lmemsm

Whether you celebrate 8 days of Hanukkah, 12 days of Christmas, 7 days of Kwanzaa or anything else, it's always nice to have presents. With supply chains backed up and health hazards of shopping in crowded locations, this year is a great time to consider homemade presents.

I know many believe you get what you pay for me and that homemade gifts are not worthwhile. However, consider the time, effort and manpower that went into making a homemade gift. If you had to monetize it by paying someone else to do the work for you, with today's rising inflation, it would certainly cost a pretty penny to hire someone to do the job. Often a homemade gift has more intrinsic value that the latest cool commercial gadget or game.


Here are some gift ideas for the season...

Coloring

Coloring has been found to be a useful stress reduction activity. Give yourself the gift of a homemade coloring book using public domain clip art. You can also give your finished artwork or handmade holiday cards to others as a present.

Public Domain snowflake clip art to get you started:
https://www.rawpixel.com/board/1308894/vintage-snowflakes-wilson-alwyn-bentley-i-high-quality-cc0-images

Some other places to find artwork to color:
https://openclipart.org/faq
https://www.pdclipart.org/
https://publicdomainvectors.org/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

You can also create your own designs to color with free programs like TuxPaint and mtPaint ( https://github.com/wjaguar/mtpaint_handbook ) and rgbPaint ( http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/rgbpaint.html ).

Exercise

Give yourself the gift of exercise. Why wait until your New Year's resolution to go to the gym when you can start exercising now and feel better for it? Studies have shown Vitamin D from sunlight can help protect against diseases ( https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210915095408.htm ). Awe walks can have positive health effects and improve your mood more than walking just for the exercise ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32955293/ ). Try an early morning walk outside and enjoy the beauty of nature or try doing a Tai Chi form, QiGong exercise set or some yoga out in the sunshine. See how you feel afterwards.

Books

A book can be a wonderful gift.
Here's one of my favorite science fiction books:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18137
It even includes a furry protagonist. Hope others enjoy reading it as much as I did.

Here's a list of free books that could make nice presents:
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/13112.html

Books don't have to be fictional to be fun. Check into the many wonderful public domain hobby related books such as recipe books available online. You can also create your own and share it with others.

Want to find more ideas for books to read? Check out the reviews at BookWyrm
( https://bookwyrm.social/ ) or share some of your own reviews. If the book you want to read is not in the public domain, check archive.org or online resources from your local library to see if they can help you access it.

Movies

Some movies and TV shows with well known characters are actually in the public domain. So if you're in the mood for a literally free movie, check some of these out.

Mysteries

https://archive.org/search.php?query=charlie+chan&and[]=mediatype%3A%22movies%22&and[]=year%3A%221973%22&and[]=year%3A%221966%22&and[]=year%3A%221949%22&and[]=year%3A%221948%22&and[]=year%3A%221945%22&and[]=year%3A%221943%22&and[]=year%3A%221942%22&and[]=year%3A%221941%22&and[]=year%3A%221940%22&and[]=year%3A%221939%22&and[]=year%3A%221938%22&and[]=year%3A%221937%22&and[]=year%3A%221936%22&and[]=year%3A%221934%22&and[]=year%3A%221931%22&and[]=year%3A%221917%22&and[]=subject%3A%22mystery%22&and[]=subject%3A%22Charlie%20Chan%22

Action and adventure

https://archive.org/search.php?query=superman&and[]=mediatype%3A%22movies%22&and[]=year%3A%221948%22&and[]=year%3A%221947%22&and[]=year%3A%221944%22&and[]=year%3A%221943%22&and[]=year%3A%221942%22&and[]=year%3A%221941%22&and[]=year%3A%221940%22&and[]=year%3A%221939%22&and[]=year%3A%221938%22&and[]=year%3A%221937%22&and[]=year%3A%221936%22&and[]=year%3A%221932%22&and[]=year%3A%221930%22&and[]=year%3A%221920%22&and[]=subject%3A%22superman%22

https://archive.org/details/TARZANOFTHEAPESPUBLICDOMAINVERSION
https://archive.org/details/silent-the-adventures-of-tarzan
https://archive.org/details/TheAdventuresOfTarzan1921USAedicinAmericana.3gp
https://archive.org/details/silent-the-son-of-tarzan

Science Fiction

https://archive.org/search.php?query=Flash%20Gordon%20Conquers%20the%20Universe%20taylor%20AND%20mediatype%3Amovies
https://archive.org/details/PurpleDeathFromOuterSpace

https://archive.org/details/planet_outlaws_ipod

You can find more movies and adventures by searching archive.org.
You can also look through the listings at this site:
https://www.openculture.com/freemoviesonline

Here's some information on a radio play based on a popular movie series which includes material from my favorite author:
https://www.openculture.com/2020/05/the-original-star-wars-trilogy-adapted-into-a-14-hour-radio-drama-by-npr-1981-1996.html

Stargazing

Stargazing gives you something to do with your time that's aesthetically pleasing and a good learning experience. You can find out about constellations, planets and moons.

To help you get started, here are some free programs for your PC and phone that can help guide your star search.
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.tengel.planisphere/
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.google.android.stardroid/
http://nightsky.sourceforge.net/
https://portableapps.com/de/apps/education/stellarium_portable
https://portableapps.com/apps/education/celestia_portable

Games

What good is a gift idea list without the mention of games? From Free, Libre and Open Source computer games for your electronic devices to Creative Commons and public domain books about how to play a wide variety of games, there are several great resources for finding and sharing free games.

Here's my list of educational games for computers and mobile devices:
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/15912.html
Know of others? Please share them.

You can play games remotely via: https://www.freeboardgames.org/

Birding

Give to others by giving the birds a gift this year. You can create bird feeders from recycled materials. You can also start planning your gardens and include some bird, animal and environment friendly plants. The birds may even give you a gift in return with some beautiful bird songs.
You can watch birds anytime virtually:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/cornell-lab-feederwatch/
It's also fun to learn how to identify the different types of birds that visit your neighborhood. Check out some of the free bird identification resources online such as public domain birding books and the e-bird program.

Giving to Others

Sometimes the best gift is sharing your time and skills with others.

This year, how about volunteering to help a Free, Libre, Open Source software project? You don't have to be a programmer to help out. They also need beta testers, artists, translators, help writing documentation and guides and help with other tasks. How fun would it be to beta test some computer games and be helping FLOSS projects at the same time?

There are also several Creative Commons projects in need of resources such as artwork, creative writing, multimedia recordings and more. You can add your creative works to a site featuring Creative Commons material using a CC license. You can also volunteer to help out various CC projects and web sites.

You can also help projects like these by advocating for them. Get involved with events like Software Freedom Day to help spread the word about great FLOSS and CC resources. Use FLOSS sites such as Get Together ( https://gettogether.community/ ) and Mobilizon ( https://instances.joinmobilizon.org/instances ) to share events. Use FLOSS programs ( https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/14124.html ) to host them virtually.

If you have a web site or blog or develop sites, help by making them more accessible. Find out more from projects like https://anybrowser.org/ and sites that discuss web accessibility such as 508E guidelines and A11Y best practices.

Continuous learning helps with brain health and neuroplasticity. Learn something new and help the world by volunteering your scientific skills. There are several citizen science projects in need of volunteers.

You can find more volunteer related links here:
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/18603.html


Wrapping Up

Those are some of my gift ideas for now. You can also check earlier posts for holiday ideas from previous years. If you have other free resources you recommend, I'd enjoy hearing about them. Give a gift this year by sharing your own ideas, creativity and resources with others.