Frugal Christmas 2024

[Liquoricetoffee]

I’m dreaming of a Christmas filled with cheap activities, hanging out with friends/family, baking, crafts, making the house festive with what I already own and lots of outdoor time and music.

Instead every year I get sucked into the opposite. It’s stressful, expensive, over indulgent, soooo much stuff being bought and received, house is in absolute state due to us all being stressed all of December. And food wasted because I get sucked into spending way more than I normally do. (I know this is my own fault and choice, but I’m still resentful 😅)

Advertisment is selling us the perfect dream Christmas (if you buy their stuff) but the reality is making me feel gross and frankly like a mug for buying into it.

Anyone out there that feel similar and want to get involved please do! I thought I’d open a thread where we can share some ideas of how to make this happen.

So my plan is to make an activity and book advent calendar for my son. We already own the books so they can be distributed through December. Activities will involve getting a Christmas tree, decorate, bake gingerbread, go on outdoor adventures, watch a movie and that sort of thing. Nothing major but gives December some structure and encourages us to do things that resonates with us.

I think that's lovely, @Liquoricetoffee , and thinking about it now gives you lots of time to plan, find bargins, and get things in place so it isn't a last minute panic.

Perhaps I could suggest a few things to get it started:
Making peppermint creams in white red and green - if you feel indulgent half dip them in chocolate.
Potato printing Christmas patterns to make wrapping paper on plain brown parcel paper.
Collecting things from nature to make a Christmas Wreath - either you can weave your own base from twigs or the wire bases are only a pound or two and reusable.

Good luck with the planning, and happy Advent 2024.

Great idea for a thread! I think for me it’s saying I have enough. “ it’s enough” when I wonder if I should get more decorations for example. Do I really need more? Or is this just fine?

I love a frugal Christmas, it's my families fave even though we could spend a bit more . I have some excellent ideas if you'd like to hear them?

I love hearing ideas. I had planned to pare ours down this year but was so tired (very anaemic) and I didn’t. So 2024 is the year! Plan for decoration is simple like every year: go for a walk in woods to get bits to make a Yule Log and make paper chains/paper snowflakes.

No monied “activities”, no buying from big chains - just take children to our local shops for them to choose each other little bits once they break up from school (the local places will wrap for free I discovered this year after I’d mainly bought else where!)

A couple of new board games, and just a nice roast dinner, hot chocolate on our local beach with a campfire and dog if it’s okay weather.

Our best ideas:

1. Christmas Activity Advent Calendar. We used our little sacks and instead of choc coins or anything like that, on slips of paper we wrote simple things , nothing that needed anything buying (like baking anything we didn't have the ingredients for) Most popular were: Choose a Christmas film to watch tonight/ please do a Christmas drawing for the fridge/ go and get the newspaper/magazine pile and make paper chains/Lats make Christmas crackers for the Christmas table (we used wallpaper samples for this, made the hats inside and write a funny story about the family instead of a joke) they were not all craft things. We also did - choose any book for me to read to you the first chapter of tonight/let's listen to Christmas music by candlelight/collect holly when we walk the dog/tidy out the car ready to get all the food shopping in the boot/ change all our beds to the christmassy bedlinen

1. Homemade crackers were a MASSIVE success
2. Adults did a homemade or charity shop secret santa . This was excellent , we all loved it. Kids had mostly charity shop gifts too (they are young this would be more tricky with teens I think)
3. Our sweet treats were homemade as they were part of the advent. I put them late on in the advent, so they helped build the atmosphere nicely (making mincepies and yule log on Xmas eve)

@crochetmonkey74 of course I’d love to hear them! All great ideas thank you. I’m adding to my list with ideas for the activity calendar. My son is only 4 so he’ll still be fine with a charity shop/vinted find. I’m definitely making home made crackers!

@SweetLathyrus potato printing is a fab idea! I remember making Christmas cards this way one year and it actually looked really cute.

I remember something we used to do when we were kids. Everyone put a riddle on the Christmas present label so that people could guess what was inside. It made us stop and think instead of ripping them all open all at once.

What about a reverse advent calendar, you get a box and then every day put in a tin or packet of food and when it's full, donate to the local food bank? Might have to start a few days early then donate a week before Christmas?

Our most successful Xmas activity year on year is a colour in paper tablecloth. Cost £3.99. We attach it to the dining tabletop with tape, and put a pot of pencils on the table. Stays there from xmas eve for a week or so. Everyone does some colouring when they want to and it provides quiet refuge for those feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all.

Other frugal things
Carols by Candlelight (most churches do this. If there's one in walking distance it's lovely to walk home after)

We had chicken rather than turkey and made loads of stuffing balls as we prefer those.

Aldi had all christmassy veg and fruit very cheap (29p)

We start our Christmas cupboard in January! Each month, I spend about £10 and put stuff away for Christmas. Up until about April, it's mostly things like loo roll, washing up liquid, hand soap, toothpaste, long date items like pickles jam, cranberry sauce etc
This means that by the time November and December come, there's not a huge extra lump to pay. It's normally only the fresh shop that needs doing amd we stay in our normal food budget (as we don't need laundry tabs, washing up liquid etc as we already stored it away. Sometimes it even lasts into January which is always great.
Through the year, if I get chocs or alcohol for gifts, I'll store them in the Christmas cupboard to have then. I am also a keen regifter.

Making paper chain decorations and threading popcorn onto strings for the Christmas tree.

I think that many/most of you have small children so this might not work for you. What I did this year with dc in their 20’s was ask each of them individually what made Christmas Christmas for them. We then prioritised those bits and forgot about the rest. It was really interesting - what mainly mattered were things that cost very little but were full of memory.

I shall be doing this again as it’s better Christmas irrespective of any money saving (although that’s obviously not bad either)

I agree that lots of the favourite things are the tiny no cost things. Draw your favourite Christmas decoration from the tree was a fun after dinner game one night

Mine are adults now but I did a Christmas advent basket.
It had books.films,jigsaws, gingerbread house and little craft kits . Things to make a tree decoration or crackers.
I collected the things through the year . A lot of the books and puzzles came from charity shops.
We still do a jigsaw over Christmas.
It's a tradition that has been popular.

Loving everyone’s suggestions! Thank you! It’s actually making me excited to get started.

A few more:

Invite friends over for Christmas card making. Everyone brings some random craft things they have laying around at home. (With or without kids!)

On the 12th day of Christmas have a small gathering to say good bye to Christmas. Eat the edible decorations, sing some Christmas music. In Sweden we also dance around the tree! Maybe bring along some unwanted gifts for swapping..?

Decorate oranges with cloves and ribbons. Easy to make with children and they look and smell lovely, too.

I want to do the baking orange slices thing, I’ve never done it before. How long do they last, do people keep them or just do fresh ones every year?

I love a simple Christmas, just quiet, frugal, simple.

Love the advent activity calendar ideas.

Not sure if people still do Christmas cards to the same extent nowadays but one post Christmas game that became a tradition at home was to guess how many Santas/robins/postboxes/etc there were on the cards in total - small prize for whoever guessed closest!

@MrsWobble3 This is a question we should ask ourselves too! To me it’s mostly around baking, food, lighting candles and filling the house with people that we loved which doesn’t need to cost a lot of money.

@GoingToBeLessRubbishAtLife in my experience you pop them in the oven on a low setting for about an hour and turn about half way! I would only keep them for one Christmas and remake the next.

Keep this year's cards and then one of the activities can be cutting them up to make gift tags.

Slightly different perspective here: this is a great time of year to take a cold hard look at the bank accounts and ruthlessly tot up every single cost of Christmas. It’s so easy to fool yourself about what it actually costs , and to be unrealistic budgeting only for what it should cost.

The reason for doing it now, is that it will still be fresh in your mind and you might remember why you splurged or twitched. What points you’re most vulnerable on.

I’m setting up a dd for the next ten months to spread the cost and I’m toying with the idea of withdrawing cash and using an envelope system to divide it up into gifts, treats, drink, dinner, wrapping, decor, etc. Maybe I’ll keep the gifts budget in the bank as that’s mostly online.

I know that for me, staying out of the shops might be important. I have adhd, and on a high impulse day all sorts can end up in my trolley from the middle aisle of Aldi!