The fun with this is that it is an edible garland for the tree. The garland is made with the candy button sheets that you can buy in the baking aisle of the grocery store and then cut them into strips. Form the strips into circles, and then tape them together in a chain. They make for a very colorful garland for the tree (sometimes we put the garland in other areas of the home instead of the tree). Then each day starting December 1st, you just cut off a loop from the garland – enjoy the candy buttons and you are one more day closer to Santa Claus coming!
12 Days of Christmas Garland…….this is a garland that is full of surprises. Fun to make with your kids, but yet an activity for them to look forward to as you count down the 12 days of Christmas. Take a 6ft piece of evergreen and place in the home somewhere on a ledge, fireplace mantle, etc…. Cut (3) pieces of green & (3) pieces of red card stock in half, the long way, to create 12 pieces. Fold each piece, overlappying the top over the bottom to create a “countdown card’. Write a surprise inside each card – directions to a treasure hunt for a small toy or candy, a holiday joke, or a treat like going out to dinner or staying up late to watch a family movie with popcorn. Then seal the cards with holiday stickers, alternate the red & green cards, number the outsides, punch holes in the tops and use small pieces of holiday curling ribbon to attach them all to the evergreen garland. This is a very FUN way to build the excitement for Christmas with the kids at home and a great way to make family memories……Happy Holdiays!
Written By: Nathan, Project Manager at Heritage Homes
Just because it is has not snowed yet does not mean that winter is not here. I know it is really nice not to have the snow on the ground (thank you, Old Man Winter), but the cold temperatures have come and will not leave until spring. And when the temperature starts to fall, that only means one thing: we need our furnaces. This brings to mind a good home tip of the month. Do you have trouble changing out your furnace filter? Most of the time it is in a hard place to get to and the slot is tight to begin with. If you take two small pieces of duct tape (about 3” long) and make a small handle on top of the filter at each end, it will allow you to pull out the furnace filter with ease. As a good rule of thumb, experts recommend that you change out your furnace filter about once a month. You also want to make sure the filter is following the right direction of air flow and that you are using the correct filter size. Consult your owner’s manual if you have any questions or you are looking for information about your furnace.
Written By: Megan, Marketing Director at Heritage Homes
Excited to eat your weight in turkey, stuffing and anything pumpkin? I sure am. There’s nothing better than the Big 3: Food, Family and Football. What are some of your favorite Thanksgiving traditions?
Written By: Nicole, Customer Care Manager at Heritage Homes
When my girls were younger and I was preparing Thanksgiving dinner, they were always at my ankles and/or needing my attention elsewhere in the house than in the kitchen where I needed to be. As they got older, I decided that I needed to include them in the kitchen and preparing for the family to arrive for dinner.
Since the main course of the turkey goes in so early, I decided to get the girls involved in the kitchen and start our own memories of Thanksgiving in the kitchen.
I did some research on the internet and a great magazine to help you and your kids start some family traditions is Family Fun. The November 2003 issue of Family Fun is where we received the ideas to start the traditions that we now have each Thanksgiving Day.
Besides helping getting everything ready for the baking of the pies, chopping of the items for the stuffing, etc, first on their list is to get the place cards ready for each person coming to dinner that year. They go through my “extra” pictures of the year, and/or print them off from my camera and cut the heads out of the picture of everyone who is attending. They then glue the cut outs on folded place card. Then each person is decorated as either a pilgrim with a black construction paper cut to be a pilgrim hat and glued to the top of their head or yellow and orange paper cut out to resemble turkey feathers and glued around the photo to resemble a turkey. The cards are then placed at the table for where everyone is to sit and this always gets some laughs started.
Next, we make cupcakes and decorate them with candy corn on top to make it look like a turkey. To make eating the cupcakes that much more exciting….we hide (1) quarter in (4) of the cupcakes. Whomever the lucky guest is that gets the quarter, gets a special prize from my daughters (a goodie bag of caramel popcorn with candy corn mixed in) to make for a festive treat bag to take home.
Edible table/plate décor that they love to help with is the “pilgrim hats”. The making of this usually causes a lot of chocolate everywhere in the kitchen, but better yet, it is great to hear the giggles from the girls as they have fun making the hats. It is as simple as a fudge stripe cookie, large marshmallow dipped into a chocolate coating and then placed on top of the cookie and complete it with a making a box on the marshmallow with white icing – completing the look of the hat. They then place two of these on each plate on the table…..giving the table some spark and a fun snack for people to nibble on before the turkey arrives…..who said you cannot have dessert first?! Happy Thanksgiving!
Written By: Megan, Marketing Director at Heritage Homes
It’s 3:23 pm and if you’ve already planted more virtual crops on Facebook than you’ve done actual business today, it might be time to give yourself a swift kick in the you know where.
Not feeling motivated? Wishing the hours of the day away? Take a good look at the environment you are working in. Are your coworkers supportive? Do you have what you need to be creative and efficient? When was the last time you actually laughed or how often do you joke around in the office?
Company culture is more than just having a secret Santa game during the holidays. It’s a feeling created by establishing a caring and respectful workplace that welcomes new ideas, embraces diversity and genuinely caring about its’ people. It stems much deeper than just working with fun and interesting co-workers. Such as having an “open door” policy so you feel comfortable going to your boss or manager for questions, concerns or new ideas. It’s about showing one another respect by not gossiping and giving out warm fuzzies instead of cold pricklies. (Come on- you guys remember that from grade school, right?)
Not everybody is great at self motivation so allowing your employees some freedom to create a work space and environment that is positive and gives them the boost they need to get through a never-ending proposal draft or to come up with that great tagline for a new product launch, is crucial for performance and efficiency.
We spend almost 2,000 hours a year working which is approximately 28 Kardashians. That’s a lot. So make the most of it! Host team building exercises, plan a chili cook-off, get an interoffice softball team going or just have your 4 o’clock Friday meeting outside on the patio for a change. Talent retention doesn’t just happen, it takes work. Treat your work relationship like a spouse. Try new things to keep it fresh and just because you don’t “like” them right now doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Everyone has bad days and you will most likely never enjoy every last detail of your job but if there’s good company culture and positive work environment those are just small bumps that are hardly noticed.
At Heritage Homes we’ve worked diligently to create a strong company culture and it all starts from the top. Our CEO just won first place in the chili cook-off and our President continues to bring us all together once a week to discuss our highlight reels. You need to love what you do and where you do it. Life’s too short not to.
Watch as Brian, Heritage Homes Senior Construction Superintendent and a part of 3 EM:HE builds, speaks about the memories he has while building the Grommesh family’s home!
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