23 replies to this topic

[Cat]

[lunamother]

ya. thanks for that. my heart rate was ALMOST back to normal after election day...

[Stephanie]

Oh good heavens!!! You made me nearly tear my calendar off the wall to count and hopefully prove you wrong! How has this escaped me?

With five of my children having birthdays in nov/dec it's always a 'fast' couple of months...but 7 weeks!!!

I better get my tail in gear...

[Cat]

Yeah...


Shocked me, too...

[michelle]

Uh? She's lying folks... its not that soon.

[michelle]

Oh my its exactly 7 wks! How did that happen? Better get busy.

[MomM]

I still can't believe it's November. What happened to this year???

[dogmom4]

Nooooooo!!!!! It can't be that soon.....

[ol'momma]

Worse then that here. Bro and SIL are comin from out of state and MIL will be here to celebrate Thanksgiving with us...and since none of them will be able to come for Christmas, they all want to "do" Christmas at my house THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING!!

[Aint2nuts]

My heart just sank onto the floor.
I loath Christmas now.

[JCK88]

{{{{Angela}}}}

Christmas just can't be the fantasy wonderful gifty time lately--it has to be creative and joyful because of what you do together, not what you buy each other. For years, my family has had low-key holidays. For my 20th anniversary yesterday, we ate pizza in the park in my old home town. Budget crunch here. We couldn't afford to go to a fancy restaurant--but I had the loveliest, loving time, a memorable day.

Give the kids a sense of that kind of gift. I know you are good at that.

(and take heart, you have friends who love you)

[michelle]

Hehe all our Christmas this year is coming from the preps lists. The kids are getting homeschool supplies and entertainment stuff (board games, cards, dice, etc). They'll get gifts and I won't get off track. Lol.

[Cat]

Children are wonderfully adaptable when they know what *not* to expect. My kids learned early on that I wasn't the type to say they wouldn't be getting *x* and then suddenly it was there under the tree on Christmas morning.

Get them busy thinking about giving to *others*, and the Christmas joy extends *beyond* their own desires. Make cookies for friends and relatives, create home-made ornaments, make something unique for a brother or sister.

DH used to bring swabs into the living room to use while he was watching TV and would often ask young DD to get one for him. We took a small box, found a swab-sized lidded container and cut holes into the box to hold both the container and a disposeable paper cup (to hold the used ones). DD covered the box in contact paper, filled the container with swabs, and wrapped it as a gift. It was used for a long time, was cheap to make, and DD had the joking satisfaction of a gift she made that also made *her* life easier!


Get creative!!!

[Stephanie]

Cat I love that example, let's come up with some more ideas that cost little or no money.

Angela, I have already told my children that we will be having a VERY slim Christmas, ON PURPOSE. We could afford to do more than we should...but I'm choosing to take that money and put it aside or pay on my one still remaining credit card. You are not alone in the task of making Christmas special without spending money.

Judy, I love the way you celebrated your Anniversary! I smiled when I thought of the Memory you created!

Michelle, great idea on the prep style gifts.

[ol'momma]

What a beautiful way to spend your anniversary! I bet the park was pretty with the turning leaves!

My DD is very artistic. She finds old picture frames at garage sales and secondhand stores through out the year and by Christmas she has amassed quite a collection. She'll spend the next two-3 weeks with a brush in hand, creating paintings to go into the frames for the special people in her life. It's been something she's done since she was about 8, and I gotta tell you, I really look forward to seeing the gift of herself every year! Now her little brother is getting into the act, too.

As for me...my SIL has a fondness for a fairly in-expensive wine, and a love of snowmen. This year she's getting a bottle of that wine in a special gift bag I made out of a snowman print that really reminds me of her. I found a pair of beautiful wine glasses for .50 at the thrift store and I'm making coasters to match the gift bag.

I'll be hitting the $1 store to extend my supply of pretty bottles, then filling them with flavored liquers and homemade Russian tea mix. Some folks will get a mug filled of Hershey's Hugs/Kisses. Others get a jar of homemade jam. And of course, the kids and I bake a ton of cookies and breads each year, so everybody gets a plateful of calories and love. Yes, these are simple things, but frankly we have no budget for anything fancier.

Years ago a very dear friend, who knew how tight my parent's budget was and understood that Mom missed a lot of things since she was confined to the house, would come by and take her to the grocery store for Christmas. He'd wheel her along and let her marvel at things while she'd select a few very special treats just for herself. He'd drive her around town to let her see the yard decorations before he brough her home and she'd just glow for days afterward. When she was to sick to go out anymore, he had learned what she liked to get for her treats, and always had a basket of those special treats for her on the Holiday.

Hope this gives you all some ideas... I can't wait to see what else you come up with!

[ol'momma]

these were popular 'gift tags' a couple of years ago, and cost me next to nothing to make.

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[lunamother]

THOSE are cute!

I'm not that creative- the most creative I've gotten with wrapping is we did 'stamp' white butcher paper with stars and trees and such, then wrote names on with glue and doused it with glitter.
Martha Stewart I ain't

[ol'momma]

I cut out potato stamps (small cookie cutters work great for that!) and let the kids make their own wrapping paper. We either get a big roll of brown of a roll of white shipping paper for that. It's fun.

[lunamother]

yep- that's what we did- I got a whole roll of the white paper for a homeschool project- in kindergarten we were supposed to do one of those 'trace around your body and color it' things.

he said clothes were too hard to draw.

(he did a family portrait the same way- his grown siblings were NOT happy )

[ol'momma]

Hhahahha. Reminds me of one of my daycare charges. He was the only boy in a family with 4 girls and he alwys drew himself anitomically correct so we'd know which one was him!