December Fridays 2008

As I mentioned in a previous post my family has a tradition we call December Fridays. These are all the Fridays from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve. On each Friday night we give the kids a gift. This gift is always something we can do together as a family that night. The original purpose of this tradition was a frugal one, we wanted our kids to receive "family" (as in family-time) not just material stuff at Christmas. Although these nights involve a "gift", these are small gifts and are meant to take alot of the emphasis off of needing to get alot of stuff on Christmas DAY. Instead we hope they look forwards to more of a "holiday season" not just one day.

These gifts are a secret , but since my kids son't read this blog I thought I would share our plans for this year's December Fridays.

Nov. 28 - See Xmas lights& listen to Xmas Music, & talk to each other. We did this in Hershey, since we were there- it just so happened to fall on Friday night (perfect) we went to see the Sweet Lights, where you drive though a 4 mile route that Hershey has set up with millions of lights and you have to count how many Rudolfs you can find. It was fun, but by mid-way they were a bit bored and more interested in "walkie-talking" my parents in the car ahead of us. But it was a very nice family time and the entire ride took about 40 minutes. In Hershey my parents treated us to the $20 Sweet Lights, but had we been at home- this would have been a very cheap, yet fun,night.

Dec. 5th- They will open 2 gifts (for all). One will be a Christmas puzzle- bought at a yard sale for $.50 over the summer, still new in sealed box.The second is Scooby-Doo Trouble, bought at the Christmas Tree Shop a few weeks ago for $6. So a fun night of games for the family and it only cost us $6.50.

Dec. 12th- They will open a gift of a pre-made gingerbread house Kit. Still have to pick this up, but at the local BJ's they were under 10 dollars. We will have fun making our house and people and trees (or whatever the kit comes with), and then take pictures of the kids with their creations. A fun night for about $10.

Dec. 19th- They will open a gift of Hot chocolate mix (with marshmallows of course!), and microwave popcorn with a note that says to go get the movie The Polar Express, which we have on DVD already. We will pop the popcorn, make hot chocolate (if you've seen the movie- you'll know why there has to be hot chcoclate) and snuggle under a blanket, turn off the lights and watch the movie. Another great family event for under $5.

My last frugal way to make sure my kids enjoy "the season" and not just one day, is to buy them the advent calendars that have a tiny chocolate behind each door. I got these for $1 each at The Christmas Tree Shop. They always recieve these on Thanksgiving day, from "The Great Turkey" who starts off the Christmas Season of giving, by giving each child a chocolate turkey, an advent calendar, and a small gift. All wrapped up- so they have the fun of opening "gifts" when they wake up on Thanksgiving morning. This year the Great Turkey got each child a 12 inch tree for their rooms that came with 20 plastic-ball ornamants ($5 ea. at Christmas Tree Shop)

So for our December Friday's we get a ton of family time and the kids get excited to open gifts all month long for less than $22.

For our Great Turkey visit on Thanksgiving, I spent about $30 and that included the items above and a few small gift for each child. 3 advent calendars= $3, 3 Chocolate Turkeys= $2.25, 3 Christmas trees w. ornaments= $15, Snap n' style Christmas outfit for Sophia= $8, snowflake bracket and red & green beaded necklace for Kailtyn=$2, and The White House's Wackiest Pets Book= Free w. scholasitc book points. Total: $30.25

If you are thinking $50, isn't very "frugal". Well it is. Realise I "bought" family time, not "stuff". And this is all leading up to a much smaller than your average Christmas DAY. But the children don't feel it as much because we always talk about all the gifts they get "all season long". So at the end of the month, this $50 created family memories and cost us less than it would have to buy each child one more gift for Christmas morning.

Yea-Frugal!

Oh and all the children I know will be getting lots of books from Scholastic, Free for me, good for Christmas budget! Pays to be a teacher, the job does have some perks. (hehe)