[Staceyy]

I saw this thread on another site and thought I would post the question here. What I do is:

We save our change all year and usually have about $500 saved by Christmas.

We save our credit card points, airline and hotel points, cigarette points (dh is a smoker). We use these points for merchandise and airline tickets. I bought dh a camcorder with my points last Christmas and he used his points to buy me a cappucino/espresso maker. We offered dd a round-trip airline ticket to come and visit us for the holidays.

I send for internet freebies all year and throw them into a drawer, come Christmas I use them to make gift baskets or as stocking stuffers. This year, I received several tote bags as freebies, so I'll fill them with freebies and give to dd who is an admitted beauty product junkie.

Once a year, our cell phone provider gives us free phones when we renew our contract. This falls in December so I give the phones as gifts to my family.
We get 3 phones a year.

I'm a trained professional pastry chef so I bake pound cakes and cookies and put them in decorative tins as gifts.

I take photos all year long and buy photo frames or photo albums to give as gifts to our out of town friends and family.

I make my own Christmas cards. I also make all occasion cards which I box and give as gifts.

I look for bargains on Ebay. This year I found two new, beautiful, handmade crocheted afghans for about $20 each which will make great gifts.

I recycle our tree, decorations and bows and ribbons. I wrap all gifts in newsprint and comics.

This year I will not need to use the change we've saved, I expect to spend less than $100 for Christmas.