Holidays are coming and the one thing I'm dreading the gift-y part of the whole thing.  I wish it could be more about warm healthy food and singing songs surrounded by loved ones but it has become all about presents.  Why is that?  I'm not a good liar and I'm terrified of that moment when I open up a gift and it is totally wrong for me.

I guess what I'm thinking about mostly this year is those great smelling gift baskets of lotions.

I've said it before and I'm so happy I found it-- coconut oil has saved my life. Literally-- I use it on my skin, on my hair, in pill form everyday, as a cooking oil and I mix it with baking soda for a deodorant which works better than any store bought I've ever used.  My favorite of its magic properties is that it has literally stopped any (grossness alert) full-blown yeast infections.

I don't know why we're so brain washed into thinking that store bought is better.  And please-- all those chemicals we willingly put on our bodies, on our lips, and in our bodies... I can't help but see a correlation between the overdose of chemicals and why so many of us get seriously sick as we get older.

Yes I will be happy and thankful that someone thought of me and brought me a gift.  My parents taught me well.  (I do remember how horrible I was to my grandmother when she bought me the "wrong" record of The Hustle, I can vividly remember crying and breaking her heart.  My parents did teach me that day that it was the wrong response.)  Whomever gets me a gift that is thoughtful and sweet, but just not "me"-- I will hug them and thank them as if they gave $25 to a soup kitchen in my name or they bought me five containers of Trader Joe's Coconut Oil.

Going to go shopping now and hope, hope, hope I don't purchase any gifts that makes people want to cry or give me the fake, "I love it" while they secretly are already thinking of whom to regift it to.

Happy almost holidays,

Yoga Girl