Hows' this for a plan

[Ormirian]

Adult relatives and friends are going to get some home-made preserves.
Child relatives will get a tenner in a card.
Cards will be home-made
Wrapping paper will be last year's left overs.

Because we are broke and I can't quite face the spend-fest that christmas shopping seems to be every year inspite of my best intentions This way I won't need to shop apart from family.

I'm loving all these ideas. I always spend too much at Christmas as I never know when to stop shopping! Am determined not to spend much this year as I'm really quite broke so am hoping to make lots of nice, cheap things. One thing I do have a lot of is fabric so I might see if I can sew some cushion-covers or something...

nightmare amount of family! i would reccommend making everyone something with their name on. for the younger grandchildren this could be their own tree decoration made out of saltdough or knitted or sewn. for the older grandchildren and adults how about buying cheap wine glasses from tesco value etc and some glass paint pens and do them a personalised christmas glass each. elderly aunts are either a personalised lavendar bag or a hyacinth bulb in a pot, again personalise the pot, and when i say pot i mean either a terraccotta pot painted with leftover emulsion or a white bowl and use those glass paint pens again.

as for the parent-in-laws, i'm at a loss with them! with my in-laws anything made by or involving the kids are a big hit.

this does involve lots of time but can be done now so avoiding the last minue panic!

My gosh thats a lot to buy for, and just for the sake of it would really grate on me.
dont know how moral you are.....but Id lie through my teeth! ''We cant afford christmas presents the cat has an incurable ailment that will swollow all my christmas money this year, we're devastated, please miss us out this year so we dont feel even worse...'

Love all these suggestions... especially the repackaged toiletries.

BabyDubs, we did this three years ago and you can;t just keep on saying no forever! Not a moral thing - they just don't seem to see it as a problem. Then on dcs making things - MIL is really sniffy about them! Even homemade cards are greeted with glum glares. A horrible competition strikes up about the ritziest present - one BIL gave FIL an IPod Classic one year... no way we can compete with that. We've decided not to, but it's hard to be viewed as Eb Scrooge

Why not give them all Oxfam Unwrapped or Send A Cow donations this year? That way you get the shopping done with one click of the mouse, you get the satisfaction of knowing that at least your money went to a good cause not a bunch of grabby rellies and you gain the moral high ground by giving something to someone who actually needs it. How could they possibly take public exception to that? Easier still, spend it on one whopping donation and print out a slip explaining that you have done this on behalf of everyone on your gift list, stick it in your Chrissy cards to the family, perhaps with the website add and a suggestion that they do the same for you and make sure you mail them early. You could give a little gift to go with individual donations if you prefer - I've given my mum a nice egg cup with a donation of chickens for example. She was delighted but then she likes an egg and hates the wastefulness of Christmas shopping.... and yes I know how lucky that makes me at present buying time ;-/

Sieglinde, they sounds similar to my il's attitude to home made. My family would love something homemade, especially by ds (maybe when he's bit older - he's only 1!) but il's are nightmare. They must each have a card, and it must be expensive, and must say 'to my grandma' etc, so no buying big packs of cards

Regarding your distant relatives/ex's, you need to go to charity shop/dunelm type place, and get them something really shit.

Pootles - maybe you could buy some Letraset type letters that you rub on?
Then you can customise your cards to read 'my grandma' ?
This is a great site for excellent quality cheap handmade cards - they are closed at the moment but I have bought their stuff from thebookpeople too on occasion (get free postage!) Also to great gift wrap too!

www.cardchest.co.uk

HTH

Some GREAT ideas here.

Ive been collecting spring bulbs (99p) from Home stores/B&M bargains/B&Q for my older relies.
Going to buy some nice little pots as well, and make a little spring package with glittery wrapper as suggested further up (lakeland i think).
These wont have cost any more than £5 each.

Kids all getting PJ's from Primark and a little chocolate, no more than £1 each.
Ive been collecting stuff all year and feel less anxious and panicky this year.
Christmas can be torture when you ahve a huge family like i have.

sorry should read for great gift wrap!

Oh I have some of those Pengy, I use them to make cards for my family, which they love.

With the IL's it's all about the money. If it's not new, and expensive, it's shit .

Money is how they prove their worth show love, apparently.

WholeLotta that's a fab idea. Might be pinching that one too.

Love the name btw.

Another good gift which I have also seen in shops (for an extortionate amount)
is take a pretty jar, layer up ingredients for say choc chip cookies/brownies/gingerbread or other goodies, a pretty ribbon and tie on recipe (laminate to make it last). Can also add wooden spoon, bowl, cutter etc to make more substantial gift. Once the recipient has made the cookies, they have a nice jar to put them in!

Sieglinde - you could maybe add a tea towel or two as you have some spare ;P!

Can also do savoury recipes - use pasta, lentils etc to make pretty layers!

Like these here:
davisdialogues.blogspot.com/2009/10/cookies-in-jar-gifts-too.html

just a random blog from google before anyone asks! I liked the pretty pattern on the brownies in a jar.

for the teenagers at uni, what about boxes of biscuits? Make it a token gesture, now they are over 18 and stop buying when they have finished uni. Lidl's used to do some for £2.99 which were exactly the same as some in M&S almost double the price.

I feel your pain about the consumerism of it all. My Ma and Pa, just aren't like that and are so over the moon with the effort put into something homemade, or something small that we've taken the time to think about and find. My Mum is mad about birds and last year I managed to pick up a small china Robin from an antique's warehouse that she loves. Places like that are fab for jewellery or something a bit different.
I like antique books and dh got me a fab set from the Oxfam book shop nearby that are 1st editions for last years present.

I save my boots, nectar and tesco points all year to help make things a bit easier as I know I can make little boxes up for the women in the family with a few of their favourite bits and pieces in. The men then get foody type gifts with a small bottle of wine, homemade things, and repackaged goodies as already suggested.

Or, if the in-laws are like that why not just order extra prints of the kids school photo's, get a pretty but inexpensive frame from tk maxx for e.g. and then let the kids make them something too. They ought to be grateful to have loving family around them and stop being so materialistic!

Wow, you guys are awesome! I feel SO much better now. Will get cracking on jar hoarding, cards and lamination.

The thing is, it can all too easily become a low-budget labour-intensive operation. It's too easy to get carried away with all the home-made arty-crafty packaging baloney. It needs to be cheap and quick. I'm going to try to stay away from Lakeland and all those weave-your-smugness-into-an attractive-gift-basket type websites, I'm too easily sucked in.

This year it's going to be about attitude. I'm going to approach my gift-giving like a man.

Some pf the best presses I've received have been the cheapest. They include a magazine and a bar of chocolate, someone who collected a set of freebie audiobooks from a newspaper that they read and someone who put pancake mix in a jar so that I could treat myself to a pancake :)

Sorry Rosie, that wasn't aimed at you, although I can see how you might think it was.