I’ve never understood people going into crazy debt trying to buy Christmas gifts. For as long as I can remember, my mother’s way of buying Christmas gifts was that there was a huge change jar in the corner of the kitchen. Over the course of the year, change went into the jar. That change was the money used to buy gifts.
My grandmother, on the other hand, sold pecans. She has quite a few pecan trees on her property. It becomes a family affair really. First they are picked up off the ground and put in big buckets.
Then they are cracked and picked out. “Picked out” is the process where all the non edible contents inside the shell of the pecan gets removed from the edible part of the pecan. This is done carefully so that the pecan itself is still in one piece. Then the pecans are rinsed and put in a big dishpan.
From here, the pecans are put in baggies in one pound increments. Yes there is a scale but not where I took these pictures. They are then sold. The harvest is anywhere from 500-1200 pounds.
Hi, I just wandered over from Holidailies and enjoyed the story. Like you, I can’t see why people go into debt for Christmas and love your grandmother’s solution. Out of curiosity, do you know how many trees she had? It’s amazing how many pecans she was able to collect–given what I’ve paid for pecans recently, I’d think that would make for a pretty good Christmas for everyone.
For those of us without pecan trees on our property, I suppose another solution is just not buying so much *stuff*, or at least not so much that we can’t afford to buy it.
That’s exactly how I used to buy Christmas presents when I was a kid. Hustling chugs we called it. LOL.
Those pecan photos are beautiful.