I would tip the owner as you see fit and let her dole out to her workers herself. If she is like most small business owners, she will give 100% of the gift to her employees. If she decides not to share it, well, that's literally her business, isn't it? I would word the card, "To Marsha and Staff" or something like that...

LOL, lax! Had a good chuckle reading your "tips," even though I'm being very disciplined this holiday season. I've lost 10 pounds since Halloween, but boy oh boy, did I ever need to. At the company Christmas party, I only drank seltzer with lime, and ate a bit of fish and veggies. Had a few chocolates and cookies yesterday, but back to work today. Still packin' on way too many pounds :) So y'all enjoy those goodies for me! See you in January when we want to share dieting tips, LOL!

Jaybird, maybe I can explain my reasoning. For me, the emotional INCOME of pleasure from dealing with activities or objects must equal or be MORE than the emotional OUTGO and pleasure from those activities or objects. No one is saying there is anything wrong with having tons of decorations or stuff, if it gives you pleasure. Most of us here are dealing with the concept that the disorganization has reached a point it is NOT pleasureable. The work associated with cleaning, packing, storing, keeping and putting the stuff back out again is not pleasurable. I'm middle aged, but my youngest child is only 5. I only have so much energy to go around and I have to make sure I'm not running on empty. I'm trying to be more thoughtful in what I bring into our environment to make sure I keep that balance between the work involved and the pleasure I receive. I would bet my next paycheck that your friends and family like to come to your house because YOU are a warm and inviting person. Therefore, your home is warm and inviting, especially over the holidays. There are many things which would give me pleasure but I am no longer willing to do the work associated with the pleasure. I have very few clothes, even though I like and can afford trendy stuff. Keeping them clean and pressed is too much work for me now. I love pots and pots of flowers around my patio, but again, the work level has become something which is unbalanced. Now, all of my ratty, vintage quilts? That's a different story! If a magic genie could come and decorate the house for the holidays with a poof! (and take it down) I would really like a super decorated home. But, for me, being realistic means after the first time or two of lugging and packing holiday dishes, they will just sit in the box. It means I'm the one who will spend days putting the stuff up and days taking it down and packing it away. By coming up with an easy care substitute like a couple of pretty tablecloths, I can achieve my goal of a festive table with much less work. I am also trying to get away from some of the messages from society, that if we don't go all out, then our family won't have a nice holiday. We don't even put up the tree until the 15th of December because I feel that it keeps the build-up or anticipation level too high for my kids. The one thing I have really appreciated since finding this board, is the support and encouragement for whatever someone is trying to achieve. We all have really different lives and challenges. It's not important that I understand Marie's stuggle with her paper clutter. I don't have to make sense of Julie's desire to have her wardrobe a certain way. I can encourage and try to help them reach their goal. For me personally, it's been a quest to stop looking at the short-term pleasure, but see a bigger picture of what comes and goes in my life. How do I balance that for me? Gloria

Apparently I'm all alone in the no clean up camp. Either that or nobody else will admit to it. I leave everything, including the 8-12 inches of oak leaves that routinely fall on my main hosta beds. After the first killing frost I simply walk away. The birds do love the scapes, checking those out all winter long, even when there is no hope that any seeds remain. It also gives me a nice number of volunteer seedlings every spring. I have not had any problems with pests or disease in the 25+ years I've been doing this, and yes, even the mini hostas will come up through the oak leaves, which by spring have composted down to almost nothing. I do walk through regularly when the hostas start to show green, and manually remove any oak leaves that have pips coming through or showing underneath (alright, I mostly use my foot, but pedally just sounds odd). This is for the hostas in my upper gardens, which are mostly for public viewing. My lower garden a work in progess, and is mainly for growing out divided plants, lining out small divisions, but also has some more landscaped areas. And by landscaped, I mean 98% hostas, but grown more as specimens, with 2% astilbes, bleeding heart, ferns, and a few other perennials. This area gets no attention at all until I'm ready to start dividing hostas in the spring. Maybe a little weeding if I'm feeling up to it, but for the most part those hostas make it all on their own. That area gets some oak leaves and lots of walnut leaves. My only slightly coddled hostas are some very small minis that live in a bed that generally doesn't get many oak leaves. Things like Manzo, Kifukirin Otome, and few other tinies live near cedar trees, but in a mostly sunny area, in a slightly raised bed, and they overwinter very well.