A blessed Advent to all my friends, and extra prayers for your intentions just for coming over here today and reading my post. Thank you!
As of a week ago, the First Sunday in Advent I began a Herculean challenge:
Christmas Gifting on a Poor Mans Budget
As someone who appreicates quality over quantity, I thought to myself, “I will NOT let my bare bank account take down the most wonderful time of the year. Its not about money, and gifting…..right?”
“RIGHT!!” I reassured myself. But lets face it, no matter how much you enjoy the true spirit, its gonna take some cash along the way, but the goal is to make the consumption of it sparse and employ a little more savy.
I got this!
We just moved into this big ol’ farmhouse after FIFTEEN years in our Tiny House (you can check back for that story in my upcoming post The Exodus) and we aren’t sure of the heating costs here yet, not to mention a little boost in the monthly costs, so frugality has never been more warranted than now. If you find yourself facing a similar challenge but do NOT want your Christmas to reflect it, I hope this post can help you out a little.
Gift Wrapping
Gift wrapping is an unnecessary waste of dough. Its not a colossal expense but gift wrapping is a repetitive one that sneaks up on you in quantity especially if you have children who appreciate doing their own wrapping. Have you ever seen a child try to get tape off that plastic scotch tape roll? 😬
Quick tip: use a weighted scotch tape dispenser over the plastic tape rolls. 1) refills are cheaper 2) kids dispense easier thus using less and 3) very possibly most important, it doesn’t get lost amongst the enormous sea of wrapping.
There are so many more beautiful and quality gift wrapping options available over the cheesy stuff you can pay a hefty capital for. So save the moolah and choose one of these free options, saving the gravy for ribbon, twine or tape instead. An excellent buy is a chalk marker to personalize or label “brown paper packaging tied up with string.” 🥰
Newspaper and paper grocery bags are two of my most favorite free gift wrapping alternatives. Newspaper, at a whopping FREE has comics, adds and current politics that only add to the interest. Paper bags are so classic, boasting the nostalgic Christmas ”parcel” and looks so uniform under the tree with any decor. If the nuns had you wrap your books in private school you have a one up in experience for this craft and gift wrapping in paper bags will come especially easy to you.
Handmade
Still the most cherished gift is something the hand crafted itself. Just make sure its something currently useful or a style currently trending and you should easily please.
Josh cut these birch boughs he found at work into 1/2 cm thick rings for me. We got over 50 coasters out of a few branches, which I used a wood burning tool from Walmart to etch numbers in a font I enjoy, then decoupaged them for a nice finish. Hot glue a circular piece of felt to the bottom for no scratch setting. 50 coasters cost about $10 in felt, glue sticks and decoupage. However, the wood burning tool was about $20 if you don’t already own one factor that expense as well.
This was about $3 in granulated sugar that I added coconut oil and a few drops of my choice scent of DoTerra essential oil. I used old jelly jars for the craft but I’ve also Thrift store hunted for jars between $0.25-$1.00 when I don’t have them on hand. The scoop was a Dollar Tree find, and I cut pine tree branches for garnish. You could also use fresh herbs lime rosemary or sage. Coconut/Sugar bath bombs are another idea similar to this one that you can have some art fun with food coloring to decorate them too.
This candy santa sleigh I actually spent a little loot on. It doubled as an ornament though and I’ve never seen the kids get so excited hot gluing this craft together.
Handmade chunky throws are another one of my current favorites. Not considered cheap but cheap compared to the quality and craze. These are so trendy right now and are SUPER costly. But they are also SO fun to make and take no experience. You use your arm to ”knit” these throws or just ”knot” I should say as you basically are making repetitive ties. It was about $92 for an XL 40×60 100% Merino wool blanket. This would have been more than double the cost had I bought it. Plus my daughter and I had such a good time cozied up under these warm threads watching a Christmas movie while we worked. Such a spirit-filled experience; trading this for the shopping craze was so easy. Please check out one of these Etsy links for the Jumbo Yarn. I’ve ordered from both and both are FIVE STAR!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/399567589/merino-wool-roving-chunky-yarn-super
The Cinnamon Santa and Noodle Angel are some nostalgic family traditions of mine that started off as a project to do with kids as the kids enjoy gifting their friends, but now I enjoy making sets for my own brothers and sisters and friends. I will post a how-to-video on these crafts here for you next week when I do them. They make for excellent week-of-Christmas festivities even to do with friends. I just recently saw cork angels as well that inspired me to do a wine n dine night for moms and use the wine bottle cork to make a souvenir for the year along with an experience.
The Thrift store is such an AMAZING place to shop during Advent. Usually a bunch of festive and fun retiree’s who have volunteered their time add such positive ambiance over the self-centered and crabby Christmas shoppers I typically find in stores. To shy away from the cringy ”used” feel, shop for things you can resurrect with new and trending life. Canning jars to fill with pine cones and herb sprigs for potpouri, dressing jars for homemade bread dip or fill with water and decorative herbs/florals, frames, and vases to melt wax in and create homemade candles. The possibilities are literally endless. This year I scored a pampered chef loaf pan I intend to gift with a fresh baked chocolate zucchini bread, as well as a ceramic popover tray. I will be using Ina Garten’s popover recipe to bring this gift back to life.
I intend to Vlog the packaging of some of these finds to give you an idea of presentation that really conceals the fact that you shopped in a thrift store and instead makes a unique and irreplaceable gift.
This, my friends, is whats filling my Advent with fun and spirit, keeping gifting very green, and the majority of boodle in my bank versus crying over the debt come January/February.
I hope you can up-cycle some of these ideas and drive your Advent into fun packed activities.
Her House 