Great Ideas for Christmas Gifts on a Tight Budget
by Judith Stanley
Are you beginning to drop the idea of Christmas because it is becoming too commercialized or because it seems to leave you in debt that you only get paid off just in time for the next Christmas? Well here are some great ideas for gifts that you can make yourself that others will love and they'll save you money too.
Gifts in a Jar
These are wonderful and very simple. You could purchase nice jars from your favourite store or use empty food jars and decorate them. You'll find some nice jars from charity stores and $2 discount stores.
There are a variety of ways in which you can package them:
- Cutting a nice circle of fabric and tying it on with a ribbon looks nice or the elasticated gingham fabric toppers that you can buy for jam jars.
- The jar could be wrapped with cellophane and tied with raffia or ribbon plus a pretty Christmas decoration.
- Glass paints can be used to make an empty food jar look pretty.
The following can be used as gifts in a jar...
Bath Salts
2 cups Epsom salts
1/2 tsp. food colouring if you want it coloured
1/2 to 1 teaspoon fragrant oil
Mix all the ingredients together. Put in a jar and decorate.
There are a variety of scent ideas you can use such as:
- Peaches and Cream - add peach oil and a tiny bit of powdered milk (milk softens the skin and has for centuries been used by the rich and wealthy as an exotic bath ingredient.
- Candy Cane - add peppermint oil. Separate the mix into 2 cups using a touch of red food colouring in one and green in the other. If you wish to separate it into thirds, you can then layer them in rows of red, white and green and finish up by tying a small candy cane to the jar.
- Rose - add rose oil plus 1/2 cup dried rose petals crumbled.
- Lavender - add lavender oil plus ½ cup lavender pot pourri.
Hot Chocolate in a Jar
This is a fairly simple thing to make. You mix up enough of the following to ¾ fill the jar. Mix up a chocolate mix of 1 teaspoon of drinking chocolate, 2 teaspoons of sugar and one teaspoon of dry powdered milk per cup of chocolate.
If you want to, you could add miniature marshmallows, a liqueur chocolate or two or some other treat in the top of the jar that can melt or be enjoyed in the drink.
Add the following information on a nice tag or decorated sticker onto the jar:
Hot Chocolate
Directions: Put 2 teaspoons of mixture in a cup and add boiling water.
Stir well and enjoy.
Of course other dry ingredients can be put into jars ready for the receiver to enjoy such as your favourite dry soup mixes, cake and cookie mixes - you're only limited by your imagination. With such things as cake mixes etc. you would only put the dry ingredients in the jar with a tag giving the receiver the list of extra ingredients necessary plus the directions for completing the recipe.
Personal Recipe Book
You can start working on this one early in the year.
Getting together your favourite tried and true recipes or recipes that cater to a special diet will be a great gift.
You can either have them written out beautifully in calligraphy or put them together with a word processor and even add pictures. If you have a digital camera, you could take pics as you cook them yourself and add them to the recipe on the page.
Putting them together can be done in a variety of ways too. You could punch a hole in the pages and tie them together with a lovely ribbon or raffia. You could put them in a folder and add a lovely printed picture on the front with a personalized message or name on the folder.
Another alternative to this is a box of recipe cards that you could print yourself. The box for the cards could be decorated appropriately.
Chocolate Spoons
There are two ways to do this wonderful treat. You could buy a stainless steel teaspoon and add it to a coffee cup with some coffee sachets and other goodies for one person or you could buy a pack of plastic picnic spoons and give a range of flavours to each person.
Gently melt some chocolate with a knob of butter in a dish stood in a pan of boiling water. When the chocolate is runny dip the spoons in the chocolate up to where the handle starts.
Place each spoon on greaseproof paper to dry. You may choose to dip them a few times to get a good coating of chocolate. Once you're satisfied with the amount of chocolate on the spoon, then wrap with cellophane wrap and finish with a pretty bow.
You can add flavour by adding liqueur, mint, orange or vanilla flavouring to the melted chocolate mix. Alternatively, crunch up some honeycomb, toffee or crunchy mint chocolate bits and press the teaspoon into the crunchy pieces while they are drying giving them a crunchy flavoursome addition to the chocolate. Then you can add a directions tag if you wish telling the recipient that they only need to stir the spoon in their coffee or chocolate drink for a special treat.
Flavoured Cooking Oil
Get some nice looking oil or vinegar bottles. Half fill with olive oil. Add twigs of rosemary, thyme, basil, a bright coloured chili, garlic or any other flavours you think would be nice in the oil. If desired also add some peppercorns for decoration and further flavour and then fill bottle with more oil. Securely close the lid and you may even choose to wax seal it for an interesting effect if it's a corked bottle. These can be done in advance allowing the flavour of the herbs to flavour the oil very well.
Delicious Sauces
Get a collection of great looking bottles during the year and cook up a nice batch of caramel sauce, chocolate sauce, cinnamon sauce and some others and you could give each person a small basket with a few sauces that they can use on their desserts.
Vouchers
This is probably fairly common now but it's still a goodie. Make up a book of vouchers that you can give to your partner or some other loved one where they can call on you when they need your help.
If you have a family relative who has just had a baby, then you could have vouchers for 1 hour of free babysitting or 1 hour of housework, ironing, washing clothes or a range of things that you can do for your relative. For the elderly, perhaps your vouchers could involve a free manicure, or a free drive to any destination they need to go. For your partner there are many ideas such as a massage or a voucher to watch 1 show without anyone complaining, 1 evening meal of their choice, 1 evening without doing dishes or anything that you can think of.
They can be printed up really nicely on attractive paper that you can purchase from many stores.