Christmas Gift-Giving on a Budget

It's Christmas time. Every shopping mall and convenience store is filling the air with carols. Wreaths hang on doors all over town, and many houses are festooned with lights. It's supposed to be a time of joy and peace, and not a time of worry. But when you're on a budget, and you have presents to buy, it's easy to get stressed, and forget to enjoy the season.

Luckily, it's not really hard to give great presents without spending a lot of money, once you start focusing on what people will enjoy, and give up the notion that the best gifts are the ones that cost the most.

For adults and co-workers, handmade gifts always mean a lot. Even if you're not crafty, you can give handmade presents with "gifts in a jar." From sand-art brownies to bath salts, they are easy to do and make a great presentation. For instance, bath salts only require some pretty containers, a big box of Epsom salts, some essential oils, and maybe some food coloring. To get you started, here's the URL to one such site: http://www.geocities.com/giftsinajar/. Just type "gifts in a jar" into Google or Yahoo and you will find thousands of recipes online.

Another idea for adults is to take advantage of the many printables online. You can find gorgeous stationery and recipe cards, notepads, and much more at multiple sites. All you need is a printer and some printer paper for the stationery and notepads, and some stiffer printer paper for the recipe cards.You can make matching sets of everything, or individual small gifts.
Again, just use Google or Yahoo or another search engine of your choice to find many printable gifts. This one is just a sample: http://www.shadow-graphics.com/printables.html.

You can find printable gifts for kids, too. The Internet is rife with paper dolls, toy patterns to print out and assemble, activity sheets and games, and coloring pages. Pick your favorites and make customized books. There are also many sites for personalized stories. Nothing thrills a child more than a story featuring him or her. For Christmas themed stories, try Santa's Stories at http://www.northpole.com/PersonalizedStories.

Find many more of these printables, games, and other gift ideas at Fabulous Freebies and Fun Links for Kids, http://www.maxandstar.info. You will also find free gifts to order or download, including games, books and posters, at this site.

If you want to buy gifts, check out the dollar stores in your town. Some great gift ideas for kids from local stores like Dollar Tree include: jigsaw puzzles, sketch pads, crayons, markers, yo-yos, pickup sticks, card games, jump ropes, and coloring books. These are just a start. A short walk around any dollar store will give you loads of ideas. Think of the things you loved to play with as a child, and take it from there.

For adults, dollar stores offer picture frames which can be filled with family photos or vintage illustrations from magazines or poster which you can find online. Or tempt someone's senses with incense, candles, or potpourri. There are lovely ornaments and figurines, some of them identical to the ones sold in pricier catalogs for much more than a dollar.

One of my favorite gifts of all time was a decorative box from a co-worker, which she freely admitted came from the dollar store. I did not care about the cost; I loved the box and was thrilled at her thoughtfullness in picking something she knew I would love.

Just open your eyes; relax, and look around you. You will see that with a little imagination, you can find great gift ideas for pennies, every where you look.