Christmas is an expensive time of year, what with gifts, and buying festive foods, and travelling to visit relatives.
If you're finding it difficult to make ends meet this year, considering doing something different this Christmas in relation to your gift giving.
If you're normally expected to buy gifts for cousins and aunts and uncles you haven't seen for months and aren't in regular contact with, simply because you're going to a huge family Christmas gathering, then one suggestion is to opt out of the big family thing, and this year, do something small with your immediate family only.
Alternately, you can suggest to the rest of your family that, rather than buying a gift for everyone, limit the gift-giving to children or better still, do a Secret Santa draw where everybody who's attending the family gathering has their name put on a piece of paper which is then placed in a hat or bowl. Each person attending then gets given one name to buy for that year, and that is the only present they have to take along. Make sure you all agree on a price range for gifts as well, something reasonable per person. The difficulty with Secret Santa, of course, is that if someone who's been allocated to buy a gift for someone else doesn't turn up, or forgets, then the person who was supposed to receive the gift gets the one that was bought for the guest who didn't arrive.
An even better option is to have a lucky dip or grab bag. Adults buy one adult present each, and children are also responsible for bringing along a present for another child, again within the agreed upon price range, according to their own gender (unless of course, you're the only one of that gender going to the party!) Then the gifts get put into four lucky dips - one for adult males, one for adult females, one for boys, and one for girls, or if there are a lot of teenagers, expand the number of lucky dips accordingly. Everyone then draws a piece of paper which has a number on it and gets to pick from the lucky dip according to their number. You probably won't get what you really wanted for Christmas, but the spirit of gift giving is still practiced.
This works well if you have a small immediate family, eg. two parents and one or two children because then your family is only expected to buy as many presents as there are people in the family, however, if you have a large family of seven or more kids, it becomes more expensive. At the same time, however, it's much fairer, and everyone who arrives with a gift, leaves with one.
If you simply can't afford to buy any expensive gifts, then you might choose to turn your hand to creating something you're good at.
People who are good cooks can bake goodies for Christmas presents, or if you know someone else who's a good cook, you could do up a small recipe gift basket that contains the dry ingredients and a nicely presented copy of the recipe, all wrapped festively so they can cook it themselves later. This works well if you have a favourite cake or cookie that everyone always asks the recipe for.
Similarly, if you're good at craft and can whip something festive up from bits and pieces found around the house or from your own craft collection, do that, for example a candle in a frosted glass bottle prettily decorated and tied with a ribbon.
Or perhaps one of your relatives has been saying for ages they'd like to get into knitting - give them some wool, knitting needles and a book on how to start, or better still, if you're a knitter yourself, arrange that day for a time the two of you can sit down and you'll teach them how to get started.
Likewise, if you're good at carpentry or woodwork, use some of your offcuts to make something unique that can't be found in regular stores. Or if you're a keen gardener and have healthy, thriving plants, then pot some cuttings or give away some of your lush plants.
In all these cases, all you need to do is put the gifts into some Christmas trimming (wrapping paper from last year would do) and voila, you have a gift for someone else.
You could even make your own gift wrap with the help of your children. This gives the present a far more personal touch, particularly for doting grandparents or loving aunts.
And don't forget your computer (if you have one). You could buy some plain white t-shirts and some t-shirt transfers, create your own design or use a favourite photo and transfer it onto the t-shirt for a one-of-a-kind gift for that special someone who's always wearing t-shirts with catchy sayings for example.
Or scan some pre-digital-camera photos and create a slideshow, or screen saver, or a simple photo album featuring old photos, and burn it to a cd. Add a festive label and you've created something that has only cost a few dollars but which is unique to the person. Another photo-related option is to print out a favourite photo (or if you can afford it, have it blown up to a reasonable size at your local photo shop) and frame it.
Children can do something similar for their grandparents or favourite aunts by buying a cheap frame from a discount shop, decorating it themselves, and putting in a special photo that means something to their relative.
Other options using your computer can be to print off calendars or coupons or gift certificates where you promise to mow the lawn, clean up your bedroom, take your partner out to dinner, babysit for a couple with a newborn etc. etc. You're only limited here by your imagination and what you're willing to do as a service to the recipient. Check out templates for these from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/)
By not having to stress about how you're going to afford all those Christmas gifts this year, you have enjoy a more magical Christmas. And what if someone doesn't appreciate the efforts you went to in relation to their gift? That's more a reflection of their personality, than yours, and they obviously don't understand the true spirit of the season.
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