Christmas has a way of filling the house with stuff nobody asked for.
Somewhere between the advent calendars, the themed socks and the matching napkins, a lot of money goes on things that are used once, ignored, or in the bin by Boxing Day.
We’ve been cutting back for a while now in a move towards a more frugal life. None of it was a big dramatic decision, and nobody sat us down for a talk about it.
We just kept noticing what actually got used and what didn’t, and stopped buying the second kind.
Here are the ten things we quit buying at Christmas, and what we do instead.
1. Advent calendars
This one was less about money and more about sanity.
Advent calendars became really hard to manage with the kids.
They always ripped into them, and they never lasted anywhere near the full countdown.
A calendar that is empty by the first weekend of December isn’t doing much, so we stopped buying them.
2. Shop-bought Christmas cards
We make our own now.
Often we cut the fronts off cards we’ve been given, stick them onto a piece of cardboard, and write a quirky message inside.
The pretty part gets a second life, and nothing new goes in the cart.
It also means the cards are a bit more fun to write and a bit more personal to receive.
3. New wrapping paper (mostly)
I’ll be honest, this one is “cut right back” rather than “quit”.
We still buy wrapping paper sometimes, but we buy it in bulk, and we recycle as much of it as we can.
Buying a big roll once is far cheaper than grabbing a few novelty rolls every year, and reusing what’s in good condition stretches it even further.
I’m also not averse to using non-Christmas themed paper for Christmas presents – whatever we’ve got is good!
4. Christmas books
Christmas books are lovely, and they’re also only read for about a month of the year.
So now they all come from the library.
The kids still get the whole stack of festive stories, and they go back in January with no clutter left behind.
5. Christmas gifts for teachers
We stopped giving teachers a Christmas gift.
Instead, we give a small gift or a thank you at the end of the year, but it isn’t a Christmas present.
It takes the pressure off, it keeps the spending small, and I think it feels more genuine too.
6. Stockings
We don’t do stockings anymore.
Now that our children are older, this one has been much easier.
Stockings tend to be filled with lots of small things that are forgotten quickly, so for us it was one of the simplest cuts to make.
7. The things the kids actually need
This is a bit of a mindset shift rather than a straight quit.
We stopped buying the things the kids needed as a separate expense, and made them part of Christmas instead.
If they needed a water bottle for school, that was one of their Christmas gifts. If they needed a new lunchbox, same thing.
The kids still get something useful that they’ll use every day, and it means we aren’t paying for needs on top of a pile of wants.
If you like a gift framework that works along the same lines, my Want, Need, Wear, Read 4-gift rule is built around it.
8. Anything Christmas-themed to wear
We completely banned themed outfits.
No Christmas socks, no Christmas t-shirts, no Christmas anything.
To be honest, nobody wears them past the Christmas period, and it feels like such a waste. If it can’t be worn in February, we don’t buy it.
9. Christmas food extras
We’re usually given a ham, so we don’t have to buy one.
And if we aren’t given one? We don’t buy one.
We’d rather put the money towards food we know the family will eat than feel obliged to follow a script.
If you do end up with a big ham, I have 14 leftover ham recipes to help you use it up.
10. One-time-use Christmas tableware
We don’t own Christmas table runners, napkins or paper plates, and we don’t buy them.
We use what we already have, even if the plates don’t match and even if none of it is remotely Christmassy.
Proper plates are washable, they’re already paid for, and nobody has ever complained about the table looking too normal.
What we noticed
Looking at the list, there’s a pattern. Almost everything we stopped buying was either used once, forgotten quickly, or easy to replace with something we already owned. None of it was really what made Christmas feel like Christmas.
Nobody missed any of it. The kids still have a lovely day, we still have a full table, and we start January without a pile of things to tidy away or a credit card bill to dread.
Your turn
You don’t need to quit all ten. Pick one or two that you know don’t earn their place in your house, and try letting them go this year.
Small cuts add up, and they’re much easier to keep up than a big overhaul.
If you’re looking for more ways to keep the spending down, have a look at 20+ frugal gifts for kids and 71 free gift ideas.
What’s something you’ve stopped buying at Christmas? I’d love to hear it.
