No Scrooge Required

• Gift Exchange. Establish a new tradition of limiting the number of people that you purchase gift s for, as well as a spending limit. Chances are your other family members are in the same tight fi nancial situation. Establish a plan and start early. This is something that your family should discuss ahead of time, before anyone starts shopping.

• Create Coupons. Ask Grandma whether she would rather have an expensive sweater or a coupon from a grandchild to
make cookies together, guess which one she would choose? Handmade coupons for children or grandchildren to give to
their elderly relatives are welcome treats. Some examples could include: running errands, spending an aft ernoon in the park, cooking a meal together, shoveling the snow, raking leaves, washing the car, or even planting flowers.

• Homemade Items. The time that you spend making a gift is much more personal and thoughtful and shows how much you really care. Does your grandpa have an old unused shovel just hanging in the shed? Use a glue gun and attach holly and berries, pinecones, ribbon, and even lights. He’ll make sure that decoration gets used every year! If you have a knack for baking, give out holiday tins filled with your homemade cookies. Pass them out to family, friends, the letter carrier, hairdresser and newspaper carrier. Here’s a tip for pinecones: place them on a cookie sheet in a single layer and bake them for 15-20 minutes at 200 degrees to kill any bugs or spiders.

• Wrap It Creatively. Use the Sunday comics as a substitute for expensive wrapping paper. Purchase a roll of inexpensive meatpacking paper from the local butcher or craft store and have your children draw and paint all over it for homemade wrapping paper.

• Cookie Exchange. Save money on buying cookie trays and organize a cookie exchange. Invite friends and family, see how many people are coming and give each friend or family member the number of people attending the exchange. So if you have nine friends attending each person will make nine dozen of their favorite cookies. At the end of the party you will have nine dozen cookies with each dozen being different!

Finally, ask everyone to share their own favorite holiday tradition/memories. Most likely the majority of responses will be ones that don’t involve spending any money at all. Engage in special traditions and create lasting memories this holiday season and that’s truly what the holidays are all about, no Scrooge required.

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