Planning and Celebrating Christmas on a Budget
by This article will help you plan and celebrate Christmas on a budget. It is a guide to creating a Christmas Gift List; Cheap Christmas Gift selection and packaging ideas; preparing Christmas dinner on a budget and Free Christmas entertainment tricks.
Planning and celebrating Christmas on a budget is pretty easy. It is also important, so that once the holiday season is over, you don’t get depressed looking at the amount of money that was spent. Lots of people go into depression, post-holiday season. Let’s not allow this to happen. Here is how we can celebrate Christmas on a budget.
1. ‘Gift List’ is a must:
The first thing that needs to be done while planning your Christmas is creating a ‘Gift List’. The Gift List must include three columns, namely, ‘People’s names’, ‘Gift item names’ and the ‘tentative amount’ you wish to spend.
The idea is to stick to the tentative price of the gift to celebrate Christmas on a budget. This list is your check-list, so that you don’t leave out anyone.
2. Gift Selection and Gift Packaging on a budget:
Here again you can do some ’smart’ things to celebrate Christmas on a budget.
-If there are families/couples in your List, why not give them a single gift? Give them a pretty painting, a watch set or a box of home-made assorted cookies. You save money, and they get to enjoy something together!
-If you are short on time, look for good deals online. There are great auctions on online buying/selling sites through the year. Also, stock up on gifts when sales are on. But this again should be according to your budget. Don’t go overboard.
-Buy a few craft/hobby kits and make gifts at home. This is yet another way to celebrate Christmas on a budget. Get your family to help you make gift items using these kits. It would be real fun.
-Finally, don’t ever spend more than the ‘tentative amount’ that you have mentioned in the Gift List. You can change the Gift, but not the ‘tentative amount. So keep that in mind.
-Packaging can be found in Dollar stores. Pick up satin ribbons, ready-made bows, gift wrap paper, pretty baskets and glue. Dollar stores are fantastic for things such as these.
3. Christmas Feast on a budget:
Make Christmas dinner fun for all the guests. You can have a grand feast, and still save money! You read that right.Woohoo!
-It is best to get all the guests involved, when it comes to preparing the Christmas Dinner. You can prepare a menu and ask the guests to pick a dish they would want to work on. Ask them to bring it to your place. This way, you don’t have to take care of too many dishes for the dinner. Plus, you could spice it up my making a competition out of it. The best dish wins a prize!
-I would also advice you to stock up on various cocoa mixes, so that you don’t have to use pure chocolate. You can use cocoa powder in recipes that require chocolate, and also drinks like hot cocoa.
4. Free Christmas Entertainment :
http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2009/11/17/christmasparty1_1.jpg
-If all of you are ‘musical’ sing Christmas songs and carrols.
-If music does not really run in your blood, no worries. Get hold of games such as Monopoly and Twister, and have some fun.
-You could all watch some fun Christmas movies through the night, drinking hot chocolate.
-Dance to some fun Christmas numbers.
None of these entertainment options cost you anything. Yet, you will have loads of fun and some wonderful memories.
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Want more Christmas ideas to save Money? The Budgeting Guide
Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas: Romantic and Generic
Five Useful Homemade Christmas Tree Ornaments
Join Triond and make money writing!
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Post CommentPrometheus Ridley Scott
On November 17, 2009 at 10:09 am
Cool article and great tips!
Darla Cooke
On November 17, 2009 at 10:38 am
Great tips! Thanks for sharing.
diamondpoet
On November 17, 2009 at 11:13 am
Good article thanks for the tips.
Christine Ramsay
On November 17, 2009 at 1:10 pm
We need all the tips we can get in these hard times. Excellent work.
Christine
Themax
On November 17, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Not yet but I’ll start doing now
Thanks!
K.Reshma
On November 17, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Great Article
Peter Cimino
On November 17, 2009 at 5:00 pm
My favorite time of the year! Awesome piece! Well done!
Tanya Wallace
On November 17, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Another excellent Christmas write Rox! Lots of helpful and useful tips!!I like the dollar store for things like bows and ribbons,just as good as any other store but a lot more affordable and it is good for decorations as well. I love Christmas!
Ruby Hawk
On November 17, 2009 at 9:00 pm
great tips, I always do Xmas on a budget.
Frances Lawrence
On November 17, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Good suggestions, thank you
Hansika
On November 18, 2009 at 1:43 am
thanks for the share…thats nice…i like it!!!!!!
Sharif Ishnin
On November 18, 2009 at 5:31 am
Excellent tips and ideas. It’s all about planning ahead..
cutedrishti8
On November 18, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Helpful tips..
LOVELYHONEY
On November 18, 2009 at 7:57 pm
i bust up all my cash on
CHRISTMAS AND INDIAN FESTIVAL DIWALI
AS I LOVE RUM CAKES
AND SWEEETS
SWEET TOOTH CHICK
jimbob1
On November 18, 2009 at 9:19 pm
ROX rocks! Another great article with some outstanding ideas…hope you don’t mind, but I’ll add a couple or three here as well…
Gift Wrap…Christmas newspaper flyers are brightly coloured as are the comic strips in the weekend edition of most daily newspapers…these all make bright, colourful gift wraps rather than buying the over-priced rolls of gift wrap…the ones delivered to your mailbopx are free and are given a second life before hitting the recycle bin.
Gift Tags…Collect and save old used Christmas cards and cut the fronts off of them and trim them up for personal gift tags. Depending on the card, I’ve managed to get as many as five or six gift tags from one card…I have quite a stockpile of tags…but they might get used up eventually. They can also be used a name tags on napkins holders, etc.
Ribbons-Bows…if you are careful, you can reuse ribbons and bows used to wrap last year’s gifts…you just have to remember to save them in a container with your Christmas decorations. If you forgot to do that last year…you can always start this Christmas.
Thanks for allowing me to add my two-bits worth. The sky is the limit…just takes a bit of planning and imagination. Thanks for getting the ball rolling there Rox.
PhoenixRox
On November 21, 2009 at 3:18 am
Thanks for these tips Jimbo. Fab ideas!!
lillyrose
On November 29, 2009 at 12:54 pm
that was a great article with some really sensible ideas! and Jim’s ideas were good too.
Virak
On December 9, 2009 at 10:20 pm
I hate seeing so much paper used for wrapping and then thrown away, especially knowing that a lot of wrapping paper has a glossy finish which makes the paper un-recyclable.
Using NEWSPAPERS for wrapping paper is great for your budget and great for the environment too! I used the COMICS page, it gives it a great look!
Try it!
trios2009
On December 22, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Very good tips! I tend to go a bit overboard at xmas!