Christmas Giving

It's that time of the year again and I've begun decorating the house for the holidays and shopping for gifts. I'm reminded of the years just after I took early retirement from my high paying job in the government in the mid-90s in order to go back to school. I went from alot of income to no predictable income. I did have a few contracts while I was at school but essentially I had to be very frugal. More about that in future posts.

As the first Christmas approached, I had no idea what I would do about gifts as my budget for gifts had to go from several hundred dollars (or more) to a few hundred dollars. I decided that I would give almost everyone antique Christmas ornaments so I began attending auctions and visiting antique shops looking for pretty antique ornaments at as low a cost as possible. I also searched out the cheapest but nicest boxes and gold ribbon I could find. Along with a bottle of gold paint for the plain brown boxes, I proceeded to decorate the boxes and then wrap up my ornaments, one to a box. I had also bought 2 box lots of cups and saucers at an auction for $60 in total(60 cups and saucers in all, that's $1 each, with at least 10 really nice ones that weren't damaged)and voila! I had several lovely gifts, all in their gold trimmed boxes wrapped up with gold ribbon. I have to say that I really enjoyed both finding the gifts and being creative with the gift boxes/wrapping. And in some ways the very best thing of all was discovering the following year that someone who received one of my gift boxes, actually used the box as a Christmas decoration!!!!

So....the moral of the story is this. Christmas may be about giving but it doesnt' have to involve spending thousands or even hundreds of dollars. It really is the thought that counts; and in the process of being frugal, we may even find pleasure and a sense of accomplishment for meeting the challenge of giving, without going into debt that returns to haunt us in the New Year.