My friend Becca, out in California, had a great blog post last week. cookieandclaire.blogspot.com She said my blog had inspired her and she’s planning to do Christmas a little differently this year… all handmade gifts. Well she has inspired me back!
Last year we did Christmas in a non-culture conforming way. We gave our little envelopes with magnetic poetry words and our Christmas card was a blog site, whydidyougivemethis? 
I also blogged the 25 days of Christmas and made a book called Excessable Christmas. It’s about living differently and not practicing the cultural chaos and consumerism during the holidays.
(The entire book is available on my blog rethinkgood.com or a hard copy is available for online purchase, all proceeds going to Casa Hogar Elim.)
My inspiration? To give handmade and altered gifts this year. With the no shopping challenge, I can’t shop, but I can make stuff. Like Becca, I will be posting some of my ideas on my blog. So the handmade stuff is probably clear, but altered gifts? Definition: something used, repurposed into something different and new. I’ll have a few examples posted soon.
Here’s a few questions I pondered, knowing Christmas is coming soon:
- What gifts can I give without shopping?
- What creative things can I make to give?
- How can I make my gifts meaningful?
- What will I do with my money savings?
I will be blogging the answers to these over the next few weeks. :)
Awesome I love it!
I am doing the same thing sorta Jody. We have been saving our $5 dollar bills all year long to pay for Christmas. We have a big jar we put them in. Cash for Christmas! We are going to make one gift, buy one gift for each person in our family. It’s a start compared to what we have done in year’s past. We have cut way back for our boys but we are hoping this will help us cut back on the number of gifts and the cost for other family as well as put a lot of thought into what we give. My number one rule this year…NO gift cards! I hope I can do it. YOur blog is great. i love reading it. Take care~