Credit Crunch Christmas Part 2: Cards and gifts

<< Part 1: Decorations | Part 3: Food and drink >>

Buying and sending Christmas cards is a bit of a chore, and a bit of a waste of money. After all, why buy when you can just recycle? The pros are obvious - it's environmentally sound, you don't have to go to the shops, and it doesn't cost a thing.

Just grab your cards from last year (you did keep them, right?) and use some correction fluid to erase the old names and messages and bingo, brand new card.

Don't worry if you didn't save your cards from last year though, as we've got your back. You can download the official Dads' Space Christmas card via the link below, at no cost! This awesome image was designed by the very talented Andrew Endersby, who also draws the Dad On Arrival comic strip that features in our monthly newsletter (and if you're not getting that, you might want register right now, because it's excellent).

Download the Dads Space card here!

We spend an absolutely shocking amount on presents at Christmas - aparently the national average is £111 per child. But buying your kids all the latest toys, gadgets and gizmo's won't neccesarily make them happy (eapecially if you accidentally get the wrong coloured Power Ranger or something) and it probably won't create lasting memories.

By getting a bit creative, you can do presents and cards for almost nothing - and ironically your kids are more likely to remember these gifts.

Chances are, your partner will be as tired as you are at this time of year, and often the best present you can give is just showing that you care. It's really easy just to buy some lingerie or a DVD or something, but you can do better than that.

For example, you could write a letter that explains exactly how you feel about you feel about her, detailing how proud you are and thanking her for all her hard work and emotional support she's given you over the last year. As long as you don't write it on the back of a beer mat, it'll be something that she'll treasure forever, and it'll make her feel truly special.

You could even make use of our SentForever offer, and send the message into space, so it'll fly through the stars forever.

If you want to give a gift, you can still be quite thrifty - you could, for example, grab a load of tester samples of her favourite perfume from the make-up counter of a department store, and re-fil an empty bottle. Or you could take a photograph of yourself and put it in a home-made frame - even a hand-painted cardboard one will do.

It's hard to remember a time before PlayStations and Barbies, but hand-made gifts used to be the norm, rather than the exception at Christmas.

The possibilities are endless - you can cut up pictures from magazine's to make paper dolls, you can create your own board games on the back of cereal boxes (and you can add personal touches that will make the game unique - using cut up photos as chess pieces for instance) and if you're feeling really crafty, you could even try your hand at knitting something or making styrofoam aeroplanes.

You can also make a book of 'gift vouchers' for your kids, that they can redeem throughout the next year. The vouchers can be for events ('A day at the beach') or for activities ('One hour of videogames'). It's a fun way for kids to feel like they've got a bit more control over their lives, and it feels like they're getting a years worth of presents to look forward to, rather than using them all up on christmas morning.

At any celebration where gifts are given, you always end up wondering what the point of wrapping paper is - it all ends up in the bin after five-minutes of frenzied ripping anyway!

Like the cards, you can re-cycle from last year if you thought ahead, but other wise, why not just use some newspaper, or pages from glossy magazines?

<< Part 1: Decorations | Part 3: Food and drink >>