Frugal Intuition

I know, I know, Halloween is barely past, why am I already talking about Christmas?  Sue me.  My neighbors put up their Christmas lights yesterday, so despite my questioning of their relative sanity, I’ve had Christmas on my mind.  I think I saw Christmas themed displays in stores before Halloween was past.  Retailers are already gearing up for the holiday rush, bombarding you with messages from all sides that you must buy buy buy.  When Accuradio launched their Holiday channels last month, I turned it on for about 10 minutes and practically broke out into cold sweats. See, holidays always stress me out.  I come from and married into a family that goes overboard at Christmas.

I have a number of objections to this. 

First, we have a large number of people on both sides of our family and frankly, I just can’t think of gifts to give to all of them.  I hate giving un-thoughtful gifts.  I used to be one of those people who did all my planning and Christmas shopping throughout the year, so that by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I was already finished.  This is a good plan if you can stick to it, and it’s much easier on the budget to spread such purchases out over the year.  But for some reason, I’ve just not been any good at carrying this out during my adult life.

Next, there’s the annual fight over the Christmas budget with my husband.  He’s got this enormous, generous heart and loves finding great gifts for people.  However, our bank accounts never match the totals of what he wants to spend on people (which is part of where some of his stupid debt came from).  So every year we go rounds about how much we’re going to spend total, make the list of who we’re giving gifts to, and what an appropriate present is.  I am a big fan of hand made and home baked (= thoughtful, cheap, appreciated).  He’s more of a flashy, electronics gizmo kind of guy.  He’s gotten better over the years, but this year, as I face the writing of the Christmas budget with absolutely zero thoughts on what to get anybody (I mean, seriously, the only thing I can think of is that my mother in law needs a new can opener), I have decided that I have had enough.  Shipping costs have gone through the roof, whether you’re ordering gifts or mailing them to family who don’t live nearby.  The cost of everything has gone through the roof. Frankly, we don’t have the money to spend a lot on anybody, even immediate family this Christmas.

Now I want to ask you something.  Can you remember everything you got for Christmas last year?  

If you’re like most people, unless you got something absolutely outstanding or that you use all the time, you probably don’t.  You probably don’t have room for any more generic stuff in your house.  You’ve got closets full of gifts that you haven’t regifted or been able to “legally” get rid of yet because the requisite few years haven’t passed since it was given to you and that person might stop by sometime.  You probably got things you didn’t want or need and you’ve been guilted into keeping them, allowing them to clutter up your space and your life.

You are not alone.

This is SO SO common.  We are so driven by the commercialization of the holiday that we buy each other stuff we don’t need or want with money we don’t have.

I say, stop the insanity!

My husband and I are calling up the entire family this weekend and proposing that we do a gift drawing.  Everybody’s name goes on a slip of paper in a hat and everybody draws one name.  That’s the only person they’ll get a gift for this year.  This holiday is going to be about family and food.  Instead of stressing out about what to buy for whom, we’re going to focus those energies on making something fantastic for the holiday dinner.  I’m thinking truffles for us.  And I always make homemade sourdough bread.  It is so much more important to focus on being together as a family than on the stuff.

Over the next few weeks between now and Christmas, I am going to be doing a series of posts on ways to reduce your holiday expenditures, including Christmas crafts, recipes, homemade gift ideas and more.  So be sure to check back for updates!

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