A Diminished Holiday Season

As with many, many people, my family is having a tough time getting by financially. We are retired and live on Social Security so things are difficult at the best of times. Add Christmas and six birthdays during December to the mix and it spells disaster.

I pride myself on spoiling my Grandchildren as much as possible on Christmas and always have. The giving of gifts probably means more to me than it does to them because I didn’t celebrate Christmas as a child and now make a big deal out of it.

I realize that the people who normally celebrate this holiday are supposed to put a heavy religious emphasis on what the day means, but I am not Christian. I enjoy the bright glitter of the holiday and yes, even the commercialism.

This year has been very difficult for us because my husband is on a lot of very expensive medication for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease and since none of the medication is generic, we are paying a LOT of money for his medications. When I say “a LOT”, I mean an amount that equals my mortgage payment and most of my other monthly bills. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to beg and borrow to obtain these medications because the alternative is unthinkable.

When I realized that I had absolutely nothing budgeted for Christmas gifts I panicked and tried to think of ways that I could get around the reality of the situation and make some kind of Christmas appear magically. As I learned long ago, magical thinking is not productive and never works. I outgrew my belief in a jolly old man delivering gifts a long time ago so Santa Claus was not an option.

I decided to make gifts since I do fabric painting as a hobby but the cost of the clothing that I wanted to paint was almost as outrageous as the gifts tht I would have bought in the stores I normally shop in. I have no other known talent so now I am truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Grinch is a very real character in my Christmas scenario.

This morning I sat down and figured out what I could give up from my usual weekly shopping list in order to give my babies something. I came up with a grand total of $100 and I have seven Grandchildren so if you do the math, that leaves me with $14.28 per child. What can you buy with that amount less tax?

I went to my local Dollar Store to see how far my money would go and discovered that very little at the Dollar Store actually costs one dollar. The average gift was about $20.00. There was nothing of any value for less than that. At least there was nothing that wouldn’t fall apart by the end of Christmas day or be unsafe for young children. My older Grandchildren are interested in reading material and expensive clothing so buying for them is even more difficult than it is for the babies. Out of the seven, only two are babies so my problem seems insurmountable.

What to do? Well, I smoke so maybe I can give up cigarettes for a week and that would save me enough money to get to that $20.00 per child figure. I am thinking about doing this and starting to feel withdrawal symptoms even before I do it.

I have about 24 more days to come up with a solution so it’s back to the drawing board. The only thing I am positively sure of is that I cannot tell them that there will be no Christmas from their Grandma and Grandpa.

So, Santa Claus if your reading this, I could use a little help…..or maybe a miracle.