Frugal Living

Ok, how do those of you with large families and not much money do Christmas? This is my first experience with a large family and Christmas. My significant other and I have five kids all together ages 14, 12, 10, 10, and 4. How can we celebrate Christmas without going bankrupt? We thought of having them each draw a name out of a hat or getting one thing (like a Wii) for the whole family, but I'm afraid buying the one thing for the family might leave someone feeling left out if they don't care for it. I would love to hear suggestion, ideas, or things that have worked for your family! Thanks!

Marla

Are you crafty?  There are a lot of things you can make for kids if you are :)

For girls, you could make your own lip gloss/balm, bath salts.  If they are still at the age where they play in the tub, you could make soap and imbed toys in them. 

For each of the kids you could do a dollar store popcorn size bowl, put some popcorn in it (unpopped, you can also buy it in bulk and bag it yourself), make a spice jar size container of popcorn seasoning (you can do different flavors for each kid, whatever their fave flavor is) and a certificate to pick out the movie at the rental store, or pick a movie to watch on TV or in your own movie collection, depending on your budget. 

With five kids, maybe also certificates for the kids to spend one-on-one time with you or with your hubby.  Ie. Spending the morning window shopping and having a hot chocolate if that interests them, or maybe going to the park to throw baseballs for the boys.  There are a lot of things you can dream up, and the only thing it costs you is time... and making sure the other parent can watch the rest of the kids.  Especially when a family is large, that one on one time can be pretty coveted!

If one of your kids wants clothes for Christmas, you could take them shopping after Christmas to get good deals and more bang for your buck than if you bought them earlier, and you could tie it into a one-on-one time thing too.

Again, especially with younger kids, quantity usually has a bigger impact the quality :)  Spending $10 for a bunch of little things is often better than a single $10 gift, etc.

If you decide to go for a Wii, and one child isn't that enthused about it, maybe make sure one of the games will really interest him/her. 

We don't have a large family but we intentionally keep Christmas gift giving simple. Keeping our focus on our faith and some simple family traditions.

Traditions: 

We decorate a simple tree.  We have a small home so our tree is a 4 1/2 ft table top size.  We decorate it with white lights, cranberry/popcorn strings and pine cones.   

 *Your kids could have a lot of fun listening to Christmas Carols and stringing the popcorn and cranberries.  We usually turn on some Christmas music, make hot cocoa and extra popcorn for eating of course and make a night of it.

Movies:  Starting in December we will start to watching a Christmas movie each weekend.  We have a nice collection to choose from as we will raid the $5 Bargain bin at Walmart each year and add a new title to our home collection.

Take a Drive: The weekend before Christmas we take a nice long drive and take in all the lighting displays.

Baking: Gingerbread houses are always fun to make and decorate.   This year we are doing Gingerbread cookies instead, but it's still fun.  We also do a birthday cake for Jesus each year.

Decor:  Your younger children may enjoy making decorations for around the house, Construction paper chains make great garland, drawings to decorate the cabinet doors in the kitch etc...  You may even be able to pick up some small artificial trees at a Goodwill or some place like that and let each kid have one in their room to decorate special.

 Adopt a family: We always adopt a family to help out at Christmas.  We box up all the fixings needed to make a great Christmas dinner.  GC to buy a turkey or ham, gravy mix, bag of potatoes, fixin's for Green bean casserole and of course a box of cake mix and frosting.

Stockings: Keep it simple.  Roll up a magazine, comic books or coloring book and tie off with ribbon.  This fills out the center of the stocking nicely.   Add in a box of crayons for the one getting a coloring book and fill in with hard candies, gum, an individual bag of microwave popcorn, homemade granola, dried fruit and nuts (I put these in sandwich bags and tie off with ribbon to keep them from making a mess. You can also go to a candy shop and make small bags of gummy bears and other special candies as well).  Add in a new toothbrush and an travel sized toothpaste in each child's favorite flavor.

As for gifts.  We try to follow the "something to wear, something to read, something he wants, something he needs" rule for the gifts.  This can be true for each kid and still keep you within a budget, you just have to keep it simple. 

In this case.

• Graphic T shirt
• Book and journal
• GC to Borders to buy what he wants
• Guitar strings

As for sibling gifts (I'm one of five), we do a name draw and set a $ limit.  No reason you can't do that with the kids now.

 stacy

most of my ideas are homemade variety-

When my kids were growing up Pillow pals were a popular item...

 these were just an item that was made from the shape of a square soft washable throw cushion...

for instance it wouldn't take much to make a Court Jester out of a Crushed velvet micro fiber cushion 14 "x14"

which were selling around here for 7.00 this week at Giant tiger...just need to add felt arms& legs & a pale oval for a face...Another character i have seen made from lionbrand.com are knitted or crocheted items similar to this called little monsters....these ones were one eyed square or triangle shape-adding a bit of novelty yarn for hair however making from scratch like this you would need to add in stuffing..

check thesite i mentioned -if you knit of rcrochet or sew you may ge tmany more ideas..

for the older ones -you could make a movie or game basket...

even kids who like techie gifts could enjoy a book ...

there are sites that have directions to a Journal kit for all ages..mainly thejournal is accompanied with a plastic jar with strips of paper accompanying it giving suggestions for what to write about..ex./your first crush/about your best friend/questions that help kids   express themselves..

art kits,crafting kits,..spy guys kits

Thank you for all of the great ideas!  This is the second Christmas for my husband and I together as a family and the first Christmas with our baby boy.  We both feel Christmas should focus on Jesus and giving and are looking for ways to incorporate traditions into the holiday for the future.

We both want to make sure our son (and future children) have memorable holidays, but don't feel like that means spending a fortune or having them receive a million gifts.  I have great memories from when I was a child and they revolve around my family just being together.  I love the "something to wear, something to read, something he wants, something he needs" rule!  This is perfect!