Throughout the years whenever Christmas begins to rear its peppermint-y head, I seem to always hear the same negative comments about the holiday. It is either exhausting, stressful or expensive. Yet for the majority of us, we still look forward to it. It is the time of year when our senses are wonderfully rewarded with the scents of orange, spice and pine, the sounds of Yuletide carols and laughter and the sights of twinkling lights, festive decorations and smiling children. Truth be told, it is my favourite time of year. However, there have been a few Christmases in years past that have left me feeling shattered and put a strain on my finances. The last few years I have managed to come up with ways not to over-exhaust myself by being highly organized, shopping online and even ordering Christmas dinner from Marks and Sparks. This year I decided to make an additional change. I have made a firm decision to have a frugal Christmas.
Just to explain….frugality does not mean cheap. I learned that many years ago from The Frugal Gourmet- Jeff Smith. Frugality is making the most of the money you have. My decision is to spend less this year but to celebrate Christmas beautifully, simply and meaningfully. Unbeknownst yet to my children, I have also decided not to put up all our glitzy, elegant, sophisticated Christmas decorations that I have collected over the years. (If you want to see pictures of those then please see last years Christmas posts). I am sorry to say, I have only just last Sunday decided all this so I am still working out all the details. Hopefully, there will be many up-coming posts on ideas I have collected and implemented for this years simple, beautiful Christmas as well as posts on the spiritual virtues of Christmas.
Here’s the first one.
I love this idea for either a front porch or in front of the hearth. Simple, beautiful and hardly costs anything!
Home And Spirit 