We’ve barely wrapped the tin foil around the leftovers of our Thanksgiving feast most years before I’m off like a shot, ducking away somewhere quiet with only my phone to keep me company, while I rabidly peruse the early Black Friday sales online.
It’s been my routine for as long as I can remember, a holiday tradition of sorts, to gather the kids’ Christmas wish lists throughout November, then anxiously await the sales to begin when I can pile each discounted item into my virtual cart, knocking out the bulk of my holiday shopping and patting myself on the back for paying a pittance in the process.
This year, though, Black Friday came and went, and I found myself without a single gift marked off the list. It’d been a tight year all around, between unexpected medical bills (read kid swan diving into coffee table), two new drivers in the house to insure (whose brilliant idea was it to let financially dependent children drive?), and overall inflation spikes on everyday items (ahem, groceries) that had kept my fingers off the keyboard while sales were at their … Prime.
But with kids at home Christmas can’t simply be skipped. Something had to be done, preferably at a minimal cost to maximum excitement ratio. I had to get creative.
My mind went to experiential gifts, as it does most years, before being squelched by the kids’ demands for toys and gadgets. How could I turn an inexpensive but memorable experience into a top-notch gift? Then it hit me. Earlier in the year, I’d gotten ahold of a kid’s discount ski pass for our 5-year-old, which included a free lesson and rentals at a major resort. At the time I’d doubted we’d ever make the drive to use it, but now it was about to pay off big time. What better gift for an adventurous 5-year-old than a day in the mountains learning to ski? Meanwhile, our 3-year-old would be thrilled with a homemade “coupon” for a day of sledding and exploring in the snow outside the resort, Mom and Dad all to himself. With the boys’ gifts taken care of at no cost save for gas, I was on to the teens.
That’s when the universe smiled at me again, this time in the form of an email from the credit union I bank at, offering tickets to a local college football game for just $10 apiece. Sold! What more could a couple of sports-obsessed high schoolers want than the chance to attend a live game (and maybe pig out on soda and popcorn in the process).
Christmas 2024 was, against all odds, a merry one at our house. The kids never knew that I’d spent a fraction of my usual holiday gift budget, and it didn’t matter. Instead of more action figures, monster trucks, and gaming consoles littering the house, we had fun together, doing things as a family, and faced January head on without the inevitable dread of a looming post-holiday credit card bill.
It turns out the Whos down in Whoville were right—it doesn’t take toys under a tree to make Christmas magical, and it doesn’t take a hefty bank account to spend quality time together. Just a little creativity, determination, and love.
