Top Five Ways to Prepare for an Affordable Holiday Season
Welcome back!
It’s that time a year again. Christmas music is already playing everywhere I go. In these hard economic times, it is not the most welcome sound to one’s ear. Most people are excited about the holiday season, while others are dreading it. Many have had to make harsh cutbacks over the past year that the thought of affording the holidays can weigh heavily on a one’s shoulders. But do not fret. If you have the weight of the holiday season on your shoulders, it doesn’t have to cost a small fortune to be an enjoyable holiday season. Many holiday seasons have been spent between my husband and I while we were poor college students. Those holidays are some of our most cherished. So here are my top five tips to making this holiday season more affordable.
1. Readying the House for the Holidays
My house sees more visitors during the holiday season than any other time of year. From casual dinner parties to roaring holiday parties, we have a lot of company. While this may sound expensive, it really can be quite affordable. Food can be bought at discount food stores, and arranged nicely on your own entertaining dishes. You may also want to do a pot-luck, where guests bring a dish. This is also a good idea for alcohol. Now that you have food and drink covered, take a quick look around at the furnishings of your home, make sure you have plenty of seating. Most importantly, make sure you have somewhere for intoxicated praters to stay the night. This is actually a good time of year to look into buying a new sofa bed.
2. Watch for Sales and Special Offers
With the past few holiday shopping seasons being a bust for retailers, they are out in full force offering a wide array of special offers and sales to entice you. Black Friday really can be the best day of the holiday shopping season to buy “big ticket items” and electronics. Don’t forget Cyber Monday as well, where online retailers offer deep discounts. Throughout the holiday season retailers will be offering coupons and deep discounts. Keep an eye out and you really can get some great deals. Be sure to check out the BBC America Shop for great deals on British goods.
3. Be Choosey
The holidays offer lots of activities that offer festive fun. Many times this festive fun ends up costing a small fortune. However it doesn’t have to. My husband and I love Christmas and we became experts at free holiday fun. There a few things that we paid for that we did not want to give up, so we chose what events we wanted to go to. We saved a ton of money by doing this. We also created our own Christmas tradition. For instance, we have a Christmas movie marathon every year. We highly recommend getting a Netflix subscription – it’s a cheap way to get all the best holidays movies for a low monthly price.
4. Homemade Holidays
There really isn’t any reason why decor and gifts have to cost so much if your are handy. Last year my family did a homemade holiday. Every gift had to be homemade. I received delicious home-baked cookies and I gave a knitted scarf. It was nice to shrug off the materialism of the holidays. Besides, a homemade gift really can mean a lot more than a store bought gift. Also decor can be found and made out of virtually anything. Use your imagination!
5. Make Your Own Traditions
Wither it’s a walk on Christmas Eve to look at the houses in your neighborhood or going to worship at Holiday mass, make your own traditions. The holidays really are about family and friends. Like George Bailey said in It’s A Wonderful Life, ” No man is poor, who has friends.” So if your new tradition includes baking a million cookies with your best friends or opening a bottle of wine and watching a holiday movie, make sure to enjoy the season.
