While for many of us Christmas is a joyous time of year, it can also be quite stressful. One of the main stresses that surround this season of love is the huge added expense most of us incur at holiday time. While we enjoy giving gifts, few of us seem to be able to do so without breaking our budget.
If you are like me you look for ways to give wonderful yet inexpensive gifts to people on your shopping list. For those of you who are creative and enjoy crafts here are a few ideas that might really help.
Gifts You Can Make for $5.00 or less
Keepsake ornaments
Each year there are many people on your shopping list that you feel the need to give at least a small gift too. Teachers, the mailman, and others who give you service throughout the year. Buying gits for these people can add more than you think to your overall expense. It also difficult to buy an appropriate gift for these people as you don’t know them well enough to know their taste. A simple solution to this problem is to make them a keepsake ornament to hang on their tree.
Ornaments are fun to make, cost little, and is something most people treasure. Making them your self can save on your pocket book while providing those who receive the ornament with a gift that came from your heart.
Making your child a new ornament each year will add to his or her gifts without adding much to your cost and will give them something from home to place on their Christmas tree when they are grown. It is also a lovely tradition to share with friends and family members.
Gifts from your kitchen
One of the oldest types of Christmas gifts that is still used today brighten the lives of others is to give them homemade gifts from your kitchen. Early American Pioneers, appreciated such gifts from their neighbors and families and most people today find these gifts among their favorites.
Cookies, candies, and muffins can all be made in large batches and divided up for several people on your shopping list. They are quite inexpensive to make and when packaged in designer containers you make yourself add a special warmth to most people’s holiday season.
Homemade Jams and Jellies and other such treats are also very well received and appreciated.
Gifts you make for around ten dollars.
Cookbooks and Scrapbooks
One of my all time favorite gifts was the year my mother gave me a cookbook containing all the recipe’s I loved of hers growing up. To this she added other recipes she thought I might like to try.
With most homes having computers now, making a recipe book for those who enjoy cooking is quite easy and simple.
All you really need is a binder notebook, the plastic sleeves used in scrapbooks, and a few hours compiling the recipes you want to use. You could begin this year by using ten or so of your favorite recipes and then adding more pages each year as a gift. Not only will this gift save you money this year but will make future gift-giving to this person quite easy.
For a fancier gift, you might include the ingredients for one of the recipes along with the book as part of the gift.
Scrapbooks, too, make wonderful gifts. If you like scrapbooking and already have the material on hand for your own scrapbook, you could easily make a book for someone on your gift list. These books could be small and subject-oriented, already filled with pictures, or one that is left to the receiver to fill out.
Last year I made my husband a small scrapbook based on a short camping vacation we took, and he loved it. He spent a couple of hours Christmas day looking at the pictures and recalling memorable moments from the trip. He has also taken it out several times during the course of the year and showed it to friends sharing with them this wonderful vacation.
Picture sweatshirts
Even grown my kids still love it when I make them a picture sweatshirt. These are easy and simple to make and can either bring back wonderful memories or add a little humor to the Christmas season. I look for sweatshirts on sale, (usually you can find them from $3.00 to $5.00 each) then select a picture I have taken with my digital camera and transfer them to iron-on transfer paper; then simply iron them onto the sweatshirt. Boys in sports love sweatshirts depicting them in their baseball or football uniforms on the front. Girls, love pictures of them and their friends at sleepovers.
I even dressed my girlfriend’s little boy as an elf, took a picture of him, and transferred it to a sweatshirt with the saying “To your own elf be true.” She loved the sweatshirt and still wears it after 3 years.
Shirts for animal lovers with pictures of their favorite pets are also hit. Grandmothers and grandfathers love sweatshirts with a picture of all the grandkids on them.
There is simply no limit to who you can give this gift too. What is more, not only are they original and inexpensive, but they are something no amount of money could buy.
Ten to Twenty dollar gifts
Designer baskets are great gifts, and less expensive than the ones you find in the store. To save even more money you can give gift baskets to an entire family instead of just to an individual. Some great family gift basket ideas are:
Game basket:
Buy a fun family game like pictionary. Assemble some homemade snacks and goodies to add to the basket. To save even more money instead of using a basket, you could get a sturdy cardboard box the size you need for the game and treats, wrap it in Christmas paper, Fill the bottom with packaging material, and place the gifts inside arranging them attractively.
Movie night basket:
Pick up one or two movies you think a family might enjoy and then just like the game basket include a selection of homemade snacks.
You can also save money by making homemade service coupons as part of your gift giving. For example, I have a friend who works as waitress, she is always complaining how much her feet hurt at the end of the day. So one Christmas I made her a small gift basket containing a cooling foot soak, a pedicure set, and included a coupon offering three foot massages. She took me up on all three and told me it was the most thoughtful gift I could have given her.
Coupons offering a night of babysitting for grandchildren, nieces and nephews also are great when they accompany other purchased gifts like a movie or theater tickets, or a free meal at a favorite restaurant.
Cutting back on purchasing expenses at holiday time does not have to mean that you give less gifts–or substandard gifts–with a little thought and imagination and a willingness to spend the time to do for others you can create wonderful gifts that the recipient will love and cherish this Christmas and possibly for years to come.
