Cut Your Christmas Shopping Expenses

There is something about Christmas gifts that has bothered me for years. A quote from the movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the version with Jim Carrey as the Grinch) will give you an idea of what I am getting at:

That's what it's all about, isn't it? That's what it's always been about. Gifts, gifts....gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts, gifts. You wanna know what happens to your gifts? They all come to me. In your garbage.

In one of the Harry Potter books, Harry's cousin, Dudley Dursley, has two bedrooms. He sleeps in one. His broken toys are in the other. When I was growing up, my siblings and I usually got books for Christmas as well as toys. My mother used to say that her memory of Christmas morning was of us kids sitting on the floor reading our new books and not playing with our toys.

Do you see what I am getting at? Why spend money on a bunch of things that will not get used or that will break? Save some money by having a "food theme" Christmas. Our family tried it last year and it was great.

There was one rule: all of the gifts had to be related to food in some way. While that may sound limiting, it really is not. For example, although no one in our family did it, you could even give DVDs of certain movies: for example, "Chocolat" or "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" or "Fried Green Tomatoes." You get the idea. The only limit is your imagination.

For our family, however, most of the gifts involved actual food-or something that would lead to actual food (Gift cards to restaurants are an easy and much appreciated gift and can be purchased in an amount to fit your budget.). For many years, I used to make chocolate chip cookies to have on hand for the family. It had been quite a while since my last cookie baking adventure, so I decided to give chocolate chip cookies as one of my gifts. (My recipe, for those who may be interested, can be found on packages of Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chips!)

Our daughter gave containers of a mix to make hot cocoa. My wife gave me a George Foreman grill, a gift that has been used often during this past year. Bags of candy and nuts were popular, as were the gift cards mentioned above.

We enjoyed the food theme so much that we are doing it again this year, and we have already been discussing what we would like. It will not be a cheap Christmas this year for my wife and me, unfortunately. Several months ago, our kitchen range began to have problems. The repairman told us it would cost $400 to fix the problem. We decided to buy a new range as a gift that my wife and I are giving each other. So much for cheap! However, when we amortize the cost of the stove over the expected life of the stove, it should be cheaper on an annual basis!

Wherever your food theme Christmas leads you, enjoy!