Cheap Christmas Gifts

Cheap Christmas gifts does not mean a miserable Christmas or unhappy people. In fact it can be a bit of a return to the good old days before comercialism.

Remebe when just knowing that the gift you received came from the heart and not just with a big price tag. In fact the only time I can remember my mother crying with happiness at a gift was once as a child when i bourght her a pencil sharpener sahped like a fish and recently when i bourght her a hot water bottle with a furry cover.

Both were cheap Christmas gifts, but both meant more to her than all the jewellery and perfume I had bourght her over the years.

christmas frugal gifts - Christmas candle for frugal fun by Laenulfean on flickr

picture by Laenulfean

Make your own Christmas frugal gifts

My boyfriend used to give me a gift every year that he had either made or that he had personalised himself. These were the best gifts I ever received. Making gifts yourself can be fun, look great and can be very easy on the purse.

Here are a few suggestions on some homemade Christmas frugal gifts:

Home baked Cookies - why not bake some cookies and put them a glass jar, fasten a big colourful ribbon around the top. Or use an old sweet tin and decorate it with cut out Christmas pictures and glitter.

Hand puppets - Kids love puppets and they can be easily made using cut up material from old clothes, scraps of wool etc. My mother gave my sister and me a family of wooden spoon puppets when we were kids, they were one of the best toys we ever had and we played with them for years.

Take a kitchen wooden spoon; draw a face on the bowl of the spoon using felt tip pens. Stick wool on top with glue for the hair and cut out simple triangles of cloth and glue on for the clothes. Different hairstyles and faces can make a variety of family members so easily. You could even take it one step further and make a stage or television screen out of a large cardboard box decorated with paint and coloured paper. This was one of the best presents I remember recieving from my mum, because she made them. I didn't realise that were frugal living at all.

picture by Wostoutmonks

Knit a jumper - if you are a dab hand at knitting, why not buy second-hand jumpers from a charity store and reuse the wool to knit your own jumpers, socks and gloves. This frugal idea was suggested by my partners mum who is always using wool from old jumpers for all her knitting projects and believe me she knits a lot.

Grow your own Plants and herbs - A really lovely cheap Christmas gift to give is a pot of fresh grown herbs or a plant. You will have to think of this gift well in advance to give you time to grow them but it will be well received and will show you have put some thought into the gift.

Family Album - why not collect together some old family photographs and put them into an album. You could decorate the outside of the album or you could personalise each page with either decoration or with a few words about each picture.

Framed Poem - write in your best curly writing a short poem and frame it. You could also hand stitch the poem if you are handy with a needle and thread.

More cheap Christmas gifts

If you simply do not have the time to hand make your gifts, there are plenty of gifts that will not cost too much but will be considered as excellent presents.

The secret is to match a gift to each person's personality or circumstances. For instance a student away at college might really appreciate a cookbook of cheap easy to prepare recipes or a newly married couple might like some plants for their new home.

Some inexpensive gifts could include:

Board games - many can be found in charity stores

Books - there are many good second hand or discount bookshops

Pamper baskets - make up a basket of bathroom luxuries like bath salts, soaps, talc and other personal care items.

Blank Cd's, DVD's, and Videos - All these items can be bought very cheaply now but are very useful items to receive. Glam them up by wrapping them in some nice Christmas paper.

Candles - I love receiving candles and they can easily be personalised or made to look Christmassy. Bunch three candles together and bind them with ribbon or holly twigs. You could even buy some cheap candlesticks and spay paint them with silver and gold and present the candles inside them.

With a little thought and some clever use of ribbons and glitter almost anything can be made to look more attractive of expensive then it really is. So cheap Christmas gifts need not appear to be dull or uninteresting, just add your personal touch.