Christmas?

Hollie84

Chazolate wrote: »

I've started thinking about it too! Think I'm going to go down the homemade gift basket or hamper route. Anyone know where you can buy hampers/baskets cheap?

B&M bargains or home bargains for baskets.if u wait closer to xmas aldi/lidl do xmas boxes,i added some pics on the first page they have lids and all xmassy so the person can keep the box and use for xmas related things

lupyloo

Hollie love your hampers, will definitley be having a go myself xx

Hollie84

lupyloo wrote: »

Hollie love your hampers, will definitley be having a go myself xx

Thank you,everyone was very appreciative of them last year and i know there hoping for the same again x

yorkscouple

Its cards you want to stop spending money on, they are a complete waste of money and a rip off! Bit of coloured card, mass produced, for £3 each, dont think so! Packs of cards not much better and they just litter the house. Made pact with family many years ago to scrap cards all together.

Presents, on the other hand, rule is simple... buy a present for those you want to buy a present for and dont waste money on those "acquaintancies" that you just feel oblidged to... get you nowhere. And if you think others you dont buy for might buy for you, just tell them straight and stop them before they dip into their pockets! Honesty is the best policy.

Then you have more money to spend on those who matter...

And if you cant help buying for vaguearies in your life, let me know, and I'll send you my address so you can post on, I always welcome pressies!

Hollie84

I buy my cards,wrapping paper,bows etc in the jan sales every year for that xmas save a fortune

double_mummy

yorkscouple wrote: »

Its cards you want to stop spending money on, they are a complete waste of money and a rip off! Bit of coloured card, mass produced, for £3 each, dont think so! Packs of cards not much better and they just litter the house. Made pact with family many years ago to scrap cards all together.i rekon homemade cards can ve a pressie in themselves

Presents, on the other hand, rule is simple... buy a present for those you want to buy a present for and dont waste money on those "acquaintancies" that you just feel oblidged to... get you nowhere. And if you think others you dont buy for might buy for you, just tell them straight and stop them before they dip into their pockets! Honesty is the best policy.

Then you have more money to spend on those who matter...

And if you cant help buying for vaguearies in your life, let me know, and I'll send you my address so you can post on, I always welcome pressies!

me 2!!!!!!

best thing is to start buying pressies now and then have a cupboard full of them - then u have one if u receive an unexpected one and the rest just roll over to bdays and next Xmas

always found lots of little things were better than one big thing

o yeh and always wrap them in multiple boxes and layers and layers of wrapping then it takes up half the day just unwrapping the presents (already got my newspaper stash growing ready for it) my family always love unwrapping something for 20 mins to find a tiny bag of haribo lol

Torry_Quine

I must admit to wondering how people have so many to get presents for. You must all have large families and I think that must in some ways be lovely at Christmas.

themadvix

My fiance and myself share a group of school friends and when we were all students a few years ago we came up with our own twist on Secret Santa - we all give the organiser (my fiance, who loves his spreadsheets!!) a couple ideas of something we'd really like - a CD or DVD usually - and then he works out who wants to contribute to each person's present (so for people with partners that some of the group hardly know or if someone wants to get someone something outside of the group buy (i.e. me and fiance!), they don't have to contribute). He then does all the MSE jiggery pokery to get the best price for the presents, works out how much everyone owes and gets the money from them. That way, everyone gets something they want (even though it might not be much of a suprise! (especially us when we're wrapping them!)) and everyone has bought someone a present that they want, with enough flexibility for individuals to dip in and out without feeling tight.

It works out about £2 a person, so I spend about £12 on all my friends at Christmas - it's a much better system than a £5s worth of sweets or booze. Obviously you could up the present budget if you were happy to spend more.

Hope that makes sense, and I appreciate that it won't work for lots of small groups, but we find it is a fun thing to do (and the Scrooge-fiance has even added Santas and Snowmen pictures to the spreadsheet now!!) and works well for us.

Vicky

marywooyeah

Hollie84 wrote: »

I buy my cards,wrapping paper,bows etc in the jan sales every year for that xmas save a fortune

I do this too, but only cos hubby's family are the type of people who give a card for every occasion! I personally think christmas cards are a bit of a waste of paper - I've usually binned them by the end of the day.
I find it hard to pick presents for people, and also hubby's family are huge and I got a bit fed up of the being ungrateful. A couple of christmasses (sp?) ago I bought a present for cousin A, one for his wife and a couple of presents for their kid. left a fb message saying I have left them with Aunty A, have a good christmas. few days later I left another asking if she'd recieved them - nothing. no acknowledgement or thanks, and this happened again the next year with all the cousins so I'm not bothering buying them anything.
I am plannning on getting some christmas shaped cookie cutters - eg snowmen etc - and baking a load of gingerbread cookies, wrapping them in cellophane and ribbon and they can have a batch each. cheap, easy, gets my little one involved in the baking and it looks like you've made an effort too - is this something you could do OP?
I would also make it known that you would like something towards the wedding or honeymoon as your christmas gift - it can be a little awkward asking but its better that you get that out rather than ending up with a load of tat you don't want!