Monday, December 29, 2014

Christmas on a Budget

If you have been following along with me and this blog for a while you know we recently returned to our home town.  Just over a year ago we moved to Florida and tried to start a new business down there and have a change of pace for us.  A few months ago we returned to our home town and are struggling to make ends meet. This month we are struggling to make our rent payment, that kind of struggling. In the end, I am sure we will squeak through. But I digress.  When we moved to Florida we got rid of a bunch of our stuff.  Like over half of all our belongings and a TON of our holiday decorations.  Last year we didn't even dig into our Christmas decorations at all.  I am anxious to open our few boxes we did save to see what we have.

Luckily, the kids aren't asking for much this year and it looks like we will be able to get them what they are asking for with some scrimping on other things.  For others on our list, look for homemade items.  Our kids will be getting lots of homemade items too.  Over the next couple weeks I will be posting some patterns and ideas that I had while preparing for the holidays.

This year I am focusing on crafts and creations, baking and activities.  These can be fun and cheap.  We will be going to look at the lights around our town, enjoying free activities, and having family nights where we will watch holiday themed tv shows. (By the way, we don't have cable so we can't record them and watch when we want, which can make the event even more exciting because we will get one chance to see some of these shows.)

Last night I was on Pinterest and found some fun crafts that we will be doing over the next few weeks.

The above was written in the beginning of December.  Here is the update.....................

Christmas is over. We are now awaiting New Year's Eve.

We never got around to all those great Pinterest ideas.  I still want to make some snowflakes to hang on our walls for winter.

The kids did most of the decorating for Christmas and they did a great job.  I never actually dug into our boxes of decorations to see what we had and didn't have anymore.  I ended up working all but 3 days prior to Christmas so I didn't have much time.

We did some baking, made Gingerbread houses out of kits and they turned out great.  We created a pretty "Frozen" tree for our front foyer. We put lights outside our condo and on our balcony.

The time leading up to Christmas seemed to fly by, faster than in years past. My goal for next year is to slow down time.  Ha ha..... I do wish I had that super power though.