<p>I love the coupon idea! Thanks JMMom!</p>
<p>Thanks for all the ideas! I think the puzzles, games, and movies might work. Vacations are out of the question. After reading responses, the brainstorm that I have is that each of us picks a movie, game, or puzzle we want to share with the rest of the family. This will be not only less expensive, but will help provide entertainment throughout the holidays. We’ll talk over Thanksgiving about adopting a family or joining several other families to adopt a family or, through our church, helping a former inmate to transition to the outside world. </p>
<p>We’ve done the coupons before and it was great when the kids were younger. Unfortunately, the kid aren’t around anymore to “cash in” the value.</p>
<p>Cook something incredibly elaborate and time-consuming together. One Christmas we made croissants from scratch. Lots of butter and lots of rolling out of dough. Decorated cookies also work.</p>
<p>Go to the park and walk together.</p>
<p>Many years I give books to everyone and we all spend the afternoon just hanging out and reading. (I have been known to declare it a computer-free day.)</p>
<p>Buy travel books and plan a fantasy trip together.</p>
<p>Go to the movies. Caveat: do not go to a movie where the dog dies. (If there is a dog in the plot, the dog will always die.)</p>
<p>Right now, as we are having the first disgustingly cold and rainy day of the year here in Portland, I am giving thought to Christmas in someplace like Arizona…</p>
<p>My friends and I go caroling. We’ve got little books of lyrics that we printed up years ago, and we haul the books out every year and bundle up and go door to door. (We have one friend who’s Jewish and doesn’t know any of the lyrics or tunes, and can’t sing besides–she’s in charge of the jingle bells, and is probably merrier than the rest of us combined!)</p>
<p>We watch our favorite movies. Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life top the list. We used to string popcorn and cranberries to decorate with while we were watching.</p>
<p>My mom’s family did a gift exchange/secret Santa kind of thing for many years, but we’ve gotten bored with it recently. Last year we did the First Annual (Aibarr’s) Family Billy Mays Memorial “As Seen on TV” Gift Exchange… Had to be less than ten dollars, had to be as seen on TV, and had to be wrapped. We put all the wrapped presents in the middle of the room. One at a time, according to numbers drawn out of a hat, everyone gets a turn to either pick a present out of the pile and unwrap it for all to see, or to steal someone else’s present and make that person open another present from the pile. It ends up being pretty madcap-shenanigans, and at less than ten dollars apiece, it’s <em>really</em> not about the gift. (I ended up with some Hercules Hooks!)</p>
<p>Christmas actually brings Jews and Muslims together – at the cineplex.</p>
<p>Our family’s Christmas tradition has been to play Santa for someone who needs help and to do it anonymously because, like Santa, we want to give without expecting anything in return (including thanks).</p>
<p>Our church sponsors a Christmas Day dinner for those who would otherwise be alone on Christmas (i.e. elderly people who do not have family or whose families are celebrating the holidays on a different day). For the past eight years, our family has worked a shift at that dinner.</p>
<p>aibarr, we do something similar at the office but it’s “tacky” stuff. It’s a lot of fun. I like your variation.</p>
<p>I love the cook-something-elaborate idea. We are all foodies/cooks… but even so avoid the really elaborate stuff that takes hours. It’s a perfect group activity, though and I’m going to consider it for this year.</p>
<p>We sometimes have a group project of painting small ornaments for the tree. You can buy (or even make) inexpensive cardboard shapes at the craft store and use inexpensive paints to color them. Little kids love it - for hours! - and it’s especially fun for people who don’t consider themselves artistic at all to make their piece. </p>
<p>If you don’t want tree ornaments, or don’t want to paint, you can have everyone cut snowflakes. Once you get the knack of folding the paper into thirds (try youtube) it’s quite easy and can have comical results!</p>
<p>Growing up we always decorated the tree on Christmas Eve. One of my favorite parts of Christmas morning is when we all dig into our stockings. It’s a challenge to find lots of small items for my H & S’s stockings, but I usually manage to do it inexpensively. (I seem to remember last year there was a great cc thread on ideas for stockings.) I wrap many of the stocking items to make it last longer & add to the anticipation. Also, we always watch the movie A Christmas Story together as a family.</p>
<p>This is a fun thread :)</p>
<p>I hope you don’t think that everyone in the movie is either Jewish or Muslim. Growing up my mother always sent us all to the movies on Christmas afternoon with my dad while she stayed home and took a nap. We always ran into almost everyone we knew, and we were all Catholic.</p>
<p>We fill “love boxes” actually gift wrapped shoe boxes for kids at a mountain mission school. Everyone likes to fill the ones for the little kids or the girls because they are easier to buy for, so we always choose teenage boys. We also buy gifts for the “angel tree” at church. For some reason, I love shopping for both of these, which is funny because I normally hate Christmas shopping.</p>
<p>I am getting the gift I want most this year. My parents and my sister and her family will be coming to our house for Christmas. We live 800 miles from family, so we are very excited.</p>
<p>we have a decent sized family - my grandparents on my moms side had 4 kids, all of which are married and have kids… some of which have also married and had kids… so every christmas we meet up at my grandparents house in the afternoon and do a family gift exchange. Sometime near thanksgiving we put everyones name in a hat and pick someone to buy for. Only rule is it can’t be someone in your branch of the family (ie, i can’t pick my mother, because I get her a gift anyway). We spend 40 dollars. My grandmother usually cooks a turkey, my uncle makes wings, someone else makes shrimp, etc and we enjoy the day together. it’s the one time of the year where everyone is together.</p>
<p>We give photo calendars. I use shutterfly.com to make them. They’re under our $20 limit and everybody treasures them. </p>
<p>Dated tree ornaments are another one of our inexpensive traditions.</p>
<p>One of the things we actually like most about Christmas is the rare day that we can all spend together…yes we have our gifts , but a lot of emphasis is on the special foods we create that one day…from a decadent brunch to a special dinner, we spend the day watching DVDs ( that I buy like a mad woman , used from Amazon ) and as much as we love to indulge in the food, it is only our immediate family that day, so pajamas worn all day are perfectly acceptable !
Since we have a retail store , it is the last real push for the year and my husband doesn’t have a day off from the week before Thanksgiving until December 25th…he is the one taking the day off from shaving and getting out of PJs more than the rest of us :D</p>
<p>It makes me sad that Christmas has become a dreaded time of year for me. I’d rather drive dull pencils through both eyes than shop, so that aspect of Christmas is especially dreadful. Because our Christmases involve numerous extended family members each year, there are lots of gifts to purchase though none of us <em>need</em> anything. I have suggested organized charities, needy families (I work at a school and know of several), etc., but it’s never met with great enthusiasm. I have also suggested renting a cabin, playing board games, watching movies, cooking meals together and just having lots of family fun instead of exchanging gifts. I’m sure that won’t happen, either. I miss the days when I was a worry-free kid and would lie in the floor of the living room, listening to Christmas music and watching the color slowly turn as it illuminated the aluminum tree. I want my old Christmas back!</p>
<p>GT,</p>
<p>I can’t tell you how much I am appreciating this thread. It has given me food for thought.
My son has been living in Europe since he graduated from college in 2003. My D is finishing college in May, and has also decided to live in Europe.</p>
<p>Son will be getting married over there in July, so his visit home for Christmas will be the last time the four of us are together as this specific unit. </p>
<p>I’m gathering ideas from all of you here to make it extra special.</p>
<p>
FallGirl, you are saints! But inquiring minds <em>need</em> to know… what types of things do you buy for the teenage boys (actually I needed to know this 5+ years ago… but maybe your ideas will extend to 20-somethings).</p>
<p>SplashMom, I feel for you. I know that family dynamics often mean it isn’t as easy as I’m about to say. But dreading Christmas is not worth it! And I am willing to bet that you are not the only one in your family who hates the shopping for lots of extended family members who don’t need anything.</p>
<p>So… sure… you can’t get them all on board. But you <em>can</em> decide that your gift(s) this year will be 1 or 2 or 3 puzzles or board games that all will play. We love Trivial Pursuit (we always play Boys against Girls; my S remembers the Boys always winning - that is FALSE 
); I hear the new one “Men are from Mars” is good.</p>
<p>Go for it! When they kvetch at you, you can hole up in your room, grab your PC and post on cc. We’ll have your back!</p>
<p>We’ve always been a cash-strapped family. </p>
<p>This is our family routine:
Christmas Eve we ride around as a family to go look at Christmas lights. We know the good neighborhoods. Mostly free entertainment :).
Then we go home. My mom makes hot cocoa and I play Christmas music on my keyboard.
The next morning we open up a few presents… but not many as we’re usually very tight on money. I make blueberry muffins :). Then we spend the day making the rounds to (some) relatives’ and (mostly) friends’ houses, followed at night by a big dinner with my parents’ best friends and their kids. </p>
<p>We never spend much on Christmas, but we never seem to go without. Christmas is HUGE in my family because it was the holiday that my mom and her mom really went all-out for. Her mom passed away three weeks after Christmas (will be 17 years in January) and so my mom and I keep the big Christmas traditions. My mom grew up poor (military brat, immigrant parents, 3 brothers) and so did I. I learned very early on that gifts were not the important part of Christmas. </p>
<p>Really, it’s all about the family and friends. As long as you have them, you don’t need much else. Screw presents. Share a round of hot tea, hot cocoa, or egg nog and just enjoy one another!</p>
<p>Splashmom,
I don’t know if it helps, but I have gone to Brookstone’s for much of my shopping, sometimes spending $200-300 for extended family. I bought a talking clock, several soft throws, socks, wine openers, plush toys, etc. One year they had a gadget for the car that cut the seat belt and cracked open the window, which is a useful tool in my part of the world if one’s car goes into the water.</p>
<p>I also do a lot of baking, and give out cakes/cookies in reuseable containers.</p>
<p>Seems strange, but for years my tradition was to work that day in hospital or residential program.</p>