Who's excited for christmas!?

Willow92

Oooh I'm excited too Making Christmas cards this year and I started them a couple of days ago

sunrise27_2

me me me I love christmas !!

beachlou

With thanks to the Tesco toys sale, my little boy is sorted for this yr and maybe even next year!
I really need to get a start on making xmas decorations but must get the LOs b'day out the way first.

zippybungle

whitesatin wrote: »

OK, I'm excited, with too much time on my hands and not enough money to translate my ideas now that I am retired (60 at the end of this month with two grown up children and three little grandchildren).

I love the ideas on here, I am reasonably crafty and I just love the idea of the Christmas Eve hampers. My son has a Hungarian wife and some of ther family live with them and they celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve (as well as celebrating with us on Christmas day, LOL) so I have this idea of delivering something to enhance their celebration meal that evening.

Also, to keep the cost down, I would like to include some ideas which are practical gifts, e.g. some babysitting time although I already have the children two days a week. What else would be useful to parents of young children, on a practical level?

I am raring to go. I would love to visit one of the European Christmas markets in December but can't afford it. I love all things German and Swiss and Scandanavian with regard to Christmas so ideas for that would be welcome.

Also, I always host Christmas day for about 9 or 10 adults plus the little ones and I love to do table presents. I like the idea of gifts in a jar and intend to think about that. I have purchased some large Cath Kidston mugs in the sales and will treat them as jars, e.g. fill with packs of chewing gum for my husband (in a Cowboy mug), maybe chocs in a floral mug but would welcome further ideas.

I don't ask much, do I? LOL

Ikea is worth a look nearer Xmas, as it usually has some lovely Swedish style decorations and Xmas food & drinks in the food shop.

Lidl usually have some nice chocs (especially marzipan things) near Xmas too.

For your son, how about something like a cinema giftcard with a babysitting voucher too

Zippy x

cedrickerry

I must admit I am struggling this year ....I normally make hampers, pots of gold etc. but this year things are going to be so different.

This difference is good - I am due to give birth to twins (after 10 years of trying!) in next few weeks, so it will be our first year as a family. But this means we wont be able to go and visit relatives and as we have noone close by (and many of our closest friends are elsewhere too) I'm worried it will be an anti-climax. I know the babies, dog and cat will keep us busy, but it really doesn't seem worth making too much effort .........................

whitesatin

cedrickerry wrote: »

I must admit I am struggling this year ....I normally make hampers, pots of gold etc. but this year things are going to be so different.

This difference is good - I am due to give birth to twins (after 10 years of trying!) in next few weeks, so it will be our first year as a family. But this means we wont be able to go and visit relatives and as we have noone close by (and many of our closest friends are elsewhere too) I'm worried it will be an anti-climax. I know the babies, dog and cat will keep us busy, but it really doesn't seem worth making too much effort .........................

That must be really exciting for you! Little ones don't really do much when that young but you will be kept really busy. You know, I think you might just be enjoying the babies by Christmas (as opposed to being frazzled as you will be for a few weeks after having them), and you might just enjoy having a reasonably quiet but real family experience. Once they get to two or three onwards, a quiet experience will be out of the question.:rotfl:

My youngest grandchild will be 5 months old at Christmas and we are all looking forward to his first Christmas even if he doesn't know it.

Enjoy!

kiss_me_now9

Gleek wrote: »

Sure I got some Strata flexi tubs from Asda's for £3 each (mine are red but there's pink/yellow/blue/green etc) as I did last year. Lined it with a fleece blanket and used green and red shredded lametta to cover some of the bits and bobs in them. They can be used after for toy tubs and the like so really handy



You can also decorate the outside with names etc with cut outs/sticky letters etc and put tinsel through the handles - can do all sorts

If they're too big there's a smaller size for £2. ( can be seen here: http://groceries.asda.com/asda-estore/banneroffers/banneroffercontainer.jsp?listId=1215038036995 the larger ones aren't online for some reason)

Oh that's a good idea! Do you think you could use those as flower pots? I think I'll leave the 'hamper' buying until I get home from christmas, don't fancy transporting something like that on a train from North Wales to the Home Counties But I'll get the stuff for it before hand :money:

PenguinOfDeath

I dont usually get excited about Xmas but after reading all (and I mean ALL!) of the hamper related threads on here, I've been inspired to do them for the family adults this year. Trying to save up for a decent deposit for first house so determined not to do a last minute rush and end up spending a small fortune on stuff people dont really want/need.

Been buying for about 2 months now and have spent just over £80 for 6 people, including 2 kids who I'm doing stockings and 'proper' presents for instead, worked out that I've saved over £120 on RRPs though :j.

Now all I need to do to is to looking for bits to add, or it could end up getting more expensive than usual