We’re staying home for Christmas this year, on a small budget and with a lot less pressure.
So I asked the followers of my Facebook page for your best low-cost ideas, and you didn’t hold back.
More than 40 of you shared gifts, meals, traditions and games that cost next to nothing, and I promised I’d put every idea in one big list so we can all borrow from each other.
Here they all are, as one big numbered list. Names are first names only. Where I’ve said “we”, I mean the readers who shared the idea, not me taking credit.
To kick us off, my own two were decorating the tree with the cheesiest Christmas music on loud, and driving around to spot the best Christmas lights.
1. Use the 4-gift rule (and give it a twist)
The 4-gift rule came up again and again. Want, need, wear, read is one of my favourites.
Some of you have given it a twist.
Zara adds a gift to share or something for outside, and Amanda has seen versions with “do” and “share” that she’s adding for her eldest this year.
Louise uses the same four categories when she buys for her husband and son, and often fills the “read” gift with second-hand books.
2. Give op shop gifts
Kj always has some op shop/thrift store gifts under the tree, like books, jigsaws and DVDs, as long as she knows the person will like them.
Alexandra calls it Thriftmas.
Lynley wraps up op shop finds and lets her visitors choose one.
3. Gift from a list of categories
Bronwyn’s family buys or makes a gift for each person from a list of categories.
The list is: an op shop find, something you don’t want any more, something you made yourself, something to read, a good luck charm, something the person has never eaten, two hours of your time, and something that reminds you of a time you shared.
Her kids are adults, so she says families with little ones might add a main present.
4. Make painted canvas magnets
Belinda gets her daughter to paint or colour small canvas magnets from Kmart.
They make an easy and affordable gift for the grandparents.
5. Bake for everyone
Melissa bakes for the neighbours, the hairdresser and her work colleagues, and her kids help.
Jo and her daughter wrap cookies in cellophane for their neighbours every year, and they’ve kept it up through three house moves.
6. Make pantry gifts
Bronwyn suggests really nice jam (lemon curd, strawberry or raspberry) with a tea towel.
If you knit or crochet, a handmade cotton face cloth with a body scrub or bath salts works well too.
Tiny tubs of lip balm are good for teens.
7. Fill a treat box
Alexandra made boxes of drinks and snacks her kids don’t usually get to buy, and one for her hard-to-buy-for husband.
They lasted the weeks the family were away, and she wasn’t asked for treats on holiday.
8. Give gift cards
Maria Carmel gives gift cards instead of things nobody asked for.
There’s less clutter, and the person gets to choose.
9. Give fewer gifts, plus one to share
Stacey’s four kids get one or two gifts each, plus a shared family present of books, puzzles, games and craft supplies.
The craft supplies double as homeschooling supplies.
Jo does one main present plus a stocking of things that are “cheap and needed”, and donates two presents to the Kmart wishing tree.
10. Cap the secret Santa
Jane’s family does one gift per person, up to a set value, drawn with an online randomiser and a gift list.
For more gift ideas, have a look at my 71 free gift ideas and 20+ frugal gifts for kids.
11. Wrap in op shop sheets and scarves
Dee buys nice sheets from the op shop, cuts them to size and ties them with ribbon.
They’re reusable and cut down on waste.
Samantha uses scarves for flash-looking wrapping.
12. Make toilet paper crackers
Dee saves toilet roll tubes and pops in a few random bits, mostly from the dollar store: chalk, dice, a little notepad and pen, a measuring tape.
Some had a $5 or $10 note, and one had nothing at all, which her mum got.
Christie does the same and gets the kids to pick jokes from a Christmas joke book and write them out.
Lynley makes crackers with $1 scratchies inside.
13. Print free gift tags
If you’d like something pretty on the parcels without paying for it, I have 10 free printable Christmas gift tags.
14. Have a dessert-only meal
Leah’s family has dessert and nothing else for one Christmas meal.
Everyone likes dessert the most, so they buy a variety, and nobody is too full to enjoy it.
Kelly’s family does a dessert platter for dinner and sends photos of the desserts to grandma to judge.
Christie hosted a Christmas Eve dessert night, which took the pressure off.
15. Do Christmas brunch
Joanne does Christmas brunch instead of an expensive lunch: pancakes, berry compote, eggs, bacon or a little sliced ham from the butcher (enough for who’s coming, not a whole ham), and great coffee.
Jane and Kelly both do a brunch platter and graze for the rest of the day.
16. Graze outside in the sun
Louise made a charcuterie board one year when she wanted a no-fuss Christmas, and everyone happily grazed outside.
(For my Northern Hemisphere readers, we have Christmas in the summer here in the antipodes).
17. Buy a good roast and keep the sides simple
Kristie buys a quality roast beef or lamb from the butcher, and her husband cooks it with farmers market veges.
Nadine goes for a couple of legs of lamb or a ham with simple veges and new potatoes.
She would rather spend on good meat than lots of expensive extras, and buys from local growers when she can.
If you do end up with a ham, here are 14 leftover ham recipes.
18. Make one big dessert
Nadine makes a single big trifle, using frozen berries if she needs to.
There are leftovers the next day and nobody fights over them.
19. Ask everyone to chip in
Kristie does the main and her parents do dessert.
Bronwyn’s family has a potluck or BBQ with friends on Christmas Eve.
20. Buy the meat early
Kim picks up smaller cuts over the six months before Christmas, like a pork loin roll or a small ham from the deli.
She also buys a frozen rolled turkey.
21. Keep Christmas Eve food simple
Nadine’s family has a shepherd’s meal of bread, cheese and carrots with a Christmas movie.
Joanne’s family keeps the evening simple with BBQ sausage sandwiches or hot chicken rolls.
22. Eat out before the surcharge
Chanel has lunch at the family’s favourite Chinese restaurant a few days before Christmas, so they don’t pay the holiday surcharge.
23. Bank your rewards points
Dee, in Australia, banks her Woolworths Everyday Rewards instead of using the $10 off. Last Christmas she had $280 to spend on goodies and drinks, and she’s already up to $240 this year.
I do something similar, but I put mine towards other financial goals during the year, so it’s about what suits you.
24. Build gingerbread houses
Michelle’s boys have made one from scratch every year. Now they’re older they design and build their own, including one year a model of the family beach house.
She goes for an easy A-frame shape because the roof has plenty of room for lollies.
Lisa buys a house cutter set once and bakes every year, and the kids choose their favourite lollies to decorate.
Bronwyn suggests gingerbread “tents” on foil-covered cardboard bases, which make a cute village for the table.
Andrea invites her kids’ friends over the day after school finishes to bake and decorate gingerbread, which also sets up playdates for the holidays.
25. Watch a Christmas Eve movie
Kylie watches Home Alone on Christmas Eve.
Philippa’s family watches The Polar Express, and her boys are now 23, 21 and 18 and still love it.
Shontelle has a lounge sleepover with the tree lights on.
26. Read on Christmas Eve
Lois’s family sits in the glow of the tree lights and takes turns reading The Night Before Christmas out loud.
Jane’s family follows the Icelandic Jolabokaflod tradition and reads books the night before.
Shontelle borrows Christmas books from the library and keeps them in a basket by the tree.
27. Make a Christmas Eve box
Jen used to do new pyjamas, a movie and popcorn. She says the kids looked forward to it more than the presents.
Shontelle gives her kids their Christmas pyjamas on 1 December so they get more wear out of them.
28. Decorate the tree together
Lois’s family wears tinsel and plays loud Christmas music while they decorate.
Samantha films a time-lapse video of the kids decorating the tree each year, and her teens still love making and scattering reindeer food on Christmas Eve.
29. Hang ornaments from your travels
Meghan and her husband skipped adult presents decades ago. Now they buy one thing from each place they travel to and hang it on the tree.
It’s a lovely way to remember the trips. We collect fridge magnets, but I like this a lot.
30. Go berry picking
Zara goes blueberry picking on Christmas Eve.
Kim did a 12 days of Christmas countdown when her child was younger, with strawberry picking, a gingerbread house, glass ornament biscuits, a street collection for the local cat rescue and a Christmas movie.
31. Find free local events
Shontelle looks for free events in town every year, like Santa arriving at the mall with face painting and the Christmas parade.
She also prints Christmas colouring pictures of her kids’ favourite characters and staples them into a little colouring book.
If you have kids who like crafts, I have 28 Christmas decorations you can make with the kids.
32. Give something back
Jo’s family bakes for their neighbours and donates presents to the Kmart wishing tree.
Her daughter gets more joy from that than from her own gifts.
33. Do elf on the shelf for free
Nicole only uses things she already has around the house, like toys, underwear, toilet paper and tomato sauce.
Her daughter is older now and takes turns moving the elves.
34. Act out the Nativity
Bronwyn has the kids dress up and act out the Nativity story at the Christmas Eve potluck with friends.
She calls it the highlight of her Christmas.
35. Have a beach picnic
Sally has a picnic at the beach with friends, or on her own.
She says it makes for a low-stress Christmas.
36. Swap gifts for a shared activity
Some years Joanne’s family skips gifts and does one family activity instead, like kayaking, horse riding or a surfing lesson.
It’s not necessarily on the day itself, as they celebrate any time between December and the end of January.
37. Hold a cherry pip spitting contest
This was the most-liked idea of all. Beth’s family has a cherry pip spitting competition on Christmas Day.
Kim’s family does the same if they get cherries. My boys would love it, so it’s going on our list.
38. Run a Christmas Olympics
Kelly’s family has brunch, then random, very competitive, mostly Christmas-themed games, then the dessert platter. Her kids are now 12, 14 and 16.
Over the years they’ve done blindfolded candy cane grabbing with a cane in your mouth, cornhole, darts, scooping cotton wool balls blindfolded, a no-beer version of beer pong, car racing and building the tallest tower from three bits of paper in two minutes.
39. Play a gift-stealing game
Joanne’s grandma used to run “the game”. Everyone sits in a circle with a pile of presents in the middle: good ones, joke ones, a bottle of something, envelopes with cash or nothing at all.
A card is called, and whoever holds it picks a gift. Once the pile runs out, you steal from each other.
She says it works best with a crowd that laughs at adversity, and it’s a great way to include anyone who’s on their own at Christmas. Joanne also plays a silly white elephant-style swap, or a regifting-only round.
40. Use raffle tickets for presents
Joanne’s four kids are in their twenties, so instead of wrapping everything she laid the gifts out on the billiard table and gave each of them a set of raffle tickets.
They still chose what she’d picked for them, and they want to do it again.
41. Hold a portrait competition
Dee suggests buying small canvases and acrylic paints and holding a portrait competition.
Some people are wonderful artists. Others just aren’t.
42. Play lemon cricket
Kim has a friend whose family plays cricket with lemons at the local beach on Christmas Day.
She says it smells amazing.
43. Have a Christmas Day water fight
Philippa’s family treats it as a must-do.
She says it’s a great way to wake everyone up after a big lunch.
44. Run a Home Alone tabletop game
Chanel is planning a tabletop role-playing game based on Home Alone. Everyone who wants to play becomes a character, and the Wet Bandits try to steal things everyone cares about.
She draws the family home on a map with a whiteboard marker, and the printed, laminated characters stand on it. The map glows under black lights.
Not the cheapest one on the list, but it looks like a lot of fun if you already have the gear.
What I’m taking from this
Almost nothing here costs much money. What reads as special is a little planning and the same few things done every year: the movie, the book, the baking, the silly game.
The biggest saving is usually fewer dishes, fewer gifts and fewer things you feel you should do.
The cherry pip competition is already on our list, and I love the idea of hanging something from each place you’ve travelled on the tree.
Thank you to everyone who shared, and please keep the ideas coming. What’s your favourite low-cost Christmas tradition?
