When I wrote yesterday about the awesome wooden toys we found at a thrift store, a reader wondered if we would do our holiday shopping in thrift stores. So I thought I’d share my holiday gift plans. First, I have to say that we try very hard to keep the holidays pretty low key around here. We will be getting a little Charlie Brown tree this year, mainly because we have a little boy who will be fascinated by the lights (the last time we had a tree was 2003). The forest service clears saplings in the hills near our city to prevent overgrowth, and they sell the trees to raise money for forest service projects. The trees are as cute as can be, take about six minutes to put up and take down, and just have a few branches – simple and easy.
We went to a beautiful park last week and my brother took pictures of our family for our Christmas card photo shoot. We ended up with some really great shots, and will be picking one to get printed on photo greeting cards. I saw a sign at Costco last week advertising 50 photo greeting cards for six dollars. So we will be all over that.
I make Christmas ornaments for our nieces every year. This year, I’m planning to use a beautiful piece of fabric that I bought ten years ago in Tanzania to make cloth ornaments. The fabric has been sitting in my closet all these years, and it will make great ornaments (I’ll post pics once I get them done – for now the pictures are only in my head). I even found a bag of fiberfill stuffing at the thrift store for 25 cents, so I have everything I need to make the ornaments.
My family stopped exchanging Christmas presents years ago, once all of the kids were grown. My parents are of the view (and I agree) that Christmas and the presents that go along with it are for children. They gave us gifts when we were young, but stopped when I was in college. My younger siblings were still living at home, but my parents switched to a tradition of taking them on a trip for Christmas rather than buying gifts. Now that we’re all adults, we just get together for food and fun, which will involve lots of playing with our son this year. We’re hosting Christmas dinner for my family at our house – there will be lots of food, but no gifts.
My girlfriends and I stopped exchanging gifts a few years ago. We’re all adults, we’re all able to buy things that we need, and we all consider getting together for a meal, or a good long phone conversation to be far superior to additional possessions.
My mother in law loves Christmas and always gets us lots of gifts. But she’s also very easy to please, and she loves simple gifts that involve photos of her grandkids. With the hundreds of photos we have of our son, and my somewhat crafty nature, I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with something perfect.
We won’t be doing much in the way of gifts for our son. He’s too young to understand the whole thing anyway, and is just as happy with a wooden spoon as he would be with a fancy toy. We might get him something from the thrift store, but we might not. As I said, we keep Christmas pretty low key around here. We’re not religious, so really it’s just like any other day. If we end up finding more nifty stuff at the thrift store, we’ll probably just give it to him right away, rather than waiting for Christmas.
I’ll bake several batches of muffins and deliver them to some neighbors and my friends at the library. I’ll also give some to the men who collect our garbage and recycling, and the people who deliver our produce and mail.
That’s pretty much it. Homemade gifts in the form of ornaments and muffins are very inexpensive and fun to make. Whatever I end up doing for my mother in law will be fun too. We will be spending some money on food for Christmas dinner, but everyone will bring a side dish, so whatever we end spending won’t be a budget buster.
Since we keep everything pretty simple around the holidays, we can relax and enjoy the season. To be honest, the part I’m most looking forward to is dinner with my family, and going for walks in the evenings with my husband and son, all bundled up against the cold. I can already imagine the look on our son’s face when he sees Christmas lights all over the houses. I guarantee he’ll enjoy that just as much as he would if we spent half a day in Toys R Us buying stuff for him. And going for walks is free.
Meghan says
Brillantly written & lots of good points!
neimanmarxist says
great plans. we want to keep xmas low key too, as we are not religious either. I think the hardest thing is expectations from others- we have a family member who is *crazy* about xmas and even though we are grown there are oodles of gifts. the good news is that like your MIL this person is easy to please. so long as you show up for the production and participate, you don’t have to bring something elaborate. i often make my mom happy with a nice scrapbook, or some other thoughtful- but inexpensive- gift.
Kelly says
I posted a some-what similar post a while ago. My mom and I decided a couple months ago that with my side of the family, we weren’t going to do any gifts. People could buy gifts for my daughter if they really wanted, mostly because people were disappointed about not getting any gifts for her when we talked to them about the idea. But the instructions are to keep it super simple. Maybe a couple toys, books, clothes. Or a deposit in her college fund. And that is if they feel they need to give her a gift. My mom then became ill and hasn’t been working, so money has been tighter, so it is extra helpful to scale back gifts! My husband’s side of the family likes the gifts, so we will be exchanging gifts with them, but they are usually pretty easy to shop for. And with a new baby this year, gifts should be a snap! We probably won’t get much for our daughter, although we will see. I may get a few bigger toys (like big in size…I am eyeing a little activity table which will encourage leg strength once she starts standing.) My husband and I sometimes do gifts, but usually don’t. More like we buy something for the house and call it our gift to each other. For the first time in a long time I am actually looking forward to the holidays instead of dreading them. I am much more relaxed not having to come up with gift ideas. I do like giving gifts when I find that perfect something for someone, but I hate giving gifts when it feels like I just had to find something that I hope a person likes.
I do want my daughter to know about Santa…I think it is a fun tradition for Christmas, so if there ever was a year to skip the gifts, this is it. Next year we may go back to normal, just way smaller gift giving, but this year, my daughter will be nine months old and will probably be more excited by the boxes and wrapping than any gift. I have a feeling this year a lot of people will be scaling back their Christmas gift giving!
Jane says
I think your attitude towards gifts is awesome! I have a friend who wraps up baby wipes and boxes of food as gifts for her toddler son. She knows he doesn’t give a hoot about whats under the wrapping, but unwrapping is the gift in itself!
sheri says
Great post! I like your attitude towards Christmas — keeping it simple and enjoyable and not going overboard on gifts.
We used to go ALL out on Christmas — oodles of gifts and WAY too much stuff.
But after years of being caught up in this Christmas Consumer Frenzy, we had what we like to call “A Christmas Epiphany”, and decided to make some (drastic) changes in how we viewed Christmas. We aren’t religious, we don’t want the clutter, and we don’t need more stuff.
So now, we skip Christmas (happily :)
Gave the tree away on Freecycle, donated the ornaments and decorations to Goodwill, and no longer take part in the Christmas Consumer Craze.
Like you guys, we love those winter walks — bundle up all the kids, walk through the neighbourhood, admiring the beautiful light displays. And then come home and thaw our frosty noses over a nice hot mug of vegan cocoa :) It’s a beautiful season and the holiday meal is one of my favorite things :)
We just hopped off the Consumer Bandwagon, but we aren’t Grinches :)
sheri says
Sorry, my comment above is WAY too long, and there are far too many smiley faces. I guess I’m in a smiley mood :)
Lissa says
This link made me think of you…
http://womens-rights.laws.com/
Frugal Trenches says
I can really relate. I have so many friends (particularly in the North America) who seem to buy for hundreds. I buy for my mum, my niece and my closest friends but I only really buy experiences for them, not stuff. Much better way to be!
Kate says
What a lovely post. I hope you enjoy your low key and stress-free holiday.