Saving on the Holidays?

[NewGig]

How do you save $ on Christmas/holiday decorations? Mind you, I don’t have kids. If I did, this would be totally different!

I’ve done this:

• Except for a tree, which we usually only do about every 3 years or so, I only decorate for fall/winter, not holidays.

• Tree decorations are all unbreakable on the tree (because cats.).

• I stopped using ornament hangers, thread or fishing line works and doesn’t have to be bought special.

• My single, working parent mom, when she was getting divorced from Husband #1 (brother’s dad) started a family tradition of buying a tree on Christmas Eve, when they were 1/2 price. This doesn’t work here in New England. Christmas tree sales stop 12/23.

• We only use fairy lights inside the house, no house lights.

• When we have a tree, the chunk cut from the bottom is saved and used in a “yule” fire on the following year’s new year’s eve.

• One year when DH was out of work, we decided we just couldn’t afford to make cookies, like we had before, so we made bread for all the neighbors. We’ve been doing this for 27 or so years now and it’s a tradition. We make 2 loaves for families with kids and one loaf for those with none. We usually bake about a dozen loaves of bread (or a few more) Christmas Eve. One of my memories of this place is hauling warm bread around the neighborhood.

• Rather than champagne, what I get/make for New Year’s Eve dinner is onion soup. Seems appropriate: you start with something that makes you cry, treat it slowly and carefully until it turns sweet, then you add the basic staff of life and it gives you sustenance.

Thought of another! We don’t buy tinsel. I have beaded icicles I was given years ago by dear friends and some frosted glass ones I bought also years ago (which don’t go on the tree because cats).

Something I’ve done: when preparing gifts for mailing, use colored tissue paper. If you use 2 layers, most of the time it’s opaque enough to keep people from being able to read through it. I usually use 1 layer solid color and the second patterned. The solids are pretty cheap, year round. If I’m at the end of the paper or broke, newspaper underneath works and it’s free.

[anomalily]

I don’t celebrate any winter holidays but I love hearing how heartwarming your bread Tradition is!

[noodle]

I save a bunch of that Kraft paper box filler and use it to wrap gifts! Can be customized with washi tape or other decorations, and easy to write on so you don’t need gift tags. My wrapping isn’t exactly award winning but I’m sure you could get MUCH more creative than this!

[plainjane]

for many years, the family tradition was to go to the wrapping paper box and look for previous holiday tags with the appropriate names on them. The wrapping paper was reused year after year, and the tags were likewise.

Now it is hard to find paper that will survive multiple use, it is much thinner, and I wrap things at home instead of taking them to my parents.

And I’m even less frugal this year because I went to the thrift store to buy containers for the homemade curried cashews (also, cashews not frugal, but my sister already has dibs on giving granola). Spent $18 on tins and lost my mittens. But I’m hopeful for a festive family gathering this year. I’m even considering bringing out the ornaments, and we didn’t bother last year.

[NewGig]

There’s a Japanese tradition of wrapping things in cloth. There were books about this called, “Wrapping three eggs” I think… Hold on… Here’s an HGTV about it:

Furoshiki Gift Wrapping - HGTV Handmade

The book was I guess called how to wrap 5 eggs, but I can’t find a copy for sale. There is a book by Christine Leech: Zero Waste: Gift Wrap: 30 ideas for furoshiki and other sustainable solutions (Zero Waste, 1)

IHTH!

[galliver]

Not sure the exact environmental tradeoff, but an artificial tree lasts a long time. My family got one upon moving to the US and this will be its 27th year. I think that puts it between $1-2 per year at this point (1995 USD).

[TrisPrior]

I am always completely flummoxed by the price of live Christmas trees. I live by a garden center that sells them and just boggle at spending upwards of $100 for something that is going into the trash (or compost).

[Marcela]

Dollar tree has great gift boxes that I use for decor or as “wrapping” for gifts. I’ve got some that have been in use now for 8 years.

[anon51297825]

I’ve sewn gift bags for presents, so we don’t buy anything for wrapping. They are reused each year (and thus far have been used for trick or treat bags as well.)

Our artificial tree is tiny, we got it when we were broke newlyweds, but is over 15 years old. So I’m sure we’ve gotten our $85 worth.

We send picture postcards for New Years, rather than photo cards (or cards with photos in them). The quality isn’t as high, but most people pitch them anyway. Both the card (from Vistaprint) and the postage is less than the alternative. We send to our parents in an envelope, as we know they save the kids photo. My husband also takes the photo, so we don’t pay for a photographer (though I’m not sure his set up counts as “money saving…”)

We keep the holiday relatively small, because despite my 4-year old’s insistence that Christmas is the best holiday ever, we just celebrate solstice/years end, not Christmas. I buy them small presents, but anything big they get is from grandparents.

[NewGig]

My Dad had bought a small tabletop tree, with funky ornaments permanently attached. I decided last year as I hadn’t used it at all for Christmas for almost a decade, to get rid of it and did.

At this point, since we live near multiple acres of woodland, I’d probably go find a branch and decorate that, if I needed something. I’m seriously considering ditching all of the Christmas decorating stuff this year.

Last year, I hit on the idea of putting a minimal “garland” over the doors/windows throughout downstairs and adding the fairy light strands I already have. And then leaving it year 'round.

This could replace the “night light” we leave on overnight year 'round and would use recharable batteries, so reduce our electric useage a little too.

I’m not sure I’ll do that, or not. But I have multiple boxes of Christmas stuff, even after years of trying to cull it down. And, since the holiday looms in the not-so distant future, I think I’ll start the process of either tossing it or putting it in the booth.

[Cranky]

Yes, I’m thinking about what I want to do about Christmas in our new smaller place. A tree seems like A LOT, even though ours is pretty skinny. I might just put up the wooden garlands and some lights.

[PinkTutu]

We’ve moved to more artificial decorations over the years because of the cost of fresh materials. We look in craft stores, hardware stores and fabric stores for decorations…,.or make them.

I buy everything on sale. We have a 60% off prelit pencil tree from Michaels. I has hm ornaments, old ornaments from my Gram, a bead garland I bought by the yard from a craft store, a wired ribbon garland on sale from Michaels, and, not on sale, but only costing $6 CAD, small IKEA glass balls. I think there are four ornaments I paid full price for. The angel was a thrift store find that needed a glue gun repair. I quilted the tree skirt myself.

For lights, we only decorate inside. Hubby is too old to be climbing up ladders in freezing weather. So we decorate the inside of the window with mini lights and call it a day.

We buy garlands on sale after Christmas. Actually. We bought 2 - one prelit for the mantle and one not for the kitchen archway.

I had sale red berry picks I use to make it a bit more colourful. They were on sale because the berries were damaged. A bit of judicious pruning or red nail polish and they’re fine.

I buy my mantle decorations at Dollarama or they have been handed down. It’s usually bird themed. The lights are from Giant Tiger’s after Christmas sale.

The biggest expense for the mantle every year is candles! This year I found them at a plant nursery for $2 each.

The tray on the coffee table is where all the expensive ornaments go. The angels came from my mom at $25 each. The Italian hand blown glass ornaments were about the same asI recall. As were the snowflake ornaments. The fake candle was courtesy of Giant Tiger. The poinsettia candle ring was from Dollarama. The pine cones are real and from various places we’ve lived or visited. The base placemat is something I made. The tray was inherited from my mom.

This bookcase display is courtesy of Giant Tiger, Dollarama, Michaels sales and IKEA’s Christmas sale table. The cloth underneath was handwoven by my daughter when she was a teen.

We are lucky to have a thrift store with a dedicated space for Christmas items. The closer to Christmas it gets, the cheaper everything goes. I wait for the 50% days and go then.

To decorate all this, plus the archway, takes us 2 days, now we’re pushing 70 years old. It all fits in 4 Rubbermaid totes and the original Christmas tree box.

We don’t pick the latest theme every year. We alternate between old fashioned formal and old fashioned (plaid) casual. That’s it.

We didn’t buy it all at once. It has been spread out over the last 15 or more years. So if you are young or new to Christmas decorating, my suggestion is to be patient and be creative. Eventually you will get where you want to be. Hang in there!

The important thing is the people and spreading joy. We do it through handmade gifts mostly. I cannot say what I’m making this year, because some recipients are reading this forum, but 95% are hand made this year.

[meerkat]

@PinkTutu

We don’t pick the latest theme every year. We alternate between old fashioned formal and old fashioned (plaid) casual. That’s it.

For Christmas and Halloween decorations I pick one new thing each year. I’ve skipped buying a certain thing one year because of “fashion” not providing what I had in mind but I think it’ll probably be on offer the next year. I don’t think I got anything new for Christmas decor this year but last year I got a couple more strings of lights for outside. The year before was a light up wreath (and wreath bag for storage). Another year was garland for inside.

[Cranky]

Dh wanted lots of lights outside this year. St. Vinny’s has a whole table of Christmas lights at about $1/string, soi told himself to knock himself out. I think he’s spent $12 and it’s dazzling! Lol