25 Free & Inexpensive Ways To Have The Best Christmas Ever
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Christmas times a comin!
Today I’m sharing some of the things we do around Christmas time that are free or inexpensive and bring unending joy to our lives. The absolute best parts of Christmas don’t have to cost money to be amazing and memorable.
In fact, Prepare yourself because if you do everything on this list, you just may end up having one of the best Christmases Ever!
Ready? Get your jingle bells on and let’s go!
1. Countdown- Make it an event!
2. Decorate!
As I type this, I am sitting in a room illuminated only by Christmas tree lights – and it is just as magical now as it was when I was a kid.Sure, I look at the tree and sometimes think of those who are no longer with us to enjoy it with, sure it was a lot of work and may not be as appreciated by others, but that isn’t why I did it.
My daughter and I spent all this past weekend decorating this tree and our house while my husband and son were away on a retreat (we’ve long ago learned that they don’t really care about decorating like we do) and while we were doing it I told her “Now Katy, when you grow up, you put up a tree every year. You see how much work this was to do? Even if it was just me, I’d still do it.”
My grandmother lived alone after Grandaddy passed away and even though anyone seldom went into her house (she lived across the road from my mother and spent her days at Mama’s house so that is where she always was when we came to visit) she still put her tree up every year.
She said “Someone told me once there wasn’t no sense in putting it up if there wasn’t anyone there to enjoy it. But I’m here and I sure do enjoy it“.
Even if it is just you, you are worth it. Decorate.
And stop with the excuses – it doesn’t have to be expensive. A package of construction paper can be bought for a few dollars and will provide a house full of decorations. Add a bottle of glue and $2 of glitter and you’ve expanded even more.
Also, don’t worry about when you put your tree up. Put your tree up whenever you feel like putting your tree up. For us that is often November 1st! The ironic thing about people who complain about folks putting a tree up before Thanksgiving is that they themselves are choosing to avoid being thankful and instead spend their time complaining about something that does not even take place in their home.
I’ve never once found my gratitude dampened when sitting in a room with Christmas lights. If you feel inclined to put a Christmas tree up in July, don’t take a poll of opinions first, just do it.
Fun Ideas:
- My sister in law’s family had a tradition when they were little that the first night the tree was up the kids slept in sleeping bags in the living room around it. I can only imagine how magical that was!
- Mama’s favorite new thing that she has started doing is putting a timer on her tree so that when she wakes up the tree is all lit up. She even does that on a small tabletop tree in her bedroom so that the tree goes off after she goes to sleep and comes on before she wakes up.
3. Give Crazy Gifts
4. Make a Christmas ornament with your child’s picture on it and the date
5. Give a Little Christmas
6. Host a Dirty Santa!
7. Read a special Christmas story to a child
8. Make as many gifts as possible
There are all kinds of ways to make a gift, the options are endless. Embroidered handkerchiefs, stitch tote bags, bake cookies and bread. Want bigger gifts? My sister in law makes up baskets of bread, spiced nuts, jams, and jellies she has made throughout the year. You could even can barbecue sauce to include. Round it out with some dish towels and wooden spoons from the dollar store.
Dealing with a “money” person? Many of us have people in our lives who don’t consider “made” gifts to be gifts but make it clear to us that they expect a store bought gift instead. We’ve all been there! Here is a thought: Maybe if we quit trying to live up to their expectations we’d be happier and less stressed and they’d learn not to have those expectations when it comes to us :).
A family recipe cookbook would make an excellent gift. Print off some of your family’s favorite recipes and assemble them in a small book. It doesn’t have to be a grand production, 10 recipes stapled together with a cover page works just fine. Be sure and include notes with each recipe stating who it is from, the recipe origins, or any funny stories that might relate to the recipe. Here is a link to a post I wrote about some family cookbooks I’ve made over the years.
9. Make Christmas Ornaments
When we were little we made all manner of homemade ornaments. We’d color pictures and cut them out to be ornaments. We’d save pot pie tins and glue cut outs of christmas cards we’d received in the center, then surround them with cotton balls to make a snow scene ornament. We traced our hands onto construction paper and cut that out. We made paper chains and tied bows onto candy canes and did little pipe cleaner bead crafts. Anything we could think of was made into an ornament and put on our tree – and they were beautiful. Here is a link to a post on how to make these cute Mice with Candy Cane Tales, complete with printable tracing template for the mice.
10. Bake cookies together
When I was little, we always made special cookies for Christmas (pictured above and recipe here). This was the first thing I did with my own family. Brady was only 6 months old on his first Christmas but I rolled out that dough and had Ricky hold him up on the counter. I’d put a cookie cutter on it and use his little hand to gently press down to cut it out. He had no idea what he was doing but he laughed every time we removed the cookie cutter to reveal a new shape!
Over the years, after seeing how much my in laws enjoy decorating cookies with us, we now have a tradition of making these cookies on Christmas Eve and the whole family sits down to a table filled with cookies, icings of all colors, and sprinkles. It’s one of our traditions we look forward to the most!
11. Drive around and look at lights
The lights! The lights! I love Christmas lights. Set aside a night each week to drive around looking for them. Many communities have an entire area that is absolutely awash in lights. Ask around and then go adventuring. Be sure and listen to Christmas music while you do. Your family will never forget these evenings!
12. Visit Family or Invite Family To Visit You!
Several years back my mother in law mentioned that Christmas morning was a little dreary for them. All of the family celebrations had been had and it was just the two of them waking up with not a lot to do. We started having them come over (they live in another state) a day or so before Christmas to visit for a spell and it’s a win win! Now my kids get to have grandparents here Christmas morning to watch them open presents, we all decorate cookies together Christmas Eve, and just have a fun and relaxed house full of family to celebrate the season.
13. Go To A Christmas Parade!
There are several towns near us who host wonderful Christmas parades, some of them are even held at night with all of the floats lit up with lights! There are so many free events to help put you in the Christmas spirit that I’ve mentioned and this is another one to add to your “not to miss” list!
14. String the lights in your own yard
One of our greatest joys is putting lights up in our yard! It is always so magical to come home to find everything all lit up, especially after an evening of driving around to see other Christmas lights and then to turn in and see one of our favorite displays :). We buy our lights after the season on sale and stick with LED’s to save on electrical costs. We don’t do as many now as we used to due to difficulty of putting them up where we live (our older, smaller house was so easy!) but back in the old days (before LED) we had so many lights that our bill was $100 more a month!
15. Print out Christmas coloring pages for your kids and hang the finished ones up around your house
I’ve found some fantastic Christmas coloring pages online. Your kids will be so proud when you hang up their artwork I’ve posted some beautiful vintage coloring pages to my Great Big Christmas Board on Pinterest and they are free to print. Click here to visit that board and be sure you follow me if you do!
16. Decorate a doorway with cards you’ve received, or even a small tree
Mama used to tape the cards we received around a door frame in our home for a beautiful decoration. A lot of folks aren’t sending Christmas cards anymore (see below) but I have a doorframe complete with a Poinsettia and Pine swag up at the top just waiting for Christmas Cards to arrive!
17. Send Christmas Cards
I know this is one that has fallen to the wayside due to the expense but there is something so special about getting Christmas cards in the mail. They don’t have to be expensive. You can buy a box at a discount or even dollar store. Each year cutting this expense is tempting but so far I have managed to keep it up, but I am going with cheaper cards this year. I purchased some beautiful Dayspring ones with a glitter embellished snow scene on the front for just $5 for 18. Of course, adding the stamp adds nearly 50 cents so I hand deliver all of them that I can and mail the rest.
18. Go To Church
Many churches have special Christmas programs that are amazing! Check the ones in your area now and put the events on your calendar! Our church has the most beautiful Christmas Eve service.
If you are a Christian and celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus, act like it. Go to church. Have a nativity in your home. Celebrate Advent. If these are new holidays to you as a Christian, there is no shame in that! This is our first year celebrating Advent and I am grateful for all of the inspiration and research available online as I incorporate this new (to us) tradition.
19. Go Simpler
I saw a wonderful idea in doing my research for this post from a blogger who keeps Christmas simple by giving her children three gifts, to represent the three gifts the wise men brought baby Jesus.
20. Have a party!
A Christmas party doesn’t have to be expensive. Invite friends, have everyone bring a dish, and don’t even worry about the house. Clean it up a bit and then just fill it with people. No one will be able to see the mess for the crowds.
21. Watch Christmas Movies
I have so many favorites and the holidays just aren’t the same without watching them again! My favorites are : Meet Me In St Louis and It’s A Wonderful Life along with White Christmas. As a family, we always have to watch The Toy That Saved Christmas (Oooh! A Buzzsaw Louie!) and all of the old claymation Christmas movies from my childhood.
- Take this up a notch by making a big bowl of popcorn and making popcorn garlands together as you watch.
22. Take your family to the nursing home and visit folks who don’t normally get visitors
You have no idea what a difference this will make in their lives. I’ve seen gifts as simple as a smile, a hug, and a Christmas card bring tears to someones eyes and help everyone understand the true meaning of Christmas.
23. Play Christmas Music
No matter what your musical tastes find some Christmas music and set it going in your home in the evenings and your car when you’re out and about. Christmas music energizes the elf in all of us :). Hint: You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “Sleigh Ride” sung by the Andrews Sisters!
24. Wear Christmas Sweaters
I know this has become a big fashion no no but I’ve found that the majority of people who sit around coming up with fashion no no’s should probably spend more time being thankful and decorating for Christmas ;). I love Christmas and I love wearing Christmas sweaters!!!! Bring on the sequins, embroidery, and beautiful colors. dontjust stick your toe in the water, dive in!
25. Bake a Cake …or Seven 🙂
Click here to read the story of how my great grandmother made Christmas special for her kids without any money or wrapped gifts. There is a little free surprise at the end of the post.
“The best of all gifts around any Christmas Tree : The presence of a happy family, all wrapped up in each other.”
~Unknown
Thanks for all these ideas, Christy. My husband and I will be spending Christmas at home. Our two boys are grown with their families, living many miles from us. I intend to do as many of your ideas as possible in an effort to make this Christmas special, not only for the two of us but for others as well. First of all we will be remembering the “reason for the season.” If we only did that one thing Christmas would be very special.
Amen Janel!!!
Last year our Youth Pastor said he did not like “Jesus is the reason for the season” because Jesus should be the reason for every season. Because I agreed, I have a small nativity set I’ve left out all year and plan to do so again.
If you have never read the book (The Tale of Three Trees) it is WONDERFUL. My sister in law gave us this book about 2 years ago. Please Please read this book to your family. I promise, it will become a tradition in the years to come. I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it. Thanks for the ideas, we have a lot of these traditions also. I love reading all of your articles. May God bless you and your family.
Dear Christye
Really loved your article. I remember doing most of the items on your list back in the 50s. I have a different outlook on recipes I thought you might enjoy.
Recipes are for Memories
By C. Wayne Lammers
Just this morning I saw an oatmeal cookie recipe on a box of oatmeal and instantly became the oldest of six little stair-step kids chained together by the aroma and expectation of Aunt Polly’s oatmeal cookies wafting from the back kitchen in the old boarding house where I grew up in the late 40s and 50s.
Quick as a wink all the years were instantly swept away by the magic in an old recipe. I could see my grandmother, “Mammaw” to us kids, standing over that big ten-burner stove with my mother right beside her. They were just as clear to me as a bright Sunday morning. Aunt Polly was cutting more of her oatmeal icebox cookies while Uncle Robert placed them on the baking pans.
I simply must digress a moment and tell you about those cookies. Although containing the finest ingredients, the best shortening, the freshest eggs, the most expensive oatmeal and the purest vanilla, the secret ingredient that would turn out the very best cookies was simply love.
Funny how just one memory is all it takes to get them started, and they continue to flow like a multitude of Autumn leaves showering forth from the collection basket when tossed on the golden pile of memories hidden away in our hearts.
Just a chance reminder of those special cookies had the ability to transport me back to another time, maybe even a little better time, at least through the eyes of a child, if only for a moment.
Then, in a flash it was Christmas Eve. The tree had been cut down to fit under the thirteen foot high ceiling in the living room and presents were stacked waist high. Seventy five family members would soon gather for Christmas Eve Dinner and to joyfully distribute the bounty under the tree. To be sure, they were not expensive gifts, a lot of them were hand-made. But everybody had something for everyone else.
Many of them would have to go on to visit the other side of their family Christmas Day, so we had our celebration Christmas Eve. I can still see the almost unbelievable collection of cakes and pies on the old buffet cabinet in the main dining room. We would all have our turn at them after Dinner, and then again after the tree, which was over a three hour happening. But us kids had been warned, under pain of most certain and immanent death, not to touch them ahead of time.
To this day I am still absolutely, positively sure they meant it!
Our Christmas Dinner was always the same, a baked spaghetti and hamburger recipe we simply called “Ravioli.” It is a tradition I still insist on, and a ritual I look forward to performing each year. It must only be eaten on Christmas Eve.
Naturally, leftovers don’t count. Why should you ask?
After our meal the kids were all gathered up and driven to see the Manger Scene at the Arkansas State Capitol, less than two miles from our house. What a glorious site awaited us. After walking up the seemingly endless Capitol steps in the freezing cold, the life-size scene would appear. Straw, in both profusion and abundance, was strewn on the floor around the manger and solemnly watched over by the collective, stern and chalky gazes of Angels, Kings, Shepherds, and various and assorted stable animals. The mood was made even more somber by piped-in Christmas Carols sounding as if they had emanated from the depths of a large, tin can (speakers were not so good in those days).
But enough was soon enough!
We all knew that, somehow, Santa would have arrived during our short trip (that’s our tradition), and the most awaited time of the year for any child would finally be ours. We were ready to go home!
Just imagine, all this triggered by a cookie recipe from an oatmeal box. Then suddenly it hit me.
Recipes are for Memories!
The baking we do today is like making a tiny time capsule that will live forever in the hearts of those we love enough to bake for. Recipes are the reminders that trigger the memories we are making. Long into the future, after we are only memories ourselves, a part of us will live on through the family tradition of our honored recipes.
Never has a pretty package, tied up with ribbons and bows, been so full of promise as the love wrapped up in a simple recipe. I don’t remember what I got for Christmas that year, it’s not important. What is important is my ability to revisit those days through a recipe, and once again share the love of those who have gone on before me.
My years have been long, but my time grows short now. When I lay my head down on this Christmas Eve my visions will not be of “Sugarplums,” but rather, visions of ‘Recipes’ will dance in my head and I will sleep safely in reverence and remembrance. Soon I will go to rejoin the Old Ones and I am certain Aunt Polly will have a plate of her oatmeal cookies to welcome me home.
I can hardly wait.
Oh, Wayne, your reply brought me to tears. I am teased all the time about focusing so much on food, but it’s about so much more than just food. It’s about love and caring and relationships,too. And making memories called a life. Thanks, Wayne, and Merry Christmas! And Christy, Merry Christmas to you, too, and thank you so much for this space and the reminders and encouragement of what’s really important.
One day I asked my Mother what kind of toys she received for Christmas, she was 82 at the time and she said I didn’t have toys. I didn’t realize, how poor her family was! People don’t realize how bad it really was during the Depression. Every Christmas I made sure my Mom and Dad had a great time, not only gifts from me and my children but my time and love! Both of my parents are gone now along with siblings. My heart sinks every time I think of the little girl not having anything for Christmas. I give to charities, as much as I can, I make hand made dolls., and keep them in my car, when I see a child that is upset and the mother is at her wit’s end. I give the child one of my dolls., the dolls stop the crying immediately ! I don’t sell them, I give them away gladly. The child and mother feel good And so do I.
What a generous and precious heart you have Mary!!! I can just see the smiles of all the people you have blessed over time and I pray you will be doubly blessed!!
I am going to do most of these and go back to the way Christmas used to me not all about money but back when i first got married and kids was small thing was a lot better it was not about gifts but being together thank you for the great advice bless you and have a wonderful day
I hope you have a very Merry Christmas full of blessings and cheer Cindy!
Traditions can start in unexpected ways. I have done a shoebox each year for Operation Christmas Child for quite a while but this year my husband surprised me and said he wanted to do a box too! I learned a lot about my sweetheart as I watched him shop for the gifts for the boy who will receive the shoebox: a soccer ball (deflated) and pump for fun, practical things like socks and school supplies, and even a few things like a carpenter’s measuring tape that might have “trading value” because “boys love to trade and it might not be something he needs but he can trade it for something else.” We can hardly wait until next year’s Christmas Child shoebox drive! 🙂
Oh my goodness, how wonderful!! I never thought about the “trading” value of things when I have made shoeboxes but your husband is absolutely right!!!
Our go to movie every year is “The Tangerine Bear”,
stories are “The Little Matchbook girl” by Hans Christian Anderson, the Christmas chapters from “Little House on the Prairie”, and ,of course, “The Night Before Christmas” and the Bible… “Behold I bring you tidings of great joy!!!!”…gets me every time!!!! Our household motto is NEVER TRUST THE BOX!!!! My dad gave me a gift wrapped in a beautiful blue Tiffany box!!! Inside was a baggie of cheerios he labeled as Donut SEEDS! Been going on for years….love love love the surprises!!!!
TONS of christmas cookies roll out of the kitchen, why are they so magical!?!?!?!
Thank you for sharing your traditions Laura!!!