In December of 2009, I conducted a contest for readers of my blogs and ezine. The prize was a copy of Ruth Bell Graham’s book, Our Christmas Story (that’s Mrs. Billy Graham).
.Here’s the question readers needed to answer in order to be entered into the contest/drawing:
What’s your favorite tip, activity, or idea for simplifying your Christmas and holiday celebrations?
This could be something that saves time or money, something that brings to life the meaning of the holidays, a recipe, or just a simple activity that brings joy into the dark days of December.
.You can find the ideas shared by readers in the comments section of this post. Feel free to leave thoughts and ideas of your own. The contest is over … but the gift of great ideas keeps on giving!
We love to go look at christmas decorations and lights. We find out when local churches are having a christmas show and love to watch and listen to the choir.
We like to go to midnight mass on christmas eve to remember that christmas is not just about getting presents.
My kids and I make cookies and give them to our neighbors.
We don’t wrap gifts for any occasion but save handled bags of any sort all year – the larger the better – and embellish the bags with ANYTHING – usually using a hot glue gun. Name tags, if you want them can be made from ANYTHING, too.
This method is jolly, inexpensive, reuses objects in the home, nothing is purchased and there is almost NO trash on the special day that would otherwise go into a landfill or burned. Think Green!
We also save containers emptied of food. I like the glass ones that pimento, etc., some in. We boil off the label on glass ones, remove the residue with WD40 and a scraper, wash and save them all year. For a special gift, pop ANYTHING that will fit and that meets your fancy:
MY FAVORITE = ‘smoked salt’ as many people have never heard of it.
Label and date the contents and wow up the lids with decorations. Even mini toys can go in them for children (matchbox cars; a set of jacks), samples of home made candies, perhaps and jars are available in various sizes. These jars can be REUSED by the recipient and TWO times didn’t make the trash and landfills.
Thank you for your newsletter and this contest!
Happy, Happy!
Donna
Waffle Night! We have Waffle Night on Christmas Eve. We bring out the waffle maker, make a huge batch of plain waffles, enough for 7 people! The kids get to pick any toppings they want from the grocery a few days before. Anything goes for waffle night toppings and the cost is fairly minimal no matter what they choose. The kids look forward to this night all year. Banana Split Waffles are a fav and I even spied whipped cream as a choice of an actual present on one of the childrens’ lists this year.
I make my own advent wreath “greenery” by tracing the hands of my family members and fan the cut out hands around a large piece of cardboard. Each cut out hand has the persons name on it.
This advent wreath is very inexpensive to make–you can use regular paper and have the kids color the hands or you can use construction paper.
It’s an easy way to give the gift of prayer for your family members during the advent season.
Sabrina Robbins
When our girls were just tiny little things we began surprising them one night each Christmas season with a ride through our town to look at Christmas lights and decorations….in our pajamas. Now they are 16 and 13 and they still look forward to this tradition. We return home for hot chocolate and popcorn. This is a simple way to make fond memories that will last a lifetime and one I hope they may choose to pass on to their own children when the time comes.
Nancy
3blondesandthelaw@live.com
As with many of you, this Christmas season is all about learning to be frugal and making the “most out of what you have!”. For Christmas decorations this year, my husband and I opted out of hitting up the big chain stores as we normally do to decorate the outside of our home.
Instead, we took the opportunity to hand craft our decorations using things we either had around the house or items that we could acquire for next to nothing in cost.
One of my most favorite creations this year is a whimsical “christmas tree” that we made out of a used tomato cage we had lying around. We simply used some wire to attach classy white string lights to it. Then, we went to the local Home Depot and asked the Christmas Tree attendant if we could have the discard clippings that they throw in a box after they trim buyers’ trees. He happily obliged and we scooped up as many as we could carry.
We made from those “discards” beautiful trimmings to go around the “Christmas Tree”
Also, my husband noticed on his way into his office building for work one day that there was a gorgeous winter berry tree. He asked if he could clip a few bunches to bring home to his wife and they told him sure! We ended up using them to accent our hand made christmas tree 
I have gotten so many comments from the neighbors about how lovely it looks… and to think… the only thing we bought was a reel of wire!
I used to stress to do EVERYTHING for Christmas. One year Christmas cards were stressing me out…so I simply didn’t do them that year. I sent an email to people I would have sent cards to. Simplified my life and made a huge difference in my stress level. I figure if it’s going to stress me out, it’s probably not adding to the specialness of the season.
At my mother’s church- the youth group volunteers each year to be in charge of the Christmas cards. Each member that want to save money on stamps- brings in their Christmas cards with the names on them and then the youth group spends an evening sorting them into piles and handing them out to the members after church in the parking lot. It save a lot on postage and helps the kids to learn the names of members.
My big tip is to only do what you want to do at Christmas. When I was married I used to bake 12 different types of cookies to give as gifts and serve to guests. Now I ask my kids what ONE kind of treat they would like me to make, and I make their favorites, often with them helping. I stopped sending cards a few years ago, I couldn’t afford the postage and all the work of doing them was on my shoulders.
Last year I didn’t put up a tree for the longest time. I waited and waited and finally my 12 yr old dug the tree and decorations out of the basement. When he complained about me not doing “my” job I told him it wasn’t just up to me. And I did get help. This year I’m going to do a tree trimming party with friends to make the job easier, and I’m going to make something super easy in my slow cooker to serve my guests so I can enjoy their company and not be slave to the kitchen.
So that’s my tip, do what you love to do and anything you don’t like to do consider cutting out of the ritual of Christmas. Take away the stress!
The thing I do is just do LESS. I don’t decorate as much, I don’t bake as much, and I don’t give as many presents. I have scaled way down with doing so many things. And as a result I am a happier mommy, and way less stressful. I do the things I love and that mean the most. I spend time with family, that’s what is most important.
This can apply to Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, or any other holiday traditionally observed with a huge family meal:
Forego the fancy feast, that takes hundreds of dollars for food, plus a week or more of preparation, including cleaning, decorating, buying ingredients and cooking special food. Instead, invite friends and family over for a potluck of favorites, including hors doerves, chips and dip, desserts, and anyone’s particular specialty. It’s a whole lot simpler and less stressful than the traditional dinner, and you might just start a new tradition. Also, you’re less likely to feel uncomfortably stuffed, since it won’t be such a heavy meal.
With less fancy food prep, you can focus your attention on your guests, and even the most finicky eaters will find something they can enjoy, because they brought it. And those who can’t cook can sign up to bring serving ware, drinks, or napkins – always necessary, often forgotten.
Get a single turkey breast and roast it, so people who are craving the traditional turkey can have some, but without all the fuss and left-overs of a 20-pound frozen bird.
And, of course, it’s an excellent time to prepare a casserole, which will help you empty out your fridge, rather than stuffing it with more.
While the adults are setting up the pot-luck, the children (or anyone who doesn’t want to be in the kitchen) can decorate with paper chains and other simple craft projects. It keeps them happy and occupied, and they’re contributing to the festive spirit. Plus, it’s one less chore to perform ahead of time. A stack of contruction paper, a glue-stick, safety scissors and a roll of tape can provide some wonderful decorations. If the kids are neat enough, add glitter to the mix for that festive holiday sparkle. Who needs glass ornaments? This is particularly good if it’s going to be an all-day or overnight visit.
Don’t use paper-plates and plastic-ware. Use real plates and flatware (some non-cook can be assigned to bring it, if you don’t have enough – who says they have to match?). Fill the sink with soapy water, and let everyone put their dishes in to soak when they’re finished. When it’s time for clean-up, it will be easy as nothing will require scrubbing. If you have trouble getting people willing to do dishes, provide something special for them, to encourage volunteers. The advantages are that your simple food seems nicer, served on real plates, you’re saving money, creating less trash, and will probably have fewer messes, since there won’t be any drooping, soggy plates that are easily punctured even by a plastic knife.
Bonus for frugalites – you can buy the “feast” food on sale after the holiday, and have a turkey dinner a few days later, but without the “performance anxiety” of having guests. That’s a great time to experiment with those special holiday recipes you’ve never done before, as well.
Since our children are all grown and the youngest grandchild is 12, we spend Christmas Eve together, sharing pot-luck food and playing games. We will gift the children under 18 with gift-cards to their favorite places; but, the adults no longer receive gifts, per se. We do gift one another with either something home-made (like treats) or (copies of photos) or a special CD my husband compiles of music background and family photos taken during the past year.
Not only are we saving memories, we are doing away with much of the commercialism that has overtaken our Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus.
This has been a big time-saver for me: I buy the less expensive red fuzzy stockings for my kids, and I buy an extra one for each. That way, I can have the stockings ready to go earlier in the day on Christmas Eve (no earlier, especially since there is always fresh fruit down in the toe…). All I needed to do once the kids were asleep is simply switch the stockings.
I do this for Easter baskets, too, only adding jelly beans at the last minute.
For many, many years I have kept a journal of all the special meals that we have had – birthdays, Easter, Christmas etc. I write down the menu, how many people we had, who they were, if there was enough to go around, what I would do differently, how long that size of turkey or whatever took to cook etc.
A few years ago I started doing a little personal journaling to go along with it – reflections on the day, that sort of thing. Sometimes I decorate the page or have a child do it. In the front of the journal I keep a record of all the “special day” foods that we traditionally eat/bake.
This really makes a celebration easier to plan and it’s also fun to go through the pages reminiscing about all the family/friends gatherings we’ve had.
this might not make things easier for YOU, personally, but i know it helped some of our elderly neighbors!
We always make plates of cookies to exchange with neighbors at christmastime. (we have a close-knit neighborhood, but no “neighborhood watch”) one year, our dogs dug underneath our fence in the summer and ONE neighbor had my celphone number. (called and i was able to come get them after another neighbor rounded them up and put them in her side yard)
a few months later, another neighbor had issues with her new dog and the authorities showed up and they were going to bill her to enter the property and save the new puppy from the other more aggressive dogs… nobody had her celphone number and they were at work.
I’ve put together a list of all neighbor’s phone numbers and made copies (laminated them so it can be saved all year someplace handy, but you don’t have to do this) and when i give out cookies each year, i hand out an updated phone list so that everyone can be notified if something goes wrong while they’re at work or gone for the day. (this helps in case our 91 yr. old neighbor needs help as well, and she gets a large-print version for her home)
LOL, we do the same as Nancy. We pack the kids up in the car in there PJ’s and drive around town and look at all the lights…with Christmas music on of course! We have one particular house we all look forward to every year, they totally go crazy on lights and decorations. I can’t imagine their electric bill. We all look forward to this and heck besides a little gas it’s FREE!
Happy Holidays!!!
Growing up we filled large coffee cans (that we had decorated) with cookies and left them under the tree for unexpected guests who dropped in with a gift for us.
My kids and I have been making snowflakes the past few years. Just simple fold & cut designs – unique like each of us. We laminate them and tape them to the windows as part of our decorations.
My mother-in-law gave me the idea of themes. She would choose one thing (pajamas) and everyone in the family got them that year. One stop shopping. Or matching shirts with a family photo to follow.
I live in a small town and my daughters either work in a larger town or live there. When I see an advertisement in the paper and instead of making a special trip of 24 or 90 miles (two different towns), I ask one of my daughters to stop by and pick it up for me thereby saving money by getting it cheaper and also saving on gas.
I had my first ever garden this year. I canned lots of ordinary items and then branched out into more complex items like pepper and onion relish, carmelized onion and garlic jam, and zucchini barbeque relish. I am giving these away in gift boxes that are wrapped with fabric instead of paper. The boxes are filled with my canned jars of goodies which sport a label made on the computer by my husband. They are very cute, chemical free and can not
be found just anywhere. For those who don’t home can: I was in Dollar Tree
and they had a lot of specialty canned items (like beautiful red roasted peppers) that would make a lovely gift basket. This is my long-winded way of saying that you should give something from the heart to those you love and the most appreciated gifts do not have to cost a lot.
Allowing myself the freedom to follow my heart and do what’s right for *MY* family. That means not giving in to the commercialism and the over-buying. That means being patient and explaining (multiple times at first) why our family didn’t get a gazillion presents like So-And-So’s family does.
Once I got my head and heart together and on board, the rest followed. We give a few gifts to a treasured few, and those are primarily children. We buy for our three sons, but in a reasonable way. We use our credit cards, but only for the points and pay the bill off each month.
My sister started doing this a couple of years ago. She has everyone come to her house at 8:00 AM Christmas Day for breakfast. The majority of people as asked by my sister come in their pajamas. The kids love this, and you are able to relax in comfort.
After all have had breakfast, we open gifts. She has a Gag Gift that is passed around, no one knows what it is, but we all get a laugh out of this. Ever wonder what you can do with the pink flamingos, you got as a gift? Do a gag gift, it is loads of fun, and lots of memories are made this way.
If you wish to stay for dinner, everyone brings a dish, so the cooking isn’t all on her. Lots of visiting and tons of fun. I look forward to see who gets the gag gift,this time it is my turn to give it…..I will gladly!! : )
Our favorite tradition for Christmas is to shop for our church’s Christmas Store every year. We save money all year and plot and plan our shopping trip. We buy loads of toys (all handpicked by my 13, 15 & 16 year olds) and then deliver them to the church. We like to deliver them anonymously but sometimes we get “caught”. This year we had a new Walgreen’s open in our small town and I transferred some prescriptions to them from another pharmacy to get their free $25 certificates. Combining those with their buy 2 toys at $6.99 get the 3rd free…made for some more toys for underprivileged children. Our church will provide toys & food for about 69 families this year.
Each year since my two kids were born, I have bought them their own Christmas ornament celebrating the year. When they were young, they were just baby or cute ornaments but as they grew, I chose ornaments representing their favorite things, pastimes or accomplishments for that past year. For instance, many of my daughters early childhood ornaments were of kittens-which she loved at the time, while my son’s were usually something fierce like a tiger or bear. Over the years we added ornaments of a sport they picked up, of musical instruments they played, big trips they made, high school graduation, college, etc. When my daughter was spent one summer studying at UCLA and fall on intership in DC, I was able to find a suitcase ornament that perfectly matched her own suitcase and pasted a small UCLA pennet and DC emblems on it. I wrote the year on each of these and keep each kid’s ornaments in their own box. At Christmas, they decorate with their own ornaments, pulling out each one and remembering the years gone by. When they establish their own homes, I will pass their box to them for their own trees.
Each year, we let each of our children pick out a new ornament for the Christmas tree. All we ask is that the ornament have some meaning to them. Over the years, the ornaments have reflected their ages and interests at that time in their lives. We have fire engines, Disney characters, sports, etc. Each year, when we hang the ornaments, it is fun to reminisce about how old they were when they picked each particular ornament out and what it meant to them at the time. Once they are grown and have their own tree, they will take the ornaments with them as memories of their childhoods.
Since we retired we decided to help our grown daughters simplify Christmas a little for our side of the family. A week or so before Christmas we book rooms for everyone for one night at a local resort that has a hot pool and welcomes kids. We all eat together at the buffet dinner and breakfast and we pay the bill. We figured by the time we bought gifts for everyone, transportation, food, stocking stuffers and all the extras you talk yourself into, we would spend about the same amount per family. And it is such fun all being together in the same place without one person doing all the work. This is our third annual Family Christmas Due and we are all looking forward to it. We draw names at Thanksgiving so the kids each get one gift from aunties and uncles. That frees them all up to spend time with in laws and extended family because we’ve had our Christmas together early. It has become the highlight of the season for all of us.
Well usually I buy items i see after Christmas on sale or through out the year.Usually thrift stores or goodwill will have toys or clothes and other items that my kids are actually interested in. I still try to stick to not getting a “lot” of stuff and always include great Cheap book finds! We also reuse our christmas gift bags! I quit buying paper so long ago. I have also started using other ways to wrap gifts. Neat pillow cases or material I find at thrift stores and such. My kids actually don’t mind! I am so thankful that they enjoy getting clothes as much as the other items. It makes me think, “WOW, maybe they are getting the real meaning!” Thus they are listening to their mom and dad sometimes! Thanks for the contest.
Lora
These are all great ideas I hope to use in the future! I don’t have many ideas of my own since I am still learning on simplifying my life and I am a young mom and wife and haven’t had much practice yet with Christmas family traditions. However my husband and I have decided on doing small gifts, handmade, consumables like pens and special treats, that fit in our stockings, and only those for each other and the kids, and sometimes we add the very practical and needed variety like warm new gloves, socks and undergarments. Usually we will have a max amt. never more than 50$. So far it has been nice for us to not have to thing of that really neat ‘special’ gift and ‘big’ gift and we don’t hardly shop this time of year.
I’m making small photo albums for my family members. For my 7-year-old grandson, it’s in the form of a story book called “When Mommy Was a Little Girl.” This project makes a bite-size chunk of the overwhelming project of organizing our familly photos, it’s inexpensive and fun for me, and it’s something they can’t just go out and buy for themselves.
Happy Christmas trails!
Judith
—-
Judith Waite Allee
Co-author “Educational Travel on a Shoestring”
and “Homeschooling on a Shoestring”
My family always had a “green” Christmas before “green” was cool. We rarely bought new decorations, but used the ones from years before. Over the years, the decorations became vintage, then antique. They’re much prettier than the made-in-China stuff now stocked in stores, and much more durable.
My parents kept in the loft above their garage a huge moving box. Every November, we’d bring it down. Inside were boxes they’d collected and saved from Christmases past. Many were “Cox’s boxes” — nice textured white cardboard boxes from Cox’s Dept. Store (now closed). The Cox’s logo was in a circle in the middle of the lid; we’d just cover that up with a bow and were good to go if a white box was OK. Or, we’d giftwrap the box. We’d save those boxes from year to year, and add to our collection whenever we got a gift in a good box that was reusuable. It saved us from having to go buy gift boxes — the shirt boxes or robe boxes you get today are so flimsy it’s ridiculous. Also in that large box were stored giftwrap and ribbon bought during the previous year’s after Christmas sales.
We also used the fronts of old Christmas cards as gift wrap decorations. We’d save the prettiest ones we’d gotten the year before and simply taped them onto the package fronts.
Today, I do something similar — I buy the gift bags after Christmas and reuse them. I also have some really pretty already-decorated boxes I bought at some gift stores (the kind that are wrapped in velveteen and other fabrics). I tell my out of town visitors that they’re getting the gift inside and I will keep the boxes to use for their gifts the next time they visit. Since they can’t take those boxes on the airline anyway, they’re agreeable to this.
My grandmother would “deck the halls with boughs of holly” — and also cedar branches. She cut the holly and cedar from the bushes in her own backyard. She put the greenry around on her mantle and elsewhere in her living and dining rooms — free decorations every Christmas! She’d accent these arrangements with ornaments or figurines — whatever she had on hand.
One of her neighbors did a frugal outdoor decorating trick. The lady saved her aluminum foil pie pans from the grocery store or bakery, punched a hole in the middle of each one, and arranged them in a triangle outside. She then strung colored outdoor Christmas lights through each hole. She used the old kind — C7 or C9 size. When you drove by after dark she had some really pretty outdoor Christmas trees all lit up. The aluminum reflected the colors of the lights and made them look much bigger and shinier.
In all of these instances, we bought things to use again and again, often on sale, or reused things we already had on hand.
My suggestiong is just keep it simple. The simpler the better. My kids don’t have lots of presents to open on Xmas morning. They get a few things they want and that is it. I make them a wonderful dinner with lots of leftovers and some desserts they ask for (I only have two kids) and they are happy with that. This year we are traveling to my inlaws place so we didn’t even set up the tree and haul out the decorations. They know that isn’t the reason for the season…it is just decoration. I love them and am glad they know the difference and are not into such a commercialized Xmas.
Thank you for keeping up your blog. I really appreciated you doing the work and helping others.
Tracy
Every year since they were born, for Christmas I always gift my children ornaments that represent important events in their lives that year or special places they have visited along with the year on it. Many years they receive more than one, for example if they got braces and joined the diving team. I’ve also bought them their own small Christmas trees in the after-holiday sales so they can put these up in their rooms. Their trees filled with their ornaments serve as a timeline for them to look back on. By the time they are ready to have their own families, they will have a big head start on decorations for their family tree. I’ve also done this for sisters, nieces, nephews and friends. It’s not surprising now for me to receive one from them also. Every year as I hang them, I think about the special person that gave that special memento to me. Our tree represents love and that is what the season is all about.
I am trying a new “system” of handling all the holiday to-do lists. I am only attempting one or two things each day and since my husband and I are now empty nesters we can choose to do as much or as little as we like. So, the first day of the season I went through some recipes and chose and made some cookies that were new to us–molasses crinkles. On the second day I located the cookie tins and set up the nativity set. On the third day I got out the pillow covers with a holiday pattern and put them on top of the normal sofa pillows. On the fourth day I set up two boxes for the out of town daughters and located the presents I had been slowly acquiring for them. One more shopping trip and a wrapping day and they will be ready to send. I have been so much less stressed than when I tried to tackle a whole bunch of things on one day that I think I will stay with this method from now on. It is keeping the joy in the season and that keeps me remembering our reason for the season–it is Christ’s birthday. Thank you for your newsletter. It is a gift each time I receive it.
My family decided a few years back that it was much easier to have lighter meals for our Christmas get-together and so we have had 2 different kinds of soup, a salad or veggie tray, and we make home-made ice cream from scratch for dessert. We have also grilled out some years when the winter was more mild so there are less dishes to wash. Course we also have all the goodies our family makes of our favorite cookies and candies. We decided that the meal was not the reason we come together, but time to share the real meaning of Christmas and enjoy time with our loved ones while we have the opportunity to be together. Besides, with all the goodies most of us found we were not overly hungry for a full course meal. We each bring something for the meal and so it is not all on the person who is hosting it. We found that it saved us a lot of stress over what to have and the clean up time was cut in half. We all enjoy the time together much better!
I host my family for Christmas dinner . Cooking for this large a bunch can be a time consuming and expensive undertaking. Last year I decided to put pen to paper and add up what the desserts would cost me to buy from a bakery . Considering my time as well I did not save any money making them from scratch. I simplified my holiday baking and was not as frazeled by trying to get everything made . Also Stoffers frozen macaroni and cheese taste just like homemade. I also am adding Sister Shubert rolls this year to simplify my baking. Planning ahead and useing my freezer really helps with simplifying the holiday.
Lovely day!
Stefanie
Try new recipes and projects all year long. Save tried and true family favorites and traditions for holidays. It is what people look forward to & enjoy the most. This year we tried some new things at Thanksgiving and got several disappointed comments at not having particular regular items. It may sometimes seems like a rut to you, but to others it represents the holiday and your family. It becomes a comforting tradition.
Lynne
My favorite ideas for Christmas and any holidays are:
A hand-made instead of expensive, store-bought gift.
A hand-made card with a note or poem.
Potluck dinner with friends.
Books from garage sale or thrift store.
As we approach our biggest holiday and gift-giving season, we should take a moment to rethink (our way of living), refuse (commercialism), regifting (what we have received), repurpose and reuse (what we have), recycle (what we don’t need).
Deb, Thanks for the contest and for encouraging people to share their holiday ideas and traditions. It’s a great idea.
Wish you and your family Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Wow, so many comments, I’ll be spending all day here just reading them all! So that you won’t have to read too much more, let me be succinct:
WHITE ELEPHANT GIFTS!
We live rurally and don’t know many folks in our community. I love to bake but find so many folks are “baked out” through the holidays, but really appreciate the thoughtfulness behind this gift idea:
Make your favorite classic cookies…(ie:chocolate chip or peanut butter) and freeze the dough either in a log or shaped into drop cookies in individual Zip loc freezer bags in size quantity appropriate for the recipent along with the recipe and baking instructions. If it’s someone who hasn’t had much baking delivered (especially seniors) then maybe they’ll want to make some up during the holidays, and if not, they’re a nice quick treat for after things have settled down a bit. It’s nice because they can cook a few or the entire batch…I like being able to bring out a few and bake them fresh when I know friends will be calling without the “fuss and muss” of baking them from scratch.
Here’s a GREAT Peanut Butter Cookie recipe from Martha Stewart that never fails to impress and it’s EASY!
1 1/4 c all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 c unsalted butter (2 sticks) Room Temperature
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 c smooth peanut butter
1/2 c salted peanuts
Preheat oven to 350. Sift flour and baking soda
Cream butter and both sugars until pale and fluffy (about 3 mins)
Add egg, mix well.
Mix in vanilla and then peanut butter.
Reduce speed to low.
Add flour mixture and mix until just combined.
Stir in peanuts.
Drop by heaping tablespoons onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 1 1/2 inches apart.
Dip the bottom of a glas in flour, tapping off excess and use it to flatten balls slightly.
Firmly press fork tines into each dough ball to make a cross-hatch pattern.
Bake cookies, roatating sheets half way through, until centres are firm and edges are lightly browned, about 25 minutes.
Transfer cookies on parchment to a wire rack to cool completely.
Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to three days.
OR
Once you’ve mixed the ingredients, roll into a log shape and freeze or individual drop cookie shapes on a cookie sheet, freeze and once frozen place in Zip Loc freezer bags.
Gift wrap either as giant “Christmas Crackers” (remembering to tell the recipient that they must be frozen or baked and NOT left under the tree)
Remember to add cooking instructions and recipe…
Enjoy!
I hid my husband’s one credit card, and he hid mine. We carry a small amount of cash, and can’t spend what we don’t have in our pocket! This year both of our grandchildren said they wanted part of their gifts to be gifts to others. Right after Thanksgiving, we started choosing how they would want us to spend on others, and they got so excited about it, they decided to use all of the money that would have been spent on them on others in need. We’ve rec’d some notes for their “donations” and will put them in their stockings, along with some small gifts. We are pleased with their decision, but even more pleased at how happy it’s made them feel to know they are doing something good! By the way, they not only provided for needy people, but the farm animals of some needy people. They sent money for feed, and they’ve been invited to come and help hand out that feed to the animals. What a gift for them!
Since this has been a hard year and money is tight, I wanted to remember my friends, co-workers and neighbors with some small gift, but have no money. I love to bake, so I pulled out all my baking supplies out of the cabinet, and got out my cookbooks to look for recipes to make cookies with what I already had. So, now I have several kinds of cookies, individual pound cakes and banana nut breads to give. All I spent out of pocket was $2.00 at the dollar store, for the small cellophane gift bags to package them in.
Our children are very young (4 and 2) and I am not willing to put all the nice ornaments on our Christmas tree until they are older and stop playing with them. The past few years, we’ve mainly done lights and a few select ornaments. This year, my little tots began decorating the tree on their own before the lights were even on it–they beautifully decorated the bottom half with all the play food from their play kitchen. it was so nice to see them playing nicely together and enjoying themselves. Then, my 2 yo daughter decided it was time to “clean up” and put all of the food items away. The next morning, my son decided we could have a space tree and proceeded to decorate the tree (still without lights!) with all of his little (and larger!) astronauts and rockets and other space-related toys. His sister enjoyed helping and I enjoyed adding the pictures of them as “astronauts” from my son’s birthday party earlier in the year. A very enjoyable, and inexpensive, and simple way to decorate and enjoy some Christmas spirit together! We may never get the tree decorated for “real” but I hope to at least wrap some lights around so we can see the space tree at night. Merry Christmas, everyone.
Just heard this one…
One mother of 10, yes ten, took simple stockings for each family member and added a “trinket” each year. A charm, a patch, a few beads… so her 52 yr. old son has 52 items on his stocking. As new members join (by marriage or birth) they also receive a stocking. “Mom” keeps all the stockings in a tub to be brought out on Christmas day. Each family member brings a bag of something to contribute to all the stockings and they are enjoyed and then returned to the stocking tub til next year. I really like that idea!
Since our oldest who is now 21 was a baby, my mother in law suggested we spend Christmas Eve at her house, and that way we didn’t have to try to visit both my family and my husband’s family all in one day. It was so exhausting and I could never thank my dear mother in law enough for creating this new tradition for all of us!
Another thing I have done in the last couple of years is prepare all the stocking stuffers in seperate bags for my three children so that I am not up all night trying to distribute them once we get back home Christmas Eve. Once we are home and we have sent our youngest to bed, the older children and I and my husband fill the stockings and take a bite of Santa’s cookie and drink his milk or hot chocoate and we all are able to get the sleep we need for our early rising on Christmas Morning.
It has taken the stress away and helped me to love Christmas again!
This year preparing for Christmas has been so much less stressful because I made a point of shopping all year starting the day after Christmas clearance sale. Then I hand made recipebooks (my personal recipes) for our 2 daughters-cardstock, computer & photo album. Also crocheted an afghan for my husband that he’s surely forgotten about. We play bingo Christmas Day with $5 prizes. All year I had my eye on the look out for great deals. Even shopped garage sales and thrift shops. So my main advice is prepare all year long.
I have 7 nieces and nephews on my side of the family, and my husband has 7 on his side as well, so it made Christmas very expensive and stressful when it came time to gift-giving! What we decided on my side of the family (the kids are a bit older) is to buy ONE gift from ALL of the aunts and uncles that may cost a bit more than what we were originally spending. That way the parents, who know what the children desired for Christmas could buy the gift for their child, but everyone made a contribution towards the purchase and the parents were now able to give a pricier gift that they may not have been able to do before, and I wouldn’t have to spend as much (because it was divided among so many people) and I didn’t have to shop for that child either. This is what works for my family, it may not work for everyone’s family. We also eliminated adult gift giving, since we really don’t need anything and it isn’t important to us anyway. We just love all spending time together as a family so the gifts are not our focus when it comes to Christmas. Have a blessed Christmas!!
My favorite tip, activity, AND idea for simplifying our Christmas celebrations is a family White Elephant Exchange. This evolved in our family for the adults, because we had made a decision to exchange presents for the kids only. Our rules are simple–you are responsible for only one gift. You can re-gift, resale shop, buy new, or make it. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is to spend no more than $20…and to have fun. We always do have so much fun with our exchange, sometimes laughing so hard we cry. The kids want to be included in it because we have so much fun. In the course of the 10 or 11 years we have done this, “The Christmas Chipmunk” made his appearance. Since coming on the scene, I think he has made an appearance every year. Being the matriarch of the family, I always make sure I have an extra “nice” gift to give to the Chipmunk recipient, so that no one really is disappointed or upset with getting it. The kids all howl with laughter when some poor unsuspecting person unwraps the Chipmunk, and we all have to listen to it’s rendition of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”.
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