Christmas Budget

I have gotten sucked into a little debate about Christmas spending over at the Crunchy Chicken blog. It's one of my few regular blogs, and I don't usually post, but I just couldn't get over the idea that $600 was supposed to be a ridiculous amount. I felt I was very frugal, and at times even felt a little stingy (come on, $10 for a teacher? she takes care of your kid's brain all year, for goodness sake!), and we spent more than our budgeted $800. I posted a long comment about it over at the comments for her blog post, but it was so long (and I made a mathematical error) that I decided to post it here. I changed my error to reflect real math, not, um, child-yelling-in-my-ear math.

I'm really annoyed with the idea that spending $600 must be a decadent, consumerist Christmas. Are you kidding me? We were quite frugal and still didn't keep it under our usual $800. I think people who spend much less must be skimping on gifts (come on, people, it's about GIVING!) We save money each month all year for Christmas, nothing goes on credit. We have an explicit budget and we don't go over it:

parents: 30 (homemade stuff does cost money for materials..)
in-laws - 30
niece and nephew - 25 each
3 sisters and brothers - 40 each
neighbor kid - 20
hubby - 100
me - 100
mailman - 10
5 teachers - 50
our son - 200
stockings for everyone present at xmas morning (6 people) 190

Total: 875

That doesn't include the money we used from our own "allowances" that is basically mad money, and I spent about 75 from that, and that included taking some out-of-town visitors out to lunch, an expense I considered a holiday expense, and chocolates for stockings. I assume my hubby spent about as much.

We bought from thrift stores, made items like cloth napkins, bought gifts from eco-friendly companies (lots of people got stuff from Lush.com this year), and got things that we would otherwise have bought anyway, like collapsible shopping bags, clothes, cooking items, and sewing supplies. There were no impulse buys or cheap plastic crap. And all of the budgets included shipping to respective places, including overseas.

And 200 may seem like a lot for our son, but a $60 toy treehouse made of all wood, a $40 remote control car, and some legos ate up most of it.. does that seem extravagant? It doesn't seem like much to me.

Not only that, but I spent an additional 35 on reusable bags and boxes on sale after Christmas so we could avoid the whole wrapping paper issue.

So altogether at least 980 was spent from our household including all holiday-related expenses. This DOESN"T even include the extra money on groceries and sundries to have out-of-town visitors.

It seems totally reasonable to me. :)

And now I'm going to add that I did all this while still trying to really think about what people might want, not just blindly throwing money at them. This year, I really wanted people to open their gifts and smile, and feel a little pampered. It was overwhelming to try to do that for 20 people, (even though some of them were hubby's tasks, not mine) while 8 months pregnant, planning for having company, and especially when hit by a nasty cold that lingered for weeks. But it mattered to me.

And this year, as I opened presents that I got, I got teary-eyed. I remember being a kid and being overwhelmed by the "stuff" of Christmas, the consumerist side of it, and just not really getting it. But this year, I got some gifts from family and friends that were really loving and thoughtful. Among other things, a crystal on a beaded string that my friend made, earrings from my husband that replace the earrings he bought me years ago when he was out to sea that have since been lost, a pressure cooker and a popcorn popper (oh yay!) framed pictures of my son, a book I really, really wanted (actually 3 or 4 of those from different folks), a gift certificate for sessions with my acupuncturist that will really help me out because they are not cheap, a Himalayan salt lamp (how did they KNOW I wanted one?). Something as small as a seam ripper for my sewing kit because I broke mine and would never buy another one because I can just make do (painfully) with what I have, or a book on first aid because I took a class this year were really touching to me.

So whereas I do have my favorite charities, I don't think that precludes giving thoughtful, meaningful gifts to those you love. I really think the people on that blog who posted that they spent $30 or $50 or whatever must just not have people in their lives they care about. I mean, I know that's probably a narrow view of it, and of course you can show love without giving THINGS, but I still think the act of filling a little hole in someone's "thing" life can be really sweet.

Jen

Menu Monday

Menu Monday.. apparently this is some kind of blog thing. Mondays, millions (or 10, I can't tell) of bloggers sit down to type out what they've planned to eat this week. Well, Mondays I spend hours doing my Weekly Home Blessing Hour (actually, it only takes an hour, because I use my timer like a good flybaby, it's just the interruptions that take time... letting the dog in and out and in and out, putting the laundry out to dry, reading a story to an insistent kid, dancing to said kid's favorite song, making him a snack, making him lunch, resting for a moment while I have a snack, etc.).

Tuesdays I make my menu. And mail cards, and balance the checkbook. It's desk day. But the menu hardly looks like: Monday Chili, Tuesday Pasta, etc. It looks more like a list of meals that are scribbled somewhere (currently MIA) that I know I have the food to cook, and will get cooked sometime in the next week, or perhaps two. Today I was planning on making crockpot chili, but I should know better than to plan a crockpot recipe on WHB day, because it's now 1 PM and I have not yet finished the Weekly Home Blessing. Oh, yeah, I stopped after the mopping to let it dry and have some lunch. Like I said.

Andrew the storyteller.

Last night Andrew totally suprised me. We were both up late, of course, because he slept all afternoon. We went to sleep finally around 11, I think, although there's no clock in our room. But before that, I worked on a diaper in the sewing room while he played. He wanted to wrap a present for Dakota, and he found a jewelry box in the wrapping supplies that had been wrapped green, so he got out a big orange bow and stuck it on top, then he wanted me to help him cut ribbon. So he came over to the sewing machine, I held the ribbon, and he used my grown-up scissors to cut it.. he even used them the right way, with the fingers in the oblong side and the thumb in the round! Daddy had been working on that with him while they opened the Pampered Chef packages that came yesterday. Then he got out the tape, and his dexterity with it was shocking. Where did this kid come from?

Then after he got tired of that, and I made a tiny sewing mistake I need to correct (the first diaper is almost done, though!), we went into our bedroom for stories. I told him I wanted to read the Night Before Christmas, but he said, "I can tell you a story!" So he sat down and began, "Once upon a time..." and rattled off a story about an old woman looking for Rudolph. "She wan't looking for him to kill him, or to hurt him, just to return him to Santa Claus." It was so cute! And he said, "the end," when he got to the end! I asked him if they'd been studying storytelling in school and he said yes, but who knows where this came from.

Also he's been reiterating parts of his favorite movie, the Polar Express, in surprisingly coherent ways. For example, he was telling me as I was at the sewing machine about how they keep all the presents at the North Pole, and Santa is the expert on presents. He went on about it more, but I can't remember now, I just remember that he had really grasped whatever concepts they were and turned them around a different way, which impressed me. What a smart kid, I'm so proud. :)

Beeswax

A few pictures from this morning:




A big bucket of beeswax, detritus, and honey from Grammy and Grampa's neighbor.
















A messy workstation, with some cooling beeswax in some makeshift molds.















And the final product! About 2-3 pounds of honey and 1.5 pounds of beeswax.

Today I melted and filtered a big bucket of beeswax from my folks' neighbors. Pictures to come. Wow, what a learning experience. For now, though:

Sick sick sick... I went to bed before dinner, which I halfheartedly attempted to cook, but Andrew's been sick all week and I just got it. I'm hopeful I can fight it off, but of course I need to rest. I got about 3 hours and then Andrew came into bed with me for cuddles and woke me up. Then he fell asleep and started coughing like nobody's business, nonstop. So I sat him up in my lap, which helped his cough but not my sleeping, so I laid him back down and turned on the humidifier, which eventually helped. But then I was awake and hungry. So I got up to eat a PB&J and some milk. Now I'm awake.

While Andrew was getting some cuddles, before he fell asleep, he had his arm draped over my belly, and the baby moved. He said, "I feeled her move!" He was so excited. Then she did it again, and he said, "She kicked me!" It was my favorite moment. Then he said, "I think she likes me." Aww.

This week I reinstituted our daily breakfasts, but of course got thrown off by the cold we got. Monday muffins, Tuesday toast and eggs, Wednesday waffles, Thursday toast and eggs, Friday wild card, Saturday cereal, Sunday whatever. I love my eggs, but Monday muffins are my favorite.

Today was a really frustrating day for me.. things that normally don't bother me just got under my skin... I must be stressed out.

But I wanted to share one really cool thing that happened today: I was feeling really stressed out and I sat on the floor and told Andrew I felt really bad (for yelling at him) and I was just in a bad mood. He cocked his head and said, "It's okaay. Accidents happen and that's okay." :) Then he hopped over to his snack cabinet and shared his pretzels with me.

"Mommy, lone rangers don't smile."

Some lego creations of Andrew's, and you can pretty much tell how this photo session went.

Andrew's favorite non-toy, the nesting baskets from Gaiam.com.

Nibble Day

Andrew had a nibble day today, one of those days when he eats very little and saves up his appetite for the days that I spend barely keeping up with him, scrambling 3 eggs and then 3 more, emptying the box of crackers, slicing strawberries, smearing PB on bread, etc. I went to the thrift store and spent a solid hour weeding through their children's books, spent $12 and got a nice stack. Some of them were really neat books. Then I came home and can't find a place to put them! I'm leaving out only a few books at a time for Andrew to peruse, and rotating them often, and I have some other shelves in the back of the house for the currently out of favor books, either too young or too old or just not interesting him now.

The baby is moving a lot, but Andrew hasn't felt it yet. Andrei has, and Mom, but Andrew just doesn't have the patience. Andrei wanted another picnic dinner tonight, so I threw together some cukes, tomatoes, leftover potato salad, hummus, bread, chik'n nuggets, etc., and all were happy.

New blog

Well, I can't remember how to get into my old blog, which is probably good because it's embarassing how long it's been since I updated it. :)

I have been just a glutton for toys and books lately. I found a puzzle for Andrew that he LOVES! And thus I discovered the joy of hitting the sweet spot of Toy Readiness. It's the Melissa and Doug Puzzles in a Box series.

And we have settled into our public library, after paying some fines. (eek!) Favorite books are the Ali Mitgusch Start to Finish Series (I LOVE these! I cannot get enough of them, I'm holding myself back from buying them all.. we have Rubber Tree to Tire and Cacao Bean to Chocolate), the artists series by Laurence Anholt (I LOVE these, too! I have been looking for these exact books for YEARS! They have them all at the library.) Andrew also loves the various others we've found, some more than others, but those and the Berenstain Bears are really great right now. This list looks good, too.

In the meantime, I've fallen in love with the (kids'?) books, the His Dark Materials series. It's really fun to read, and everyone loves a good book-to-movie series these days. All the better if it's panned by the Harry-Potter-hating type folk. And also from the library, I'm rededicating myself to learning to bake whole wheat bread, even after the catastrophic loss yesterday of my sourdough starter. Oh, the humanity... I guess I didn't feed it often enough. Andrei thought it was creepy anyway.

Yesterday Andrew was so excited that I showed up at school with a snack that he suggested I do that every day! When I asked what I should bring, sitting under the little tree outside his classroom, he said, "I know! You can go by J's Bakery and get me a cookie!" I feel like all I say is, 'sugar is bad for your teeth, it's a sometimes food..." He gets it straight from Daddy and Grampa.

Speaking of teeth, he had his first dentists' visit last week, and they didn't even look at his teeth. We did a lot of looking at mine, and he held "Mr. Thirsty," the little vacuum that sucks the spit out of your mouth, and wore blue gloves, and got a new toothbrush. And fed the fish! Pretty fun. :)