A Recycled Christmas
This is not some environmental impact Christmas. I have a knee that has no cartiledge left. Although I love Christmas shopping, I'm not so keen anymore about spending a lot of time wandering around malls. A couple of years ago during a particularly dreary November I came up withan idea to save, not the earth, but my knee. I call it a recycled Christmas.
We agreed to give gifts of items that we had around the house. They had to be actual working items, no just plain junk. If you had already purchased something, you were allowed to give it. Baked and hand crafted items were ok. Regifting was ok. You were even allowed to give something back to the original giver--"If its good enough to give, its good enough to get". You were not allowed to be offended if you got something you gave the year before.
We don't follow the rules exactly anymore. There tends to be a mixture of buying gifts, crafting, regifting, and recycling things that we no longer need. We've had a couple of funny situations come up.
My husband was a delegate to the national convention of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod several years ago. Delegates receive tons of material from candidates and their supporters. One of the things he received was a book and a VHS tape entitled "Why I am a Lutheran". I wrapped it up and gave it to my sister. It turned out that she was contemplating leaving her Lutheran congregation at that time.
Once my mother borrowed a DVD from my sister. Imagine my sister's surprise when I received it as a gift from Mom. Mom had forgotten where it came from.
So if your family has a good sense of humor, consider a recycled Christmas. It can be as much fun looking through your house for things your family members will like as it is going shopping. And it leaves more money for the important thing--filling Christmas stockings!