Posted by Jenny Rae Armstrong in
Domestic Misadventures of a Distracted Miss
It's gonna be a tight Christmas for a lot of people. What are you planning to do?I, for one, am hitting the thrift stores. I started frequenting the second-hand circuit in an effort to lighten my carbon footprint, (or at least begin to atone for the mountains of disposable diapers I've put in landfills!) quit angsting over the fair trade vs. providing jobs vs. Appalachian textile mills conundrum, and okay, for the rush of finding a really great bargain. (I found a student-level Yamaha trombone at Goodwill yesterday for forty bucks! Forty bucks!!! Even if my kids follow in my footsteps and decide that trombones are the instrument of the devil, sent by Satan to torment middle school band teachers and girls who really wanted to play the French horn, I could resell the thing on eBay for a hundred and fifty bucks.) (Also, I found a pale pink faux Hermes handbag for forty dollars. It was lovely--but not forty dollars worth of lovely!!! Le sigh...)
Anyways, it occurred to me last Christmas that my kids didn't care how much money I spent on them, they cared that the presents got under the tree. I mean, it's not like a five year old is going to look his little brother's Fisher Price Garage, and his older brother's vintage Super Nintendo, and say "Okay, mom, how much did you spend on my Wiggles karaoke machine? I wanna see receipts!" No, a stuffed Barney is a stuffed Barney, whether it cost fifteen dollars at Wal-Mart or fifty cents at the Salvation Army. And when it comes right down to it, who would you rather give your money to?
What about you? What are your strategies for dealing with a lean Christmas? Do share.
4 Response to Lean, Green, Santa Machine
We have done coupons for services -Wash & Wax, Movie of your choice, Get out of the Dog House Free, etc. Have done crafts, candles, sewn somethings with my label attached. Have done treasure maps when Garrett was young, he enjoyed the adventure more than the prize. Have done time capsules. Making a family tree for a friend this year.
But mostly making sure that they know that they are my gift.
Those are great ideas! I LOVE the treasure map idea--I may have to try it this year.:-D
We are doing a book exchange! Our kids are picking "special books" from their collection wrapping them up and sending them to there cousins. Like wise the cousins are doing the same thing. We all have books that sit on our shelves either because the are out grown or just not a favorite one to re-read. So we are passing them along and I think teaching our kids a lesson in return.
A book exchange-what an awesome idea! I suppose the same concept could be applied to almost anything-toys, clothes, etc. But books are definitely the coolest!:-)
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