My Christmas Pajama tradition started here, at maryjanesfarm.com and led me this year to a very interesting place. A place that I need your help with. Big time. But before we talk about that, let’s talk about our own childhood Christmases. Do you remember the way you felt as a kid on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning? Do you remember the excitement and joy and hope that filled your heart? Do you still feel that? Do you remember the first time you enjoyed the GIVING more than the GETTING?
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Debbie Bosworth
is a certified farmgirl at heart. She’s happily married to her beach bum Yankee husband of 20 years. She went from career gal to being a creative homeschooling mom for two of her biggest blessings and hasn’t looked back since. Debbie left her lifelong home in the high desert of Northern Nevada 10 years ago and washed up on the shore of America’s hometown, Plymouth, MA, where she and her family are now firmly planted. They spend part of each summer in a tiny, off–grid beach cottage named “The Sea Horse.”
“I found a piece of my farmgirl heart when I discovered MaryJanesFarm. Suddenly, everything I loved just made more sense! I enjoy unwinding at the beach, writing, gardening, and turning yard-sale furniture into ‘Painted Ladies’ I’m passionate about living a creative life and encouraging others to ‘make each day their masterpiece.’”
Rebekah Teal
is a “MaryJane Farmgirl” who lives in a large metropolitan area. She is a lawyer who has worked in both criminal defense and prosecution. She has been a judge, a business woman and a stay-at-home mom. In addition to her law degree, she has a Masters of Theological Studies.
“Mustering up the courage to do the things you dream about,” she says, “is the essence of being a MaryJane Farmgirl.” Learning to live more organically and closer to nature is Rebekah’s current pursuit. She finds strength and encouragement through MaryJane’s writings, life, and products. And MaryJane’s Farmgirl Connection provides her a wealth of knowledge from true-blue farmgirls.
Cathi Belcher
an old-fashioned farmgirl with a pioneer spirit, lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As a “lifelong learner” in the “Live-Free-or-Die” state, she fiercely values self-reliance, independence, freedom, and fresh mountain air. Married to her childhood sweetheart of 40+ years (a few of them “uphill climbs”), she’s had plenty of time to reinvent herself. From museum curator, restaurant owner, homeschool mom/conference speaker, to post-and-beam house builder and entrepreneur, she’s also a multi-media artist, with an obsession for off-grid living and alternative housing. Cathi owns and operates a 32-room mountain lodge. Her specialty has evolved to include “hermit hospitality” at her rustic cabin in the mountains, where she offers weekend workshops of special interest to women.
“Mountains speak to my soul, and farming is an important part of my heritage. I want to pass on my love of these things to others through my writing. Living in the mountains has its own particular challenges, but I delight in turning them into opportunities from which we can all learn and grow.”
Dori Troutman
Dori Troutman is the daughter of second generation cattle ranchers in New Mexico. She grew up working and playing on the ranch that her grandparents homesteaded in 1928. That ranch, with the old adobe home, is still in the family today. Dori and her husband always yearned for a ranch of their own. That dream came true when they retired to the beautiful green rolling hills of Tennessee. Truly a cattleman’s paradise!
Dori loves all things farmgirl and actually has known no other life but that. She loves to cook, craft, garden, and help with any and all things on their cattle farm.
Mary Murray
describes herself as a goat charmer, chicken whisperer, bee maven, and farmers’ market baker renovating an 1864 farmhouse on an Ohio farm. With a degree in Design, Mary says small-town auctions and country road barn sales "always make my heart skip a beat thinking about what I could create or design out of what I’ve seen.”
Rooted in the countryside, she likes simple things and old ways … gardening, preserving the harvest, cooking, baking, and all things home. While you might find her selling baked goods from the farm’s milkhouse, teaching herself to play the fiddle, or sprucing up a vintage camper named Maizy, you will always find her in an apron!
Mary says, “I’m happiest with the simple country pleasures … an old farmhouse, too many animals, a crackling fire, books to read, and the sound of laughter … these make life just perfect.”
Alexandra Wilson
is a budding rural farmgirl living in Palmer, the agricultural seat of Alaska. Alex is a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University pursuing an M.S. in Outdoor and Environmental Education. She lives and works on the university’s 700 acre environmental education center, Spring Creek Farm. When Alex has time outside of school, she loves to rock climb, repurpose found objects, cross-country ski on the hay fields, travel, practice yoga, and cook with new-fangled ingredients.
Alex grew up near the Twin Cities and went to college in Madison, Wisconsin—both places where perfectly painted barns and rolling green farmland are just a short drive away. After college, she taught at a rural middle school in South Korea where she biked past verdant rice paddies and old women selling home-grown produce from sidewalk stoops. She was introduced to MaryJanesFarm after returning, and found in it what she’d been searching for—a group of incredible women living their lives in ways that benefit their families, their communities, and the greater environment. What an amazing group of farmgirls to be a part of!
Nicole Christensen
Suburban Farmgirl Nicole Christensen calls herself a “vintage enthusiast”. Born and raised in Texas, she has lived most of her life in the picturesque New England suburbs of Connecticut, just a stone’s throw from New York State. An Advanced Master Gardener, she has gardened since childhood, in several states and across numerous planting zones. In addition, she teaches knitting classes, loves to preserve, and raises backyard chickens.
Married over thirty years to her Danish-born sweetheart, Nicole has worked in various fields, been a world-traveler, an entrepreneur and a homemaker, but considers being mom to her now-adult daughter her greatest accomplishment. Loving all things creative, Nicole considers her life’s motto to be “Bloom where you are planted”.
We, too, have a Christmas pajama tradition that started when I was a little girl. My son loves it, and so do we. Your idea of providing jobs and pajamas in Kenya is such a wonderful one, we will be donating to it as part of our Twelve Days of Christmas donation tradition! Thank you for the time and effort you have put into starting this and for giving us a great place to donate for one of our twelve donations this year!
Thanks you for the great idea! I will be looking forward to hearing just how many folks respond to the pj project.
Your involvement with Sister Kathryn is wonderful…
Great job!
Here’s a p.j. tradition that passed many years ago but is held dear in the hearts of my sister, cousins and me. Our Grandmother and Aunt Florence made p.j’s and night gowns for each of the younger boys and girls and night gowns/robes for the older girls and shirts for the older boys – up to 13 – all were of flannel. Now one might say – ok so – well there were almost 30 at one time that received these wonderful presents. I lived with my Grandparents and Aunt so I had the privilege of helping with these most sought after gifts and I did keep it a secret at to what color/s each was getting. AND the most of these were made without a pattern – Grandma and Aunt Florence were so very talented that they would just start cutting and out would come the MOST WONDERFUL garment and MEMORY. Thanks for being part of our memory and I am so happy you too do the p.j. gift – I do it for my grandchildren also – I have 2 lovely wonderful specials to do it for. Merry Christmas. – p.s. I still take out one of my old p.j.’s – I’m 66 – so it is old – just fun to look at.
I can’t remember when I started getting flannel nightgowns from my mother for Christmas. It must have been when I was grown. All my three older sisters and I always got a flannel nightgown, for decades. And I wore them until they wore out. In fact, I have two that I still wear, and I’m going through the elbow of one of them. I want to learn to sew my own flannel nightgown. We always knew we’d get one, and we always loved them. My mother died in 2008, so I miss getting my nightgown. But I can give one to a Kenya girl. And maybe I’ll go over to the sewing folks on the forums and I can learn how to sew my own. Thanks for reminding me.
My 3 daughters are all grown (youngest is 46). One of their
favorite Christmas memories is of getting Christmas pajamas
every year from their grandmother, my mother-in-law. They
always received many wonderful gifts from parents, aunts, uncles, etc. but their favorites were always the pajamas.
Grandma always included a special book for each of them and
they would get into their pajamas and Grandma would read them their book. Lovely memories. This year my great-grandaughter, who is 6, is receiving an American Girl Doll
which is designed to look like her. I am making she & her doll matching nightgowns. I’m excited to see her face when she opens them.
My mom always gave us pj’s for my brothers and nightgown and robe for me, every Christmas. She passed away in 2002, thanks for maken me remember her and this tradition from my childhood.
I really loved your post on the christmas pjs. I am a mother of 10 and grandmother of 23 and greatgrandmother of 18 and I make p.j.s for all of them for christmas. the older ones only get pajama pants but girls under 16 get gowns or p.j.s It is so much fun looking for the fabric for each family I start in January collecting fabric. I live on my Social Security so can’t get all of it at once. I wish that I had know about this sooner and would have given . I spent 2yrs in So.Africa. If you still collect after the 1st of year I would love to donate . Let me know
Ruth
THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYONE! THERE HAS BEEN A FANTASTIC RESPONSE TO THE NIGHTGOWN PROJECT! WHAT A GREAT BUNCH OF LOVING AND CARING SOULS!
I’M SO SORRY, BUT I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED MANY COMMENTS! IF YOU DON’T SEE YOURS ABOVE, YOU’LL NEED TO RE-SUBMIT. SO SORRY!! I’M REALLY NOT VERY GOOD WITH THIS COMPUTER!
Y’ALL HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND THANKS FOR YOUR GENEROSITY! MUCH LOVE TO YOU! REBEKAH
What is it about Africa that settles in your heart and camps out? My husband and I took a trip there a few years ago and I wanted to bring back every 15 year old girl I met because each one was still so full of hopes and dreams. The 21 year olds were a different story, full of despair and caught in the reality of their situations. Heartbreaking.
I have a friend here who is doing a similar thing with shoes. She is a go getter as well! What started with a simple video she saw on YouTube has grown exponentially, with cutting parties all over the country, then they ship the precut (adorable) shoes to Africa to be sown by women there.
At a cutting party recently at a prison, one guy couldn’t get over the fact that the shoes he was cutting out would actually be placed on the feet of a child. He said that would be his first time to ever help someone!
You can see her here:
solehope.com