Christmas On A Dime

Most of them also make easy gifts in a jar! How can you give gifts without contributing to the chaos in their lives? Consider giving gifts they can enjoy but will not clutter their homes afterward! Here are some homemade Christmas cookie tips that will help you get organized and make the best homemade cookies ever! Tips for baking, shipping and more! You can have a simple Christmas without the stress people usually experience. Use these tips and learn how to have less stress and more fun at Christmas!

The one that only has to go 10 hours away is almost ready to pack and take to the bus the week before Christmas. Nobody is coming so this year we have booked a room for christmas eve and christmas night at a nice hotel in the city. Restaurants in the building are both open with christmas meals or regular meals. Christmas brunch will be served and we are taking the lap tops so we can talk on skype with our families. Stop at the used book store so we have plenty to read and then go relax for the entire time. Dress up clothes for dinner casual for the others.

No dishes, no cooking except tea and coffee making in the rooms.

After so many years of family get togethers which were fun and then so many of nobody coming so no little ones to enjoy this will certainly be a different type for us. We plan to go out and look at the lights and then curl up on the bed and watch movies or read books. BTW, nuts freeze well. Last time I baked cookies they burned up in 5 minutes in the oven even though the directions said minutes before they would be done and the cheesecake I made and followed the directions to a tee came out dry!

I also save time in the kitchen and can relax on my day off! I am not a baker.

In the Christmas On A Dime e-book, you’ll find lots of helpful tips including:

I make stove top cookies that you boil and drop and they are always a hit. So easy from start to finish maybe 10 min. So I always buy the amount just to have the pies in the freezer. I buy the fancy chocolate covered cookies and being chocolate they are always gone early and nobody seems to miss the homemade ones. Besides they look nicer than my experiments. I have even started buying the frozen nibblers. I make my own shrimp sauce and buy tartar sauce horseradish just makes sense to buy what turns out better than homemade.

More time for fun stuff and a lot less stress. I am trying not to do as many this year. I do have 60 dozen I had to get done this week and only about dozen so far the week before Christmas so I am taking it much easier. My house does smell pretty good this time of year. I always smell the cool cinnamon scented things at the store thinking I would love to have one of those and then remember how dumb because my house smells like that all the time.

One time I had to go to the doctor and had been baking big time that morning. When the doctor was checking me out he laughed and said you smell so good just like gingerbread. I guess it even is in my skin. If I give cookies for a gift I usually make a batch of snickerdoodles and a batch of molasses cookies gingersnaps. Because one is light in color and the other dark, they look quite pretty packaged on a plate or cellophane bag when alternating the colors. Thank you for your humorous review of the magazine suggestions. You gave me a laugh with each one.

I thought it was just me that thought that about holiday season magazines. Thankfully I learned a long time ago to keep it simple. Great advice from my mom. Gifts are mostly homemade this year, because of finances, but I knew that early on, so I started early. So stick to those things you do well and have most of the equipment and supplies for!

My favorite memory as a teen was one year when I really, really wanted a record player. I rarely ever asked for anything big, but I wanted to play records so badly. I kept taking Mom to the electronics department of Montgomery Wards and showing her the type of recored player I wanted. I only wanted the more modest costing model but Mom kept drifting to the little pre-school record player like my niece had. For several weeks I kept showing Mom the record player I liked.

Finally as tactfully as I could, I asked if she could please make sure Dad looked at the record players first I knew he would understand what kind I wanted. Well, Christmas Eve came and my older sis gave me a pep-talk. I looked at the boxes under the tree and nothing looked record player sized so I went off to bed, heavy-hearted. The next morning Dad asked me to open a big box. He said it was something for the house and Mom and Dad already knew what it was. It was a portable stereo with detachable speakers!

Christmas On A Dime

Never in a million years would I ask for a stereo!! That was too extravagant. Later I found out that Mom and Dad eeked out the money somehow and Dad went and bought it right after I asked for one, weeks earlier and hid it in the closet. Mom got a kick out of every visit to the electronics department that I dragged her to. And both Mom and Dad got a big laugh over me finally asking that Dad be involved, when I thought Mom was being too dense. I loved the story about Mom and Dad plotting to keep me guessing.

I still have the Christmas card that came with that sweet gift and later I found the receipt that Dad saved and that all happened about 45 years ago. One of the best tips I was given quite some time ago to make the very easiest Christmas and the most joy, was to NOT buy any Christmas magazines. They only serve to show you how you are not mesuring up. Do what you enjoy and there will be joy for your Christmas season.

Personally I like the Pink Elephant parties we have at Church. You can also do it if you have a large family gathering, or with neighbors. Each person gathers something from around the house that they no longer need, but is still in good condition. Wrap it in newspaprer or recycled Chritmad wrap. Pass out numbers for everyone present. Starting at 1, choose a present. The 2nd person has the choice to either choose a present or take one that is already opened.

Continue on till all are opened. If the present is for a specific age group or sex, it could be labeled. Hilarius to see the gifts fly around! Every year my son and I make Christmas cookies and fudge together. We spoke last evening and set our time this year for Dec I make the dough and he cuts out and decorates the cookies. We usually make about 12 doz cookies. And while he is decorating, I am making a batch or two of fudge. So, last year, I just brought a plate of fudge and cookies. So much easier for me and no one cared that they did not have their own personal box.

People could eat it or not, as they wanted, and there were fewer leftovers. This is my liver doctor who has kept me going since my transplant 15 years ago. He and his nursing staff always get a special treat. Just enough to celebrate without going overboard in energy or expenses. We had friends over for Thanksgiving and the house looks so tidy, it will be easy to move a few things around for the Christmas decorations.

Getting the advent wreath out tonight. You really hit it on the head with those magazines. And then, you are supposed to be calm as a cucumber because you had time to take a bath and get dressed before the guests came!!! I can see me doing that and before I got out of the shower, someone would be ringing the bell. Oh, would I be calm and composed then! This article is always something I need to read this time of year. I struggle with being able to enjoy this wonderful season because of the frenzy of activities and preparations that go along with it.

I stopped buying magazines a few years ago for that very reason. Today, the internet is just as bad, if not worse though. To unwind though, I liked to read blogs and look at Pinterest. It took me awhile to realize that my choice of leisure activities was actually stressing me out. You may laugh but Pinterest can be exhausting. I have to agree with you totally Angie.

Christmas - - Living on a Dime

I really have to watch myself on Pinterest too because I get that overwhelming feeling and have more things bookmarked then I could ever get done in a life time. I have had to stop myself from going on there so much. I do love finding funny sayings and cute animal pictures the I send to my kids and grandkids for a good laugh but have really had to back off. Jill, Pinterest does have a collection of some of the funniest cartoons and cutest pictures and sayings. Those, I can still browse when I have time.

Just the recipes and DIY sections make me feel overwhelmed. I stopped reading the mags quite a few years ago and I just use my favorite cookie recipes! Better Homes than whose? Better Houses than yours and mine!

So glad you brought this up! I think we can get over committed to making the Christmas holidays a one person thing us and forget that the only lasting memories are just not holiday ones. I have worked on it all year filling it in. It covers everything about our lives together, and also my life before her. It was hard to remember everything, but I worked on it all year as I could remember things. Now i will send it back to her, filled in for her very special Christmas present to let her know who I really am.

Living in the Kansas City area, there are many great light displays. We spend one night taking our son and brother around town, first to The Plaza to see the lights, get out and walk around and have hot cocoa at Starbucks. A splurge for us. Then, we head downtown to see the lights on the Marriott building. Then, we start heading south to the various Christmas displays throughout several suburbs.

For those really tight on money, take a pot of cocoa or hot water and Swiss Miss cocoa packets and make your own at one of the locations.

One place has a lighted display with music that you listen to on a radio station. I loved the first part of your article about less stress and not gaining weight! By the way, my brother is a stylist for Hallmark and it DOES take about 10 people to make a perfect cookie for their photos! There used to be craft ideas and creative ideas for gifts on a budget, now they advertise on the covers creative gift ideas for under fifty bucks—HUH?? I should HOPE so!! Tastes better than store bought and made the house smell so good and Christmasy. The apples and spices scented the whole apartment because it cooks so long and tastes great when done.

Glad you liked it Bea. It would make a great gift to give for Christmas too. Hey Jill and Bea: I used to use some stuff that was a prune puree instead of oil years ago and the cake came out just as moist. I was thinking apple butter might have a great flavor in a pumpkin or spice cake? Yes you can Donna. Apple butter is really just applesauce that has extra spice in it and cooked down more.

Many people use apple sauce in their cakes so this would be the same. In a spice cake it would be delicious for sure. Has anyone ever heard of this stuff? Apple sauce in a cake sounds good. Something I used to do when I was a kid was get styrofoam in various shapes, glue, and glitter in various colors, and made Christmas ornaments and other decorations such as for the mantlepiece. I always made new ones every year though.

This had the added benefit of being lots of fun too. I would make sure the child does this on plenty of newspapers though. Makes cleanup a lot easier. Found that out the hard way! I think my favorite was when I spilled glue on one corner of a square, added the glitter, and it came out looking like Santa smoking a pipe!

That article was timely and well worded. I needed a good chuckle especially as things start to feel a little tense with all that I need to get done and you made me smile. Thanks for the wonderful article on Christmas magazines,so true. She is 72 and a wonderful cook. We did this for harvest , pies and lots of things. Everyone has time to wait for it to bake and visit-no stress! LOL I loved your article on reading the Christmas magazine!

I try to make my Christmas a little less stressful by doing simpler things. I have a 9 year old and I will take her and a few of her friends out to do some old fashioned Christmas Caroling! Afterward we will stop by the ice cream parlor and have an ice cream. I will be sitting on the sofa with my family, sipping hot chocolate and watching our favorite Christmas movies while the crowds push and shove for the things they feel they have to have.

I cut down on the menu, too. I used to make pies, cakes, cookies, the list was long. Now, I usually make one favorite dessert. I do like cookies with my hot chocolate but I made up batches of them, shaped and froze them on a cookie sheet. Then I put them in a baggie. I can have a dozen fresh cookies anytime, with no stress! Also Pillsbury slice and bake sugar cookies are awesome and there are lots of recipe variations online using them as a base, Do not feel guilty!

Then she just took them out Christmas morning to thaw. I thought that was a great idea. Merry Christmas you two!

Simple Christmas – How to Have More with Less at Christmas

I, too, did a whole whack of baking, candy-making, and cooking for the family for Christmas, especially since we never had any extended family around. I found it exhausting, as I was always trying to save money, make memories and fill the gap that absent grandparents might have filled.

A few years back, I was working part-time, and Christmas kind of snuck up on me. I got everything done except the tons of Christmas baking. Do you know what happened??? We all still had more than enough to eat. We all still ate too many sweets. No one was rushed to the hospital with a Christmas cookie deficiency. We all still complained about probably over doing it for treats over the holidays.

Dear Jill and Tawra, Years ago, something happened at Christmas time that prompted me to prepare a buffet table rather than a sit-down dinner. We decided to do it and thus was born the Christmas buffet which became so much less stress than having a sit-down meal. I can prepare finger foods, quick breads, punch bowl, cut-up veggies with dip and the makings for sandwiches. Everybody seems to enjoy eating what they want, nobody goes away hungry and we seem to eat much less. The drone delivery covered almost 25 miles of rainforests and rugged mountainous terrain. With a federal court ruling that Obamacare is unconstitutional, here's a look at the kind of health coverage judges get.

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