Want to play? Ways to keep Xmas awesome, but cheap(er)

[Alicia64]

We had a pricey fall so I'm trying to come up w/ clever ideas for keeping Christmas wonderful, but cut costs.

 

I'll go first:

 

1) We're using our old friend, the fake tree in the attic -- that the kids happen to love -- rather than buying a fresh tree. Even if we got one from Costco, that's a $40 savings.

 

2) We get the Wall Street Journal -- and rather than spend a fortune on Christmas wrapping, I'm going to a) use wrapping I already have from last year and b) wrap gifts in newspaper.

 

I did buy a bag of bows -- even though gifts will be wrapped in newspaper, I want the gifts to look pretty (with a rustic vibe).

 

3) My teens are too old for this idea but I did it every year when they were little: I'd get Christmas picture books from the library, wrap them, and put them under the tree. Every night, one boy could pick a wrapped book, unwrap it, and we'd read that Xmas book.)

 

I hope we get a lot of fun ideas!

 

Alley

[frugalmamatx]

I'm in!

 

1. Santa doesn't wrap gifts because his elves are just so busy. This alone saves me a ton of work and the cost of wrapping paper. Plus it makes it easy to keep track of Santa gifts vs mom gifts. 

 

2. Fake tree as well. Ours will need replacing this year though, so after Christmas I'll hit target / walmart and pick up a new one on clearance. 

 

3. Find free Christmas activities. Our of our favorites is a local church does a puppet show of the nativity {it's really cool and uses a lot of blacklight stuff} and free hot chocolate / cookies. We always go to that and then look at lights on our walk home. We also go downtown and walk around to look at lights & hear the boat carolers as well normally. 

 

4. Gifts don't have to be store bought. I am working on a gift for dd10 right now - it's basically a year of cooking & baking lessons from me, a binder to turn into her own cookbook, and maybe an apron or similar. The only thing purchased will be the apron and that will likely be from a thrift shop. 

[Pippen]

Christmas Milk--Pour milk into holiday glass. Add a few drops of red or green food coloring. Add straw. (Ignore kids blowing bubbles while they drink it.)

 

I started doing this occassionally during the holiday season when my kids were little. They're young adults now and won't turn down a glass of Christmas Milk.

[hjffkj]

We have 4 kids, 8 and under. Most years we do one bigger gift each and a few things in their stockings. This year we are expecting our 5th right after Christmas so we want consumable combined gifts. It seems the consumable ideas are all super cheap so we should be under $100 total this year in the gift department for the kids.

 

1. Movie package: tickets for a family trip to the theater(minus the youngest I think) tickets are free since we have a bunch of left over vouchers from summer camp at dh's work. Each kid will get a box of their favorite candy($3), 2 new Christmas movies to watch at home (~$10 because I can usually find them used.) Some form of portable drink for the theater. Total roughly $15.

 

2. Family membership to local natural history museum $60

 

3. Science experiment kit made up of mostly household items. Some baking experiments, some experiments like making gak or play doh. Roughly $25

 

 

For non gift savings, we'll likely get a smaller tree than usual(fake is not an option for me.)

[mommyoffive]

Love this thread

 

Keeping them coming

[Julie Smith]

My Mom likes to get the kids BIG presents. Since she likes the look of a huge pile of presents. So she gets things such as body pillow. Bags of stuffing to make pillows. This year the plan is for some exercise balls. Those presents aren't expensive, but they are big. 

 

For a summer present she once had laundry baskets full of water balloons all ready to play with. 

[Alicia64]

Hoping we can keep this thread going!

 

:bigear:

[Happy]

What a fun thread!

 

Spending an evening driving around looking at lights is a fun and only costs a bit of gas.

 

An evening or two reading Christmas books in front of the glowing tree and maybe a fire in the fireplace.

 

One year we spent our dollars on one combined gift for the two sons. To make the moment last a bit longer, we did a treasure hunt. The tickets were hidden and clues left to lead them on the chase. Seven or eight clues can lead you all over the house and the yard before the final discovery.

[IfIOnly]

Our only gifts are a bag of TJ's chocolate coins for the kids (wise men brought gold :)), a new family board game and dvd, baking cookies together , sledding (so replacing any that broke the year before) and hot chocolate, a yummy meal, reading the Christmas story, Christmas music, and that's it. We have a great day together and have never done gifts even before kids.

Edited November 22, 2016 by ifIonlyhadabrain

[frugalmamatx]

Anyone else making gifts this year? I'm looking for ideas for gifts I can make my dd10. So far I have a cooking lesson set {apron, recipies, weekly cooking lessons} and mittens / hat from a felted sweater. I'd like to come up with a few more ideas that I can pull off before the holiday. 

[HomeAgain]

We do an activity a day.  My town puts out a monthly paper that lists all the free and low cost things to do (where to see the lights, when the parade is, presentations at the library..) and we'll weave those in along with home based ones: bake cookies, make candy, Facetime family, paint egg ornaments...

 

Our advent calendar is reusable (we now use tree ornaments, used to use small paper bags hidden around the living room each day) and a bag of candy to fill it is cheaper than buying new calendars each year.  Plus I get to add in a slip that has the activity of the day on it. :)
 

Anyone else making gifts this year? I'm looking for ideas for gifts I can make my dd10. So far I have a cooking lesson set {apron, recipies, weekly cooking lessons} and mittens / hat from a felted sweater. I'd like to come up with a few more ideas that I can pull off before the holiday. 

 

I am making a Pokemon hat for my youngest and a tablecloth for my sister.  That's about all I can manage this year!  :lol:

[Garga]

Do some of the traditional things:

 

Watch special movies--this can be done over many nights.

 

Cut out paper snowflakes --instructions for very fancy ones if you had older kids (or for yourself) http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-6-Pointed-Paper-Snowflakes/step7/Shape-it/

 

Make cookies, preferrably sugar cookies that you then frost after they're done baking--just to drag it out. You can bake one day, and frost the next.

 

Make chocolate covered pretzels.

 

Pretzel rods

Bag of chocolate chips (can be toll house, store brand, or those bags at places like AC moore)

Sprinkles (optional)

Wax paper

Slowly, just 10-20 seconds at a time, melt the chocolate in the microwave, smear the chocolate over the pretzels, sprinkle on the sprinkles, put the rods on the wax paper to harden.

 

Make decorating the house a couple of days event. Like, one day is the tree, the next day is some knick knacks or whatever you have.

 

Make ornaments out of dough that you can bake until hard.

 

If you can find some pinecones, put glue and glitter on them and put them in a bowl as a decoration, or tie to the tree (or anywhere.). You can try paint, too, but I don't know if it works as well as glitter and glue.

 

My parents used to get walnuts and carefully crack them in two and take out the insides. Then, they'd get ornament hangers and put them in the walnuts, with the tops sticking out, and glue the walnuts back together. After the glue was dry, we'd paint the walnuts and then hang on the tree. I loved doing that, but alas, there are nut allergies in my family now.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Garga

[HeWillSoar]

We have had our fake tree for about 10 years now.  I bought it the day after Christmas at 75% off.  The middle lights went out so I cut off all the lights. It was a pain but DH wanted to get a new tree and I didn't want to spend the money.  Then, when it started looking bare in spots, I went to the craft store and got some filler branches to stuff in the holes.  We were getting real trees for about $80 so this thing has paid for itself after just one year. 

 

The other thing that saves us money is that I use the points on my credit card to pay for most of the kids gifts.  I pay some bills on my CC so we end up with a lot of points at the end of the year. 

Edited November 25, 2016 by HeWillSoar

[Night Elf]

This year I'm giving myself permission to put only candy in stockings. I usually try to fill the whole stocking with little gifts but those get expensive. I'm giving everyone 5 candy items, including our traditional bag of gold coins. It will only fill the bottom half of the stockings but I don't think my grown kids will mind.

[arliemaria]

Anyone have good gift ideas for nieces/nephews or friends' children?  It is a lot easier to give homemade or gifts of time (like the cooking lessons) to your own children.

[mommyoffive]

We have had our fake tree for about 10 years now.  I bought it the day after Christmas at 75% off.  The middle lights went out so I cut off all the lights. It was a pain but DH wanted to get a new tree and I didn't want to spend the money.  Then, when it started looking bare in spots, I went to the craft store and got some filler branches to stuff in the holes.  We were getting real trees for about $80 so this thing has paid for itself after just one year. 

 

The other thing that saves us money is that I use the points on my credit card to pay for most of the kids gifts.  I pay some bills on my CC so we end up with a lot of points at the end of the year. 

 

What bills are you able to pay with your cc?

 

 

I know it would be so much cheaper to have kept doing the fake tree.

 

 

Thanks for more ideas.  

[SerenityNow]

Anyone else making gifts this year? I'm looking for ideas for gifts I can make my dd10. So far I have a cooking lesson set {apron, recipies, weekly cooking lessons} and mittens / hat from a felted sweater. I'd like to come up with a few more ideas that I can pull off before the holiday. 

 

 

Here are a couple of ideas I thought were cute....

 

Fabric headbands:

 

http://www.happytogetherbyjess.com/double-sided-fabric-headband-pattern/

 

 

Furry animal hoods:  (Don't know if this is "too young", but they are sooo cute!)

 

http://lemonsqueezyhome.com/2014/11/faux-fur-hood-tutorial-free-pattern-in.html

[hjffkj]

What bills are you able to pay with your cc?

 

 

Thanks for more ideas.

 

I am able to pay all our bills with my credit card except the mortgage and HOA fee. So for us it is internet, electricity, car insurance, sewer, and water. As long as you immediately pay it off and never let it accrue interest it really helps you accrue rewards points.