Christmas Gifts 2009

I'm back! The holidays were exceptionally crazy this year, and trying to keep up with this blog was more than I could handle. Now that life is settling down to its usual level of insanity, I hope to get back to posting more regularly.

But, as promised before my hiatus, I wanted to talk about what I gave for Christmas presents this year. Growing up, my husband's family was big into carving pumpkins at Halloween. They would create elaborate designs on paper, tape them to a green pumpkin (because there was more contrast between the dark green skin and the yellow flesh underneath), and then use an exacto knife to carve the designs.

Pretty impressive, huh? I never got past triangle eyes and nose, and jagged teeth, myself!

In later years, when the grandkids came along, my mother-in-law started using Disney coloring books to create her designs.

This is Scar from the Lion King. Very cool-looking on a pumpkin!

Anyway, my mother-in-law had two file-cabinet drawers STUFFED full of pumpkin patterns, and copies of the patterns. I spent some time this spring going through them all, organizing them by year and subject matter, and scanning them. I then got rid of all the extra copies (in a variety of sizes), thus condensing the two drawers full down to about 6 inches' worth. After scanning them, I put them all onto CD, and printed out an index with thumbnail-sized images. These were very well-received by my husband's siblings and nieces and nephews, and it was easy and inexpensive to make. To produce the indexes, put them in little report covers, and duplicate the CDs cost me about $3 per person.

I also gave my nieces and sisters-in-law copies of the jean quilt instruction pamphlet I put together this spring to sell on etsy. Everyone in the family has a jean quilt made for them by my mother-in-law. Price to make a booklet-sized color copy of the instructions came to about $4 per copy.

Both of these gifts were inexpensive to make but provided something that the recipient couldn't just run out to the store and pick up for themselves. I really love to both give and receive gifts like this that have family significance, and that preserve parts of our family history.

Meaningful Holiday Gifts

Christmas is two months from today. Does anyone else shudder in terror at the thought? Trying to figure out Christmas gifts is always a Herculean effort, especially if trying to add smart spending into the mix.

Some of the best holiday gifts are those that don't require money, but require some time. They are more meaningful to the recipient, and especially to the giver, because you have a little more invested than the time it took to shop for it and wrap it up.

Gifts I have given in the past that took more time than money:

• Cross-stitched items such as table runners and holiday decorations (this was BC--before children)
• A recipe book full of favorite recipes collected from family members
• CDs of old family pictures that I scanned and turned into JPGs
• Decoupaged boxes (and initials) made with recycled page-a-day calendar illustrations.

I especially like giving presents to family members that have some significance. Everyone has really enjoyed and used their recipe books. This year, I have a couple of fun Christmas projects in the works. And, no, I won't tell you what they are, as some of the recipients read this blog!

Have you made (or received) a great holiday gift that would fall in this category? I'd love to hear about them. And, after Christmas, I promise to tell you what I made this year.

Christmas for a Family of Five on $50

A friend of mine from church who recently moved to Utah had posted on her blog about her amazingly frugal Christmas and I was so impressed that I asked her to write more about what she did and how, so I could share it with you. She has graciously accepted, and below is her account on how she was able to do Christmas gifts and stockings for her entire family of five. She has two preschoolers (a boy and a girl) and a baby not quite a year old.

Here's her account:

Probably in September I started keeping a close eye on freecycle.com for anything that I thought might be good gifts for my hubby or the kids. I also requested a couple of items on freecycle, and we did get one but the others I didn't really hear anything about. I was able to find something wonderful for each of the kids (a bike helmet for my daughter and an alarm clock for my son, both of which they had asked for and both were in really good condition). I also came across a doll play house and was able to quickly snap that up (I had requested to get emails whenever something was posted so that I would have a better chance of getting an item that was posted).

Another day I took the kids to Deseret Industries with me and let them look around and show me all sorts of toys and things that they liked. Then I went back and got them each something they had requested (and I found something that the baby would like too) and I didn't spend more than $4 total...one of the items was a hard back compilation of 7 Dora the Explorer books which is normally $14 but I got it for 50 cents! So the kids were covered for gifts from us, but of course both Grandmas also asked what they kids might like and we told them of a couple other items they had requested.

My husband and I decided a few months before Christmas that we wanted to make each other gifts and that we could spend up to $10. I had gathered different ideas from friends and knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had an extra blank journal lying around and I started a daily journal for him where each night I would think about the day, think about all the good things he did that day whether it was helping with the dishes, getting the kids ready for bed, taking out the trash, giving me a compliment, anything...and I would write down that experience and tell him how grateful I was for him and how much I love him...each day I did this for 3 months and then the night before Christmas I wrapped it up and gave it to him Christmas morning. And since I didn't spend the $10 on my homemade gift I was able to go buy him a new work shirt from WalMart on Black Friday.

My hubby knows I love to read; in fact, I'm always reading. I have books everywhere and am constantly losing my bookmarks and end up using some part of the book to keep it open which isn't good for the spine binding or the pages. So he found some famous quotes on the benefits/joys of reading, printed them out on nice cardstock paper, and then cut them, laminated them (at Kinkos) and put a ribbon through the top. It was so thoughtful. And then he used a gift card that he had kept from Barnes and Noble and bought me a new book...so he sort of cheated but it was his gift card money that he could do whatever he wanted with so I was okay with that.

As for stockings we decided on $20 all together, so about $5 a person (we didn't include the baby because she doesn't care about stockings or eat candy). I was in charge of stuffing the kids’ and my hubby’s stockings and he did mine. So I was lucky because I had $15 to work with whereas he had $5(but I think he went over a little). My hubby also went out to JC Penney just before Christmas because they were having tons of sales and bought the baby a new sleeper since she just had the one gift that I found at Deseret Industries. I think altogether we spent around $50 for our Christmas this year which is pretty good.

Pretty good? Pretty good?!? I'd call this incredibly impressive.