Cant afford christmas

i_love_it

For the OP.

You dont have to do it, really you dont! I've often bought extravagant presents and probably been guilty of lack of imagination.

about 3 yr ago i left my well paid job to pursue a love of art and tried to create my own business, it failed miserably and i got little support from those i bought expensive gifts.

It made me take stock, i wasnt skint, but i loathed to be under such pressure as christmas and simply cancelled it, to an extent, ie the gift buying.

i kept good spirit and turned up for everything festive. I told them shopping was cancelled for a short while.
I didn;t get bought gifts either, tho their circumatances hadn't changed....

I'm back in my old job now, and earn well, I buy what i think fit and genuinley like buying for whom i do. I broke the mold .....

Every january people are painfully skint from their shopping expeditions and there are fall outs, i bought this and i only got this back blah blah

It is not what xmas is about and i am amongst my group respected for not subscribing to it. That said, the people i care about are treated randomly through out the year, i may see a good offer that they will love or i'll know they are after something that maybe in april or november they cant get for various reason, i'll treat them if i can

I never buy noveltly anything, christmas logos, ovrsized tins quality street,

I'm not in debt and i got good friends now.......

Horasio

I find Christmas offensive sometimes.

The pressure to buy overpriced presents makes me very cross.

OK, send cards and buy small tokens to show appreciation but so much debt and misery happens trying to please the kids or keep up with the Jones'

I also overdo the food buying still end up eating half of it in February.

clairecuz

Like an earlier poster, I have a large family(4 siblings plus their partners, 9 neices and nephews.) Before I had married and had children my siblings would by pressies for me and DH, but I only ever bought for their children. Now it is a more even field and we just buy for the children, no adult presents apart from Grandparents. The difficulty now is that my eldest neice and nephews are very close in age to me, and every year DH and I have a row about whether or not to buy for them. As a compromise I have set a £5 limit on their gifts and the littlies get a bit more spent on them.
I have recently become an Avon rep, and have ordered loads of my gifts through them. As a rep you get advance offers and super cheap sales, so al lot of the christmas shopping is done and it has cost very little.

Queenie

suzukibabe wrote:

just one little question, what can i put with 4 cans of lager for they male family members, apart from alka seltzer!!!!??

Have a look at this post "Themed Gift Hampers". There are some great ideas for guy gift baskets.

CCStar wrote:

I find Christmas offensive sometimes.

The pressure to buy overpriced presents makes me very cross.

OK, send cards and buy small tokens to show appreciation but so much debt and misery happens trying to please the kids or keep up with the Jones'

I also overdo the food buying still end up eating half of it in February.

I hear what you're saying, but perhaps instead of feeling "offended" and "very cross" you might like to think about why you are reacting that way?

If it is a part of your culture/tradition then to be fair, it's like any other 'annual' expediture (road tax, insurances, Community Charge, birthdays), you know it is going to occur on the 25th December, year in, year out. Of that, you have no control (unless you make the decision *not* to celebrate it).
Yet, you *do* have control over feeling offended/angry/stressed by it.

I'm not convinced that there is a "pressure to buy over priced presents" except for the one that is self imposed. And if it's self imposed, then we have a huge choice over our attitude towards it.

I do agree that if the planning is left until the end of October, then yes, it's going to put the pressure on; in the very same way as if you left paying your annual Community Charge bill until the last moment. Worse still if something untoward happens which affects your income just at that point.

There are some great ideas in earlier posts on how to rescue the situation for this year. :T :T Yet as well as considering those ideas, it might be worth considering now how to plan ahead for next Christmas and the one after and the one after that and so on.

Once you think of it in terms of an annual expense and budget for it accordingly, it won't come and bite you on the bum, causing undue pressures/stresses/anxieties. Even if all you can afford to save is £1 a week - you'll have £52 to spend on the event. £2 will give you a Christmas spending power of £104 and as we've seen from the ideas above, it's amazing just how much you can achieve with those amounts.

It's also worth remembering, that the people we worry about upsetting by not being able to buy this or that, or worse, by getting into debt to keep up appearances, would be far more upset to think that you couldn't be more honest about it.
Ask yourself: How would *you* feel if someone got into debt or went without just so *you* could receive a gift? Would you feel delighted, think, "Wow, thanks! What a great person! Goody goody gumdrops for me!" :j ? I know I wouldn't.

julesangles

after making 44 gifts for children in a group i run. all for a pound each.
i used
plasic cup (12 for £1.00 instore)
pad (9p from asda)
pencil (24 for 99p tesco)
coloured pencils(18p-20p asda and tesco)
glue glitter (79p from home bargains 12 in i think)
play dough (1.49 fron home bargains)
ballon (25-30p for about 15 home bargains?)
pecil sharpner (44p for 6 local shop)
straws (200 for 99p ikea) 4, going in pot one of each colour)
lolipop (tesco round about 1.50 buy one get one free near the halooween stuff)
ribbon 99p for 50 meters ikea.
everything wrapped in cellophane from florist (very very cheep)
77p and i have the the gift they look brilliant wrapped up and will keep the kids quiet for ages.
i inflated the ballons wrote merry christmas and let them down.
now i am looking for gifts for under 25p for the kids at school (CA in the day)i will find something that looks more than that. maybee a few sweets wrapped in cellophane (if any left) lloks like i spent a fortune on them.
any idea where i can get free craft ideas for 34 kids?

Queenie

julesangles wrote:

...
any idea where i can get free craft ideas for 34 kids?

Ideas? Best grab yourself a cuppa ........

Crafts for kids

Making Friends Crafts for Kids

Crafttown Free Kids Crafts

Family Crafts about.com

The Idea Box

Activity Village - free printables

Free Kids Crafts

FamilyFun

Hands On Crafts for Kids

Hopefully, those will get you started :laugh:

jillie1974

my god with all these fantastic ideas i dont know where to start!!
i never realised how many other people were in the same situation... i'm off to bury today to see what i can see and then when i get paid (31st) i going to try and get as much as possible to make up some of the wonderful hampers that peolple have suggested! I have only come across this site recently and already am all the much better for it. Thank you everyone who has contributed!! :T :beer:
i will give you all an update on how its going!!

jillie1974

a rice bag? is it one of those things you warm up and it stays warm for ages?

MrsTinks

julesangles wrote:

now i am looking for gifts for under 25p for the kids at school (CA in the day)i will find something that looks more than that. maybee a few sweets wrapped in cellophane (if any left) lloks like i spent a fortune on them.
any idea where i can get free craft ideas for 34 kids?

My neighbour is a primary school teacher and knowing that she can't spend a fortune on the kids I told her about the Reindeer Oats

Get a huge bag og porridge oats from Tesco, some hundreds and thousands and some little bags (if you can sew then even better) and attach the label

Magical Reindeer Oats

MrsTinks

I have to say that it's possitively heartwarming to see how people can come up with really good ideas for chrstmas presents that won't break the bank. I know that this year there is only really one gift I want that will have to be bought I would love to finally get my engagement ring and that probably can't be home crafted

Other than that I don't honestly think there is anything I really really need... sure there are things I'd like, but nothing as important as spending Christmas with the family and friends. If all I get this year is home made presents then I will be more than happy. I only hope that others will feel the same about the presents I have taken a lot of time and effort over But to be honest - if they do not appreciate my presents then they are not worthy to waste my time worrying about and it won't bother me.

So Merry Christmas all (59 days to go)