by Hope
I am wracking my brain on how to make Christmas special without presents. Don’t get me wrong, I know presents are not the reason for the season. But giving gifts is definitely one of my main ways of expressing love. I’ve been considering using one of those scrapbook sites and creating some sort of family/recipe book for each of the kids. The one my mom gave all us kids in our adulthood has been something I have used often. Anyone done this? Have recommendation for a site? I figure if I make all the books the same, then it will save me in time and cost.
Does anyone else have any ideas? I’m really struggling with this. I am focused on spending the money I do have on something meaningful or nothing at all.
But also stockings…I think that’s one of our favorite traditions. What can I put in stockings that is meaningful, cost effective, and fun?
I have come up with an agenda for the 36 hours that all the kids are here. And a menu for the 6ish days at least one or two kids are here. The kids are all excited some homecooked meals and have all put in requests for favorites they’ve been missing…from mac n cheese to Zuppa Toscana soup, roast to ham. It’s been so nice to hear their excitement when we talk and hear what they have missed about home. Fill’s this mama heart up!
Holiday Plan
We are going to do a full almost traditional holiday meal for Christmas Eve along with our traditional game night. Game night is everyone’s favorite. We play fun games, different ones every year, and the kids are welcome to invite friends. In the past, we’ve done a charcuterie board and snack foods. But since we haven’t been together is so long, I thought a real home cooked meal was the way to go. (And I don’t want to cook on my birthday 🙂 We will wrap up Christmas Eve with a birthday celebration for the four of us that are fall/winter babies.
This was the girls and my Thanksgiving meal. They picked their favorites, made the menu and then we divided and conquered the cooking. It was nice, but so quiet compared to past, large crowd holidays. (And that is grape juice in the wine glasses, we just like to be fancy with our dollar store wine glasses.)
Christmas Day will just be the family and a couple of their significant others. I do cook breakfast, but the rest of the day will be left overs and a couple of snack food type things that I will prepare in advance. Over the last couple of years, we’ve been doing Chinese, but leftovers and finger foods seems to be the right fit for our time together and our budget this year. I’ve already begun comparison shopping for my grocery items.
We will do presents on Christmas, and then we typically chill out in the afternoon with the kids catering to me for my birthday. This year will be different because we have to get History Buff to the airport to fly out that evening, a two hour drive. We’ve talked about going to a movie down toward Atlanta in the afternoon and then someone finishing the drive to take History Buff. It would allow us all to be together longer and prevent anyone from having to spend 4 hours driving to and from the airport. It’s still a plan in progress.
Part Time Job Interview
And the good news…I’ve got an interview next week. A local fast food restaurant, part time, and $13 per hour. I had to submit a video interview where I disclosed my other part time jobs and that my schedule was flexible. I’m hopeful.
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
Hope, I wonder if you are so worried about the presents because you don’t think your own presence is enough?
What if you did a digital cookbook? If you use Google Docs, you could make it a living document. The kids can add recipes, you can add recipes, people could put photos in – I think that could be a great way to stay connected and it would only cost your time.
No stockings, no extra frills at this time – you guys are together, doing the gift exchange and that should be enough!
Please, try to resist buying anything. Write each kid a letter telling them how proud you are of them. Share something personal about you they may not know.
When everyone gets into town, take a walk one on one with each. Talk about life, hopes and dreams, give them your time.
By the time you’re done buying groceries, you’ll have exceeded your nonexistent budget.
Resist the desire to gift.
Pick names and each of you do one stocking OR each person buys 2-4 small items for all the others. Everyone has some surprises and you are on the hook for only the cost of one stocking. I think your idea for the cookbook is fantastic.
they are already doing a gift exchange for Christmas, she mentioned it last month :)!!!
I think any gifts are out of the question unless you can FULLY make them with stuff you already own (aka no buying ANYTHING new). Custom scrapbooks online can be expensive, and you are still behind on bills. You should not be expecting to get a new job. Another thing to consider, if you get this part time fast food job, you may have to work christmas eve/christmas, and not be able to refuse that. Also I would not advise going to the movies with all of you unless you can do it for free.
A few years ago my sister and I asked for family recipe books. We wanted our childhood favorites from our mom and grandmas.
My mom had already done this for herself, so it was just a matter of typing up a few extra recipes in Word. She printed the pages on the home printer, put them in sleeve protectors and put the pages in 3 ring binders.
Do you have leftover ingredients from your baking day? That could be fun with more people. Maybe a $1.00 scratch off ticket for each one? this yeah I printed off all the recipes shared in our family chat, put them in plastic sleeves, and in a small hard cover folder. They actually went over really well! (we had the family Christmas yesterday.) I even changed some of the recipe titles to So and so’s Cheeseburger soup.
I bought the folders during back to school season, so I’m not sure what the cost currently is. But even in a paper folder would work.
I will definitely be doing more baking. In fact, I’ve already started. Baking, taste testing (since this is pretty new to me,) and freezing them so they are ready in a few weeks. Thanks for the suggestion.
A video submission for a part time restaurant job seems a bit over the top! But glad that it might work out.
I thought so too, but so far so good.
This is a struggle for me too sometimes. Regardless of income, wasting money on presents people do not want doesn’t make sense. Assuming you are covering the costs of the meals, I think you have done what is necessary. If you just cannot bring yourself not to buy each kid something then maybe you do stocking but not gifts. That way you can keep the costs down. You should easily be able to fill a stocking on 10 bucks apiece.
However, you have to decide if that money being spent on gifts will stop you from being able to cover the bills this month. Sometimes we just have to own the fact that we cannot do it. Your kids are adults and they will understand. They would even understand if they needed to help cover the food. That’s the wonder of having adult kids! You did the hard part and you seem to have done it very well. Stop feeling guilty for not be superwoman! Your best and your love will be enough.
I agree with Emilie. If you HAVE to do stockings, then I would make those your gift. Also, i have to add that the best stocking I ever received was from my MIL when I first got married. She gave us an old school traditional stocking filled with fruit, nuts, little chocolates and candies. I LOVED it because it was actual usable and consumable things and I bet your kids would agree now that they’re out on their own. Simple and inexpensive can still be fun and thoughtful.