9. Design a holiday centerpiece by scouring the countryside for natural greenery, grass and berries. Use a basket or container you have laying around in the garage.

8. Create Christmas wrap by adding cutouts or personal designs to large sheets of paper; make sure to add a matching card.

7. Create “gifts from your kitchen”. Use your crock pot for more convenience.

Crockpot Snack Mix

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 4 hours,
Ingredients:
3 cups thin pretzel sticks
4 cups wheat Chex cereal
4 cups cheerios cereal
12 oz. jar salted peanuts
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 tsp. celery salt
1/2 tsp. seasoned salt
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Preparation:
Combine all ingredients in 4 to 5 quart crock pot and stir gently until well mixed and cereal, pretzels, and peanuts are coated with the butter, cheese, and spices. Cover crock pot and cook on low 3-4 hours, stirring twice during cooking. Remove lid during last half hour of cooking to let the mix dry.

For more, click here.

6. Design and print holiday invitations for your family’s celebration. Use EZ Invitations to create your own holiday cards.

5. Record a Christmas carol and include an audio greeting from each family member. For Christmas carol lyrics, click here.

4. Decorate your family’s computer with a customizable 3D Christmas Tree Screensaver. Get My 3D Christmas Tree Screensaver.

3. Exchange names for everyone in the family and be the Secret Santa by doing “nice” things to make that person feel special.

2. Have everyone chip in from their savings or give up a dinner out and buy a gift for a needy child. Have the family join in to take the gift to a collection box.

1. Collect gently-used toys and clothes and take them to the Goodwill. Not only will you be clearing the clutter and making room for holiday gifts, your family will be helping those less fortunate.

The Holidays can be great family time creating memories that will last through the ages.

Did you know? Halloween started in the U.S. as a harvest festival. Our Irish emigrants brought us the Jack o’ Lantern—originally oversized rutabagas, turnips and potatoes were hollowed out, carved into faces and illuminated with candles. In the old country on Halloween, Irish peasants would beg the rich for food. For those that refused, they would play a practical joke. In an effort to avoid being tricked, the rich would hand out cookies, candy, and fruit – a practice that morphed into trick-or-treating today.

Halloween is now the sweetest holiday of the year with over 25% of candy sold in the two months prior to Halloween in the U.S. Chocolate is the favorite sweet; Snickers tops the list of most wanted candy bars. But it is not all about “empty” calories, pumpkins originated in Mexico over 9,000 years ago; they are one of America’s oldest known vegetables and a great source of vitamin A, beta-carotene and potassium. And your family can roast the seeds for protein and iron.

How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds

1. Rinse pumpkin seeds under cold water and pick out the pulp and strings. (This is easiest just after you’ve removed the seeds from the pumpkin, before the pulp has dried.)
2. Place the pumpkin seeds in a single layer on an oiled baking sheet, stirring to coat. If you prefer, omit the oil and coat with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Sprinkle with salt and bake at 325 degrees F until toasted, about 25 minutes, checking and stirring after 10 minutes.
4. Let cool and store in an air-tight container.

Halloween’s not just for children any more over 60% of adults get into the Halloween spirit (and admit to sneaking into their children’s candy every now and then). Consumers spend $1.5 billion on Halloween costumes each year, $2.5 on Halloween decorations and crafts and over $50 million on Halloween greeting cards.

Now you can get your family in the Halloween spirit with these free, spooktacular ideas:

• Print FREE Halloween party Invitations to get the party started. Free borders, text, images and more included.
• Add Halloween clip art for a ghastly touch to all your craft projects.
• Decorate your screen with a superior 3D Halloween Screensaver.
• Turn your wallpaper into a haunted cave—complete with 3D witch, ghouls and more.
• Download FREE Halloween sound effects to get in the creepy spirit!
• Play Halloween games until the haunting begins.
• Create a greeting card with your favorite goblin’s picture. Totally adorable.

All these Halloween products are available FREE at Freeze.com.

Create lasting Halloween memories for you and your family. Quality time doesn’t have to be expensive.

Comments and/or ideas? Contact support@teamfreeze.com

Tags: halloween, halloween ringtones, screensavers, family fun, clipart, wallpapers, invitations, freeze.com, games, sound effects

Also available for Halloween:

Screensavers
3D Halloween

Classic Haunted House

Pumpkin Patch

Trick Or Treat

3D Falling Leaves

Animated Wallpapers
3D Halloween

3D Falling Leaves

Jack O’ Lanterns

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Haunted House #1

Haunted House #2

Haunted House #3

Haunted House #4

Haunted House #5

Other Halloween Ideas
Halloween Invitations
Halloween Game Pack
Halloween Clip Art
Halloween Sound Effects
Halloween Smileys

Tags: screensavers, halloween, wallpapers, animated wallpaper

10. 3D Lake Cabin

Hang loose at your desktop cabin and get a bird’s-eye view of the lake.

9. 3D Tropical Sunsets

Breathtaking radiant sunset—paradise.

8. 3D Halloween

Dare to enter the haunted graveyard.

7. Living 3D Dolphins

Watch the dolphin antics.

6. 3D Snowy Cottage

Unwind to the magic of accumulating snow.

5. Lightning Storm 3D

Watch as twisters intermingle with lightning and realistic thunder!

4. My 3D Christmas Tree

Decorate your desktop Christmas tree.

3. 3D Falling Leaves

Watch as Your Cares Drop Away Like the Leaves of Autumn!

2. Living 3D Waterfalls v3.0

Enjoy the enrapturing beauty of your 3D waterfalls. Now with improved 3D graphics.

and our current Number 1 screensaver is:

Living Marine Aquarium 2

Now even more realistic! Enjoy the calm serenity of your desktop aquarium.

Of course there are lots more fun and free savers to choose from. Just stop by and browse our entire library.

Tags: screensavers, free screensavers

Okay, just kidding.  I’m not *really* from Mars, contrary to popular belief.
But this is pretty sweet, nonetheless.

The new Amazing Universe ScreenSaver has 3D meteors, stars, asteroids, space debris, unearthly music and 7 scenes from the Milky Way.  Pretty much the whole nine yards. You’ll feel like you’ve travelled the Universe.

…or travelled back home. 

Tags: planets, freeze, screensavers, universe

I’m ready to be able to go to bed at night, leaving the windows wide open after spending hours goofin’ around outside, and listen to the rain fall outside while I fall asleep. LOVE that. Unfortunately, the snow doesn’t make any sweet sounds as it falls, and it’s a tad bit too cold up here in Minnesota to leave the windows open at night.

I live in a very old, old house. My back bedroom has no heat. So, occasionally I just curl up on the couch with a big ol’ blanket and sleep the night away.

SO…My latest brilliant plan?

I dug around and found the 3D Lightning Storm Screensaver in our ScreenSaver Collection. I let it run all night long on my pc right next to the couch. The sounds of rain, wind and thunder are just like the real thing. It’s perfect. And the best part? The different scenes that flash across my screen make it look like lightning is coming right in through the window. And, since I’m all snuggled up on the couch in my nice toasty warm living room, I’m roasty toasty enough to feel like it’s already summer.

Oh, and I keep the blinds pulled shut too. Just in case I wake up in the middle of the night and would happen to peek outside and see the white stuff still out there.

Tags: screensavers, Freeze

Not only am I not married to a crazy, psychotic (but cooler than cool) ol’ professional wrestler, but I can’t say that I have ever been able to swim with dolphins either.

After I looked outside a few days ago to see the remains of huge snowpiles reduced to mucky, muddy leaf-filled piles of ice, I mosied on over to freeze.com where I found my own personal dolphins in the Living 3D Dolphins Screensaver. BEAUTIFUL. Dolphins make me giddy.

Now, of course I didn’t get to climb into the water and hitch a ride on one, but really… how would one go about such a thing in February. In Minnesota. The screensaver was perfect for me.  I didn’t have to dig out my bikini and put it on, only to be painfully reminded that I’ve been hybernating all winter long. I think the thing packed up and moved out a few months ago anyway.

Tags: screensavers, Freeze

Download the 3D Moonlight Lake ScreenSaver from Freeze, shut off the lights, grab that special someone and stare at the stars. Even though it’s a ridiculously cheesy move, I can personally guarantee some excellent brownie points for this one.

…and…

As an added bonus, if you’re techishly geeky enough to have one, hook up that InFocus Projector machine and shine that thing up on the ceiling.

Tags: stars, InFocus projector, Valentine’s Day

Wait….
“The dirty fish water?”
This is WAY too hilarious to actually be the story I’m imagining it is.
Then I asked.

Yep – turns out this sweet little fish bowl he has on his desk… well – in the midst of removing “Dot” from his bowl, placing him in the holding cup, and going back to work while he let the water in the freshly cleaned bowl temperature acclimate…. he forgot there was nasty rancid fish water in that cup. AND a fish. Took a big ol’ swig.

Now – I can’t imagine how horrifying it was for him the second he realized what happened – but can you imagine how terrified poor little Dot was? Holy moly.

People… even though I, too, have a fish in a bowl on my work desk… this might be a good reason to stick to just having the Living Marine Aquarium Screensaver v2 be the only place there are fish swimming back and forth anywhere near our desks while we’re working. You can’t drink the water, and the fish won’t ever croak either.

Tags: screensaver, fish, fish bowl, aquarium, fish aquarium

Anyway, I also love scrounging around the web and downloading pink-themed wallpapers. And, if necessary, modifying wallpapers I find online to BE pink. I started my “pink wallpaper” collection a few months ago. Well, the task of changing out my wallpaper every day, or every hour (because I like to have a fresh, fun look on my desktop every hour) got to be a huge drag. Then I remembered the sweet little application we have here at Freeze that could handle all of that for me automatically.

YourScreen™ was installed, set up, and running within minutes. I dropped about 5 of my favorite wallpapers into the rotation list area, selected to have my wallpapers swap out every hour, and viola! Every hour I had a fun new wallpaper gracing my desktop. Heck, if I wanted to – I could have a new wallpaper thrown up there every minute. I think right now I have it set to swap out every 30 minutes. That seems about right.

I also have a small (but sweet) collection of screensavers that I have gathered, and guess what? Yep. YourScreen™ manages those for me too. Any screensaver that is installed on your machine is automatically added to your collection within the YourScreen™ interface. You can then easily browse through all screensavers available on your system, click one, and immediately activate it. All the settings are available for tweaking right there, too.

You can actually throw up pictures of your kids, your dog, your family, etc. and have them rotate as a custom made screensaver, complete with transition options such as fade, the blinds effect, and a ton more. You can even play music. It’s brilliant.

Plus, YourScreen™ has a search tool built right into it so I can search for fabulous new pink wallpapers and screensavers right there.

Tags: wallpapers, screensavers, Freeze, desktop manager