Thursday 5 December 2013

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

We're pagan, so we celebrate Yule rather than Christmas but I love both of them, I love lights & sparkle, music & feasting, all the things that make Yule special. I love Christmas music, everything from Slade to carols.

There really is no reason to spend lots of money to have a lovely Christmas, you don't need new furniture & you don't need to buy in every foodstuff known to man.

I once had a neighbour who spent a fortune on his daughter every Christmas & had the bailiffs in every new year.

Here are a few tips for a frugal Christmas


Buy an artificial tree it will last for years. If you cannot afford a tree, hang some baubles on twigs in a vase.
Don't follow fashion & change the colours scheme on your tree every year, that way you can use the same lights & decorations year after year.
Tell you children when they are small that Santa fills their stocking, everything else has to be paid for, this will cut down on too many unreasonable requests.
Take a walk with your children  round your neighbourhood to look at the houses decorated on the outside.
Start some free/cheap Christmas traditions of your own such as watching a Christmas film on TV with popcorn & hot chocolate.
Bringing in the Green, go out around your garden/local area & cut some greenery to decorate your home, I have cottoneaster & rosemary in my garden & use these.
Popcorn garlands, thread popcorn on to strands of cotton & drape on your tree.
Make paper snowflakes & snowmen

3 comments:

wannabe sybil said...

I've explained to bear that I have to pay for everything that Santa brings. This year it has been clearly explained that he is getting a computer (through necessity and gritted teeth) so there isn't much else. He'll get spoiled by others anyway. I think it's unhealthy to let him think goodies just appear out of nowhere. WS xxx

rachfishop said...

My two know that there's a budget and what the budget is, and they're getting very good at working out how to get the most for their money!

For our decorations, I saved all the little crafts and paintings the kids made when they were small, and DD made a bunch of stars out of hama beads. Along with some baubles, tinsel and fairy lights from Woolies (remember Woolies? sigh...) that does the job and of course it means that the decorations are very special to us all.

frugal freesia said...

We love Christmas here with all the traditional old decorations that have been knocking around for years. And lots of lights! Will be putting up photos of them on my blog tonight if all goes well.

Do you have a tree up?

New neighbours.

A couple of days ago I met the couple who have purchased one of the flats here. The flat is over two floors, has two bedrooms, two bathrooms...