What a lovely video, thank you, Louise. Monica, how about some 'vouchers' that expire next Christmas? for instance, "Washing up", "a walk together", "a home made lunch or dinner", "supermarket shopping for them", "a pedicure or manicure by you", "an evening of movies and popcorn at home" ... the recipient can 'cash' them in? If you have children, they could help by giving some of their time as gifts, or decorating the vouchers? This time of year can be a struggle for so many people, expectations are high, bring it back to the gift of your time. Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and from me to you, the gift of hope that things get easier. Much love xxx
I thought I was alone in loving the smell of tinsel!!!!! The smell reminds me of being a little girl and my parents getting the decorations out of the loft 🥰
One of my favourite low budget things to gift are baked treats! It shows a lot of thought and love has gone in to them, and can be done as a nice activity with children too!
For less expensive gifts I love doing experiences! You can find cheap or free places to take the person to and have a special day out together. Quality time is a fantastic gift and often it doesn't cost anything.
My favorite gift to receive are picture “books” of family and grandchildren. They all live out of town, so I can pull the book out all throughout the year!
Oh wow when you said your lovely Mother passed away on the 20th of December that pulled my heart strings as my beautiful grandmother (Yiayia in greek/cypriot) passed away on the 20th this year. 😢 I still havent fully processed it but really love the idea of doing something really nice on that day. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas!!
12:06 Ty for answering my question and making me laugh when you pronounced my name like the citrus fruit! Fun fact satsumas were not a thing when my parents named me Satu (means a fairytale in finnish) and my surname just completes the fruityness of my existence so there we are haha! I love to spoil my bebe too and I just won't apologize for it. Ever. I do keep in mind the environmental factors and try to be conscious but I just love to treat my darling girl ♥
I'm the sister of shared custody kids (ie Pearl) and I never celebrated Christmas on real Christmas! One year it was NYE - it is tough, but we all made it through, and always got "our" Christmas each year - you're doing a great job balancing a hard situation!
Regarding Christmas presents without spending a lot, I made my partner a jar with 365 things I love about him so every day for the next year he could pull one out and read it. I've also found homemade baking goes down well (especially with older relatives who can be hard to buy for).
I’ve bought some beautiful Christmas tins from a bargain shop for £1.50 and the kids and I are going to make either cookies or truffles or coconut ice to put inside. It’s got the meaningfulness of something homemade, a tin they can get out every year and everyone loves a treat!
I find it really hard to motivate myself to put up Christmas decorations now I live on my own! There’s something about the magic of putting them up as a family which is missing when you’re on your own and wrestling to get the artificial tree put together 😂
I love your suggestion on what to get older folks for Xmas cause I do the same lol… I also will sometimes make a meal and freeze it so if they don’t feel like cooking one night they can just pop some frozen homemade soup or something into a pot and have dinner 💕🥰 or I take my grandma for a little date where we get our nails done and have tea
seeing the decorations at milton keynes has always been a tradition in my family too! we’ve done it since i was really little and i still look forward to it every year, it’s so magical :)
I love tinsel it doesn’t feel like Christmas without it and I’m also a lover of colourful lights I think thats because that’s what I had growing up and I have to say when people do what the class as a ‘tacky’ tree it really annoys because to me it’s not tacky. Hope you have a wonderful Christmas 🎄
Totally agreed! Christmas trees that are all organised and limited colours look a bit boring to me personally. I love trees with character, colour and fun. That's what Christmas is about and I love to represent that with my tree.
i agree! to me it doesn’t feel tacky, it feels homey! i’ve grown up in a family with three kids (and a whole lot of cousins!) so our house and life has always been a little colourful, eclectic and hectic to some, but i wouldn’t have it any other way ❤️
For Monica and also the grandparents one - if you have children, I often opt for the low cost option of a £2.50 A4 frame from the range and some of your child’s artwork. It means you get to spend quality time with them making art & also provides a lovely gift for family & friends 🥰 another idea could be buying a cheap photo album and filling it with lovely memories ❤️
Another great gift if someone is on a budget is something home-made - peppermint creams, cupcakes, little meringues - not many ingredients and you can decorate them or the wrapping and it’s something personal
We do vouchers for fun activities with people like our nieces and nephews we make a voucher to put in a card with different options of stuff to do with us like craft afternoon, movie night etc x
I love your answer to the last question - I always told my children - write me a letter, or make something with your hands. No better Christmas present!
I turned (gulp) 38 this year and I really didn’t have anything I wanted for my birthday, instead I asked everyone to make a donation to a local food bank in my name. It was great. I felt good, they felt good, no extra garbage was created, I didn’t have to find room for more things just to have things. It was an amazing experience. Highly recommend for those people who say they don’t want or need anything.
I am so here for tinsel and multicoloured lights. My decorations went up on Saturday and I have both! Ideas for Monica: a gift certificate or similar of an activity to do with the person you're treating. I.e. having a cosy sofa movie day together, doing some crafts with them, going out for a walk/drive together.
Thank you for the photo idea for older relatives! I wanted to get my grandparents something but they insist they don't want anything! I'm going to use your idea, I think it's lovely.
Loved this! We've taken a very firm stance that the only gifts we're doing this year are for our daughter and my husband's little sister who is 5. Of course we've said we also don't want anything in return. My family are completely fine with this, as are my husband's mum's side. His brother has got his first full time job and he's desperate to get our daughter something which is really lovely of him. Hi dad's side however, have taken it quite awfully. Despite knowing how hard financially the last 2 years have been, we're apparently awful people. So I'm going to get my little one to paint a christmassy picture and they can have that as a lovely, homemade gift. Having said that we also got flack for doing homemade cards not store bought ones 🤬
Pinterest always has good Xmas gifts to DIY on the cheap. My most recent find was a Xmas tree made of tea bags. Very cute. Affordable to make for several gifts. And you can use personal favorites for them to try.
Merry Christmas, sweet Louise. You are delightful and your tree looks like Jewelry or candy! Much love from Ladies Patricia and Amanda in New England USA.
Well I was blithely unaware that there was a raging tinsel debate going down, so thank you for bringing it to my attention! Personally I like tinsel and will happily advocate for it, we still use ancient stringy tinsel from years ago for that crucial touch of nostalgia. Oh and I too love coloured lights, especially the ones you can put on disco/seizure inducing flashy mode...clearly I'm easily pleased and possibly a bit naff! Cute video, got me feeling all sorts of festive so thank you! Hope everyone is having a splendid weekend.
Low budget things that I like is just something you’ve baked or something you’ve personally made like I like to knit so next year my plan is to knit some little hearts for people. My new tradition I started this year is my whole family loves shortbread so on Christmas Eve I’m going to make some then we can have them over Christmas and anyone who visits can have some homemade Christmassy shaped shortbread
I think the question about how far to go with spoiling your kids is a great one, and whilst every family should do whatever they please regarding this, I personally think it’s important to make sure the really expensive gifts are made clear they are from parents and not Santa, to avoid any playground-Santa-comparison-shinannegans! 🥰
l love a real tree. I love the smell of it when I come home and its all cosy and warm. I used to like the flower multicoloured christmas lights very 90s
Chicken is absolutely nicer. I never find anyone else who agrees! Hoorah! Also, DMD being a good, fun day, is wonderful. Your mum is looking down and seeing her family living their best life, being happy and laughing, not just being sad.
I love tinsel!!! I haven't been able to celebrate Christmas the last few years as me my mom and sibling were homeless, this year we finally have a place to live so we're happy with just that. I wanted to al least get a advent calendar since I love the joy of opening them daily but im in the US so they're not as available and I couldn't find a cheap one so next year hopefully we'll be able to decorate and get each other small gifts. This year we're saving up to get a bed since we only have two and im sleeping on a air mattress that is getting worn down. Im having some holiday fun making a Christmas wishlist of decorations and gifts for next year though.
Oh my gosh. I'm glad things are getting better for you and your family. I wish that I could send you an advent calendar - we have them all over there place in Canada - but 1) that would be weird as I'd need your address and 2) Christmas would be over by the time it got there. I hope you have a happy Christmas.
I love tinsel but I decided a few years ago I was going to stop buying it new (for sustainability reasons). So far I've continued using what I've got, but when it starts falling apart I'm planning on either getting it second hand (charity shops are often inundated with Christmas decor), or switch to ribbons. As for affordable gifts, ones that show you know the person are amazing. This can be writing a letter as Louise suggested, making something personalised (Pinterest will probably give you more inspiration than you need), tree decorations, or give the gift of your time - homemade vouchers for babysitting duty, or lunch/coffee with you (depending on your budget this could be going out or staying home), etc, or simply buying their favourite coffee/tea/chocolates - not expensive ones, but ones that show you noticed what they like.
Your sweater is so gorge 🤩 We don't have kids but as of this past July we have 2 cats. I'm looking forward to their first Xmas with us 😅 🎄🎁🍗 Merry December, everyone 💚 & Happy Holidays
We had our basement flood so I had to throw out all of our Christmas decorations (thank GOODNESS I saved our family handmade ones separately). So now I have the privilege to get all new decorations this year! 😈♥️🥳 Yay!!
to answer your question about what you do with the tree once christmas is over… the council take it! if you look carefully on the little slip of paper that has your bin days on it (or online), they name a window or a specific day and then the bin men take it like anything else.
I found giving the older folks some nice stamps. Useful but doesn’t take up any room and they can think of you when they use them over the next few months.
Fab video me and mum do the tree decorating together and go to see Leicester city centre lights on and finish Christmas shopping and on Christmas day we open presents together and then have a Quorn roast potatoes veg and Yorkshire puddings of course too splodge the bunny has a huge carrot and we all chill watching BBC one or Christmas films elf Muppets or the snowman 😄💖🎄⛄
How to treat everyone: organise a big extended family day out to a local park, woodland, beach, place that is free and ask everybody to pack their own picnic lunch and thermos of warm drink. Let the kids play and the adults catch up with adulty things and reminisce about lovely things. Everyone gets so much stuff they don’t need at Christmas, a memory and great day out is far more precious x
Fab video as always. I'm with you on the meat front - prefer chicken (controversial ole me). I saw cockerel for sale somewhere which suggests a big, tough old bird (oh that's me too lol). Put me off buying it so I'll stick with supermarket own xxx
Louise what’s your one piece of advice for me with this being my first Christmas without my mum who I lost in April thanks in advance Sarah McCullough Belfast Northern Ireland xx
To include her in your christmas day. Light a special candle for her, say Merry Christmas to her photo, raise a glass to the heavens, do all the little things to have her still be part of it. She's right there with you in spirit xxxxx
For people with a small budget a brilliant gift for others (if you really want to give) is just baking a shit tone of christmassy biscuits. Fill them in empty glass containers and put a bow on top. And voilà. It's a lovely gift because you put effort into it and can personalise them. And with several baking trays it goes a long way, meaning you can easily gift them to several people. And who doesn't love getting some sweets?
For the tree q: I had a friend whose family every year would do a "burning of the christmas tree" and invite everyone over and have hot chocolate and stuff! Always safe...I think...
My ex and I split when children were 6 and 3. My ex arrives xmas eve, stays until stephens day. Then takes children for week. He has huge family, they all spend the time with them. We always tried to put them first. It's not ideal and I don't have family. They are 19 and 18 now. I think this year will be our last.
i have been have a long term debate about tinsel sniffing with my friends starting with a comment of me saying 'I don't like tinsel because of the smell' huge debate is still going on whether tinsel smells i will put your name in my camp of yes tinsel smells.... i feel validated and seen
