Old Style Christmas Preparations for Christmas 2013

mum2one

not quite "old style" but as from tomorrow Morrisons have Baileys (1 litre) bottles at £9 instead of £19.79.. 2 bottles per person xx

Rachyk

I got some chocolate santas at sainsburys yesterday, £1 for quite a few in a bag

luckycat99

Iceland currently have boxes of Dairy Milk miniatures for £1 each - good alternative to Kitkats for the chocolate sleighs...

Broomstick

I need to know how to preserve rosehips and haws to keep their colour in order to add them to our DIY wreath for the front door this Xmas. Is there a cheap and cheerful solution? The hedgerows round here are full of red berries. It would be a shame not to use some.

Thanks B x

Uniscots97

Broomstick wrote: »

I need to know how to preserve rosehips and haws to keep their colour in order to add them to our DIY wreath for the front door this Xmas. Is there a cheap and cheerful solution? The hedgerows round here are full of red berries. It would be a shame not to use some.

Thanks B x

I normally dry mine out in the airing cupboard. They lose a little colour but not a lot. If you don't have an airing cupboard you could use a low heat oven (50-75C).

mramoeba

Broomstick, i have some in a bottle of vinegar at the moment and they are still a lovely red. I guess if you did that you could take them out near the time and then they woud slowly start to dry from that point on, leave a few in and you also have arose hip vinegar to give as a present ;-)

iammumtoone

mramoeba wrote: »

Broomstick, i have some in a bottle of vinegar at the moment and they are still a lovely red. I guess if you did that you could take them out near the time and then they woud slowly start to dry from that point on, leave a few in and you also have arose hip vinegar to give as a present ;-)

I have never heard of rosehip vinegar, I will give it a go as seen loads of rosehips around (I was wondering if there was anything I could do with them). What type of vinegar did you use? I have some apple cider vinegar that needs using up, will that be ok?

Broomstick

unixgirl and mramoeba - thanks for those ideas. We don't have an airing cupboard but I'll try the low temp oven and I'll try the vinegar idea too.

B x

ska1982

Hello (& apologies if this has already been covered!)

Is anyone doing home made gifts / giving your time gifts for Christmas? I'm considering it and the other option I'm close to suggesting to our family is to do something like name out of a hat and buy for one adult only... I'm working really hard to pay of some debt (lingerings from the DH's business saga), we're just breaking even, I suppose I feel like we've got half a chance or at least we're not making it worse, but now we have to get through the next two months.
A few years ago I did make some home made / time gifts like blueberry gin and some fudge, babysitting&cinema ticket... Another year we gave 1 gift to each couple (like a joint treatment, joint theatre ticket etc).
DH isn't sure about approaching his family about either 'name out of a hat' or 'lets go home made route' etc. He feels like it isn't everyone else's fault and that we'd be putting a damper on everyone else's mood.
If you are making gifts, what are you making? Budget ideas? Time ideas? I've been on google at the weekend trying to get some ideas. I suppose I feel like these ideas are lovely but they are like 'extra's' rather than peoples' main present.. How'd you feel getting something like this if you had bought a present and spent X4 the cash (hence my argument with DH about just talking to the family and agreeing beforehand)?

http://www.niftythriftythings.com/2012/01/homemade-baileys.html

http://img0.etsystatic.com/006/0/6346408/il_570xN.393147474_5guq.jpg

http://kuchcikowo.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/chilli-jam-dzem-z-chilli/

Chris25

ska, have alook at the Christmas preparations thread - will give you more ideas & show what other people have planned https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4605757