Chatham County is offering holiday programs to recycle trees, wrapping paper, cooking oil and even nonworking strings of lights.

Free tree-cycling will be offered at the Main Solid Waste & Recycling Facility at 720 County Landfill Road on the following dates:

Starting today, I'll be taking some time off for the holidays.

I'll be writing the occasional post, but mostly I'll be busy baking, doing a little last-minute (bargain) shopping and, most of all, spending time with family and friends.

Best wishes to all of you for a wonderful holiday.

If holiday movie watching is on your agenda, you might be interested in this offer from the daily deal site Saveology.

For $24, you get two movie tickets through Fandango and a $10 gift card to Subway.

The movie tickets are worth up to $12 each. So basically, you're getting the Subway gift card free. Not a bad deal.

Click here to see the deal and examine the fine print.

I always like to say I'm frugal, not cheap.

I absolutely don't mind spending on things that are worthwhile. Items that are long-lasting, high-quality, much-needed or long-desired.

But things that are tossed in the trash almost immediately after buying or using -- not so much.

Things like wrapping paper.

I used to wrap on the cheap by purchasing my giftwrap at 90 percent off clearance after the holidays. That saved me plenty of money, for sure.

But what I really wanted was giftwrap that was easy on the wallet AND easy on the environment.

I thought I'd share a few ideas I've come up with -- in hopes of saving you a few dollars and the planet a few trees.

With Christmas just a week away and Hanukkah even closer, the sales circulars are loaded with ads for toys, fragrances, candy and those as-seen-on-TV gadgets and gizmos.

Look a little closer, however, and you'll find plenty of real deals -- freebies and cheapies to fill stockings and help make your holidays more festive. I've highlighted many of them for you in this week's list of all the best deals at CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, Target, Kroger and Kerr Drug.

Chipotle restaurants are offering customers an incentive to buy gift cards for the holidays -- free food on your next visit.

For every $30 you spend in Chipotle gift cards, you'll get a free burrito, burrito bowl, salad or order of tacos.

But whatever you do, keep your receipt! That's your ticket to your free food. You must present the receipt of your gift card purchase to eat free.

The deal is good through Dec. 31. And you have until Jan. 31 to get your free burrito.

Just in time for the holidays, Hallmark has released a rare coupon for $5 off a $10 purchase.

You can find the coupon on the Hallmark Facebook page here. You must click the "Like" button, then click on the "special offers" tab along the left-hand side of the page.

The coupon is good until Dec. 4. One per customer. Not valid on promotional merchandise.

Here is a look a back at a couple of earlier Fourth of July celebrations.

Early 1900s. Courtesy of North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.

Wake Forest Fourth of July Children's Parade 1989. N&O Staff photo

To wrap up Mother's Day, here's a group portrait of Kinston High School's Little Mothers League for Better Babies from around 1920. The photograph is part of the Fred & Susan Brock Collection at East Carolina University and is used with permission of the Joyner Library Digital Collections unit.

Little Mothers League clubs were originally formed by Sara Josephine Baker, a New York public health physician and were designed to teach young girls to help care for their younger siblings. An article about the League was published in The New York Times around 1910.

Consider the case of the mother of many children, eight, nine, or ten, with the house to keep clean and the washing to be done, and maybe a bit of money to be earned on the outside. It is only natural that a large part of the care of the little ones should fall on the shoulders of the older girls. There are some fortunate mothers who will not trust their little ones to walk abroad even with a nurse, unless they go along. There are thousands and thousands of mothers whose babies lie all day long in the care of children themselves only a few years beyond babyhood.

Photo Courtesy of the North Carolina State Archives

This May Day celebration featured the Flora Macdonald College May Day Scotch Dancers doing the Scottish Fling, sometime between 1910 and 1916. According to the present-day Flora Macdonald Academy, the college was founded in 1896 in Red Springs NC.

The Fayetteville Presbytery decided to establish a seminary for girls somewhere in the area. Red Springs came forward with the promise of $2500, four acres of land, and forty students, if the school should be located there. The offer was immediately accepted. Red Springs was also chosen because, in addition to the fact that it was a center of religious and social activity and abounded in the health giving mineral springs which gave the town its name, it was largely populated with the Scottish Highlanders to whom education and religion were life's most important requisites.

Flora Macdonald Academy carries on many of the traditions of the old Flora Macdonald College. One of these is the annual May Day celebration held the first Saturday in May. Stemming from Roman celebrations of the coming of spring and borrowing traditions from the English holiday, the college and now the academy celebrates May Day. English customs are combined with Scottish music and dance, acknowledging the Scottish heritage of the school. The May Queen and her court process from the beautiful gardens to the front portico where they are entertained by the day's festivities. The traditional May Pole Dance, Sword dance and bagpipes are a part of these festivities. Along with many others, this time honored tradition has become an integral part of life at Flora Macdonald Academy.