Ask Catherine: Christmas Gift Ideas

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” ~ Charles Dickens

By Catherine Austin Fitts

A Solari Report subscriber asked what I would recommend for Christmas gifts. Published and updated annually, here are some of the gifts I like to give.

CASH, CHECKS, OR SAVINGS

I find that many people, particularly young people, love receiving cash or a check. Whatever really clever ideas I might have for presents, people often know what they most want. Some unexpected cash makes it easier for them to get their heart’s desire.

I also encourage (grand)parents to help their (grand)children develop a tailored Building Wealth Learning Plan, and to save for college, internships, educational travel, or other experiences that will further their child’s learning plan. You can invite all the relatives to steadily fund these future educational experiences at birthdays and holidays.

COINS

A sovereign silver or gold coin is a great way to give money in a form that encourages young people to save or helps their parents save for college. I also like to give children coins from other countries from around the world to help them learn about countries and currencies. You can calculate amounts with our Silver & Gold Payment Calculator.

And—a great suggestion from a wonderful subscriber—how about a piggy bank to teach the children you love about the importance of cash and saving.

STORE CREDIT AND GIFT CARDS

Someone can always use a credit at their favorite store. A gift card or credit at someone’s favorite butcher, wine shop, or food market may also make for a more lavish Christmas dinner. Local stores are often the best. I particularly like great local flower shops. In honor of #CashEveryDay, you can pay with cash!

Some favorite stores I use online:

Body Deli — This Palm-Springs-area store offers intriguing fresh, organic “superfood” skin care. Consider a body lotion that is nutritious, too!
Lehmans — This Ohio store was created to serve the Amish. It has grown into one of the premier catalogues for gardening, country, and non-electric living.
LL Bean — This Maine store has been keeping the feet of outdoor lovers and hunters dry and warm for decades. Here is my review: “Why I Love LL Bean.”
Hofweb — If you are in the Netherlands, get the best food in the world and have it delivered! If not, find a farm store near you, like Tennessee’s Crossing Creeks Farm and Taylor Family Farm or Vermont’s Meadows Bee Farm. I would sure appreciate hearing about subscribers’ favorite farm stores in the comments section below.

Want to help your family and friends make positive changes to their daily lives? Give them Corey Lynn’s new PDF to give this holiday season on 15 Great Tips for Family & Friends with the appropriate gift cards and resources to support their choices.

BOOKS

One of the best presents I ever received was from a business partner. She gave me a detailed write-up of her favorite books. It was fascinating. Her write-up came with a gift certificate to her favorite local bookstore. She had arranged for the store owner to spend time with me to help me pick out the books I wanted. All I had to do was make an appointment.

I also received a gift card from a client for an online bookstore. I have always wanted a hard copy of the complete works of Aristotle. Sure enough, the card inspired me to buy something I had always wanted but kept putting off as a luxury (given the 400+ books that are sitting in the “must read” pile).

Here are links to the Solari Report Best Books for 2023 to inspire your efforts. See also our most recent Book Reviews.

HEALTH

Christmas is a time when we often eat rich foods and large meals. My two current favorite New Year’s books are The Complete Guide to Fasting by Jimmy Moore and Dr. Jason Fung and The Wim Hof Method by Wim Hof. Wim Hof was the Solari Hero of the Year for 2021.

My church in Washington practiced fasts in January. Now, without a church to inspire me, I dive into The Complete Guide to Fasting. Here is my book review. Numerous subscribers prefer other books about fasting—you might want to check out some of our fasting discussions on Solari.com.

Wim Hof has me doing breathing exercises and taking cold showers. I am still building up to swimming in the IJsselmeer in the winter. Wim Hof’s method can make dramatic improvements in your immune strength, energy, and outlook. Here is my review.

Good health starts with nutrition. However, many people are busy, and it takes time to sleuth out the best food sources in your area. Dig up a good list and information on the best farmers, ranchers, farmer’s markets, and CSAs (Community-Supported Agriculture) in your area—as well as the best butchers, grocers, and restaurants—and give the information as a gift, along with a little something from one of the identified sources. One of the magazines from Edible Communities and the shopping guide or local chapter leader of the Weston A. Price Foundation may also be of help.

A copy or collection of our Solari Report Wrap Ups can provide a great summary of people and sources to help busy people understand the pandemic’s role in the global financial coup d’état and attacks on individual and national sovereignty. These are included in our Holiday Gift Packages.

MORE LAVISH GIFTS

Now is a good time to bring the spa to your home. How about giving a gift of health equipment desirable to and appropriate for the person receiving your gift? Options include items such as a sun lamp, an IonCleanse machine, a QRS machine, or an infrared sauna.

How about funding visits to the amazing museums that Your Culture Scout, Nina Heyn, has reviewed over the last two years in her amazing column Food for the Soul?

If some of us are denied access to public transportation because we do not want to be part of the totalitarian financial control grid, what about more creative motorized personal travel options?

Or, how about purchasing a share in a local CSA for loved ones? Or consider refinancing out their debt at a lower interest rate—thereby keeping the income in the family instead of the banking system.

One of my favorite Solari Reports is Coming Clean – Transforming Lives Through the Power of Cleaning with Eunice Boston. When I lived in New York, I would buy a spring cleaning by Eunice’s company for a really special friend or colleague. This was a multi-day, intense experience. Yes, your home got super clean beyond what you could imagine—and super organized. The field changed. As one partner who received this gift said, “You should have warned me that this would be a spiritual experience.” Eunice and her company literally saved my life; we tell the story in the Solari Report. If your recipient is near New York, hire Eunice and her team to do their complete, transformative deep-clean. If not, find a team of high-integrity cleaners locally.

Another gift that is a little less lavish than travel or the world’s finest home or business cleaning is a vintage typewriter—a great tool to have to preserve free speech and classic communications like personal notes. You can find a good selection at Etsy. I now have two vintage typewriters and a Freewrite, and I am very glad I do.

How about the ultimate in unique musical instruments that anyone can learn how to play? I have one—a whistle from Howard Music in the UK.

The best Christmas present that I ever heard tell of was given to Harper Lee by a couple who had a good year in business. They funded her a year’s worth of living expenses so she could write a book. She wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, which went on to sell over 40 million copies. Giving talented people the gift of time can indeed change the world.

ON A BUDGET

If you are on a budget, there are plenty of great gifts that will work for you.

Downsizing

During my “Enemy of the State” period, the team harassing me used to steal one possession of financial or sentimental value whenever I left home. This pattern is not unusual in such cases. I decided that no one would use my possessions as weapons against me. So I made a list of my valuable possessions and then steadily gave them away at Christmas and birthdays over the subsequent years: Hermes and Cartier watches and scarves, Italian handbags, custom-tailored coats, good silver and china, and paintings. One lucky relative got a Renoir etching.

I am not suggesting you give away all your possessions. However, if you look around your house and are honest with yourself, there are undoubtedly valuable and beautiful things that you have that you don’t use that could bring great joy to someone you love. And some that will bring great joy to families that could use a helping hand.

Let’s Go to the Movies

Everyone loves a good movie. Play the same game with movies as with books. Here are lists I like to use:

• A List of the 20 Funniest Movies
• Food: Let’s Go to the Movies
• Food for the Soul: Movies & TV

You will be able to find a list of all the movies and documentaries we have recommended and reviewed at the Solari Report from 2008-2022 at the web presentation for the 2023 Annual Wrap Up here. You can find out which movies we recommended this year by clicking on the Let’s Go to the Movies logo under Solari Culture at the bottom of the Solari Report homepage.

Our movie selections during December focus on Christmas movies. So, between those recommended this year and over the last few Decembers, you can find plenty of our favorite Christmas movies. In 2020, Nina Heyn and I did a Food for the Soul podcast on our favorite Christmas movie picks. You can find it at the Food for the Soul webpage under Podcasts.

For those who would like a great stocking stuffer, you can get copies of the Solari Prayer Book. The digital version is available online, and we are also happy to mail you hard copies—they are complimentary.

Solari Report subscribers are always welcome to share the Solari Report with their immediate family. Print out Wrap Up PDFs and transcripts from your favorite Solari Reports and share them with a personal note telling family members how the materials helped you, and why you recommend them.

Decorating the Ancestors’ Graves

Christmas is a time to honor our ancestors, whose lives and accomplishments contributed to the many blessings we enjoy. Visiting ancestors’ graves with someone you love, sharing time to celebrate family and the “meaning of the season,” and decorating the graves with fresh Christmas evergreens, berries, or flowers are wonderful things to do. You can acquaint young people with their heritage or celebrate memories with those who are older and might have difficulty making the trip on their own. Send pictures of your visit to family and friends who are far away or not able to come, so they can participate from a distance.

FOCUS ON KIDS

In 2010, I wrote a small book, Gifting to the Children We Love, to assist my clients. I kept talking with families. Some people had money. Some people had time. By pooling resources, they could do a lot more for the children in their extended family. I hoped this collection would help.

What I would most like to give every child I know for Christmas is a course in creating their own encryption systems. This is Bill Binney’s great idea. If we teach all the young people how to make their own proprietary encryption systems and to create businesses making encryption systems for local businesses, we can start to rebuild local economies. I am going to ask Bill to help us figure out how to do this. I invite your ideas as well. Let’s figure it out!

Other great ideas for young people include a garden kit or course to teach them how to start growing food from a very early age, or explore and teach them the great traditions of Christmas like the lighting of the Advent candles each evening or where candy canes came from (see the short video on our Christmas Culinary Traditions). One of our subscribers last year suggested a piggy bank – a wonderful idea that inspired me to give two piggy banks last year. Teaching children how to save is a gift that keeps on giving.

THE SOLARI REPORT

We are offering Solari Wrap Up Gift Packages in time for the holidays—gift-wrapped to send as a gift or add to your own collection!

These collections include The State of Our Currencies, The Going Direct Reset, CBDCs, Taxation, SPACs, Gold and Silver, Building Wealth, Pharma Food, and more. These are an excellent source of intelligence on the “reset.” For those of you who want to give the gift of intelligence that will serve your networks well in the New Year, we also have options at the store to purchase five or ten copies. You can even buy by the box (approximately 23—quantity may vary with each edition) by calling Customer Service. These make great gifts for colleagues and business associates.

If you want to give a Solari Report subscription as a gift, the information is here: Paid Gift Subscription. If you have any questions, feel free to fill out a support request.

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By Mail:
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DONATIONS

Every year, Solari makes donations to groups that help us honor the spirit of giving and Peace on Earth. In 2010, we donated to a food bank in every country and state in which we had subscribers. Consider a donation to your local food bank this Christmas. Give donations in the name of other people as a gift as well.

You can see our past Christmas donations for every year since 2010 at our Holiday Greetings website. You can see our 2023 Christmas donations in this year’s Holiday Greeting here. You can also see our efforts to protect financial transaction freedom at our TAKE ACTION CROWDFUND when we publish later this week. We invite you to join us in supporting leaders who are fighting fearlessly to protect your human, food, health, financial, and property rights. We publish a master list of heroes in our Annual Wrap Up and selected Quarterly Wrap Up web presentations.

The world is full of great groups worth supporting, starting with excellent documentary filmmakers and members of the new media. An investment in intelligence networks is a great investment at Christmas and throughout the year.

MORE!

I will post more ideas during the Christmas Season if I have them. I know our subscribers also have great ideas, so post yours in the comments section!

Most of all, make sure you take time for you and yours during this special time of the year. The best present of all is Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men!