Hundred Dollar Holiday Challenge?

Isn't she lovely, isn't she wonderful....?  Her name is Grace.  Really, seriously.  I bought her USED at the fair last week!!!  Well she is only 12 days used but that counts as used and it also saved me $100 in purchasing her.  She is a Grace, Baby lock!  I am so pumped!  I told Clay that I feel like I was driving a beater and now I am driving a Cadillac!   She is SUPER easy to use and so nice.  My old machine made me cuss like a sailor and I am not known to cuss, now this new machine makes me sing!!

Watch out Martha Stewart - make room for Holly Peevyhouse.

 Stickers they had all over the machine so that nobody else would buy her!

Ta da!!!  This is my first creation and it only took me a good hour to make.  Guess what else, it was free material.  My mom "Gigi" works for a furniture store and she had brought me some of their old "sample" materials to practice sewing.  Practice nothing...Christmas presents here we come!

Which leads to me the hundred dollar holiday.

There is a new book out called the "Hundred Dollar Holiday".  I haven't got my hands on it, but I am trying to find it via the library and it may be too new for them to have just yet.  Anyways the premise is to challenge each family to only spend $100 dollars for Christmas gifts.  That is total, not per person, per gathering, per couple that is total!  

For several years now Clay and I have made our Christmas gifts.  Most of our "gifts" tend to be food.  However sometimes we have made calendars for our parents with the grand kids photos.  He and I make gifts for each other.  One year he made me a beautiful wooden box out of mahogany wood.  It is my blessings box.  Anytime I feel I have been blessed I write it down and put it in the box.  When I have a down day or just need a reminder of how God has worked in our life, I sit down with my blessing box and read.  Nothing he could have bought in a store would have been more special to me.  Other things we have done for others in replacement of a gift is give the gift of time.  12 promised family dinners for my mother-in-law has been one of her favorite gifts, babysitting for friends, special "kids" day for nephews... Or we have done experience gifts for others, such as tickets with us to Discovery Land's performance of Oklahoma!  Be creative!!

Here is a list of gift so far this year I am working on and how much they have cost me.  Mind you I have a list of around 40ish people that we gift to each year so I have to keep each gift very simple and very inexpensive.

*Magnets - made from glass beads at the Dollar store (package of 50 for a $1) cuttings out of magazines around the house and some glue.

*Embroidered Tea towels - 49 cents each from IKEA and embroidery thread that I can do several towels with each spool 30 cents.

*Sweet little cuddly pancake creatures for the tiny people in our life - I am using sweaters that I have purchased from garage sales for no more than $1 each.  Stuffing them with bamboo fill $5 per bag that should stuff several different creatures.

*Totes and other sewing crafts that I will make for dear ones from scraps of fabric, old shirts, sheets, and table clothes that I have gathered from here and there.  

Mind you when I say sew...I am a baby seamstress...VERY baby...

I am asking you to take a step back and look at your holiday spending.  Is it too much?  Is it necessary?  Are you putting it on a credit card? If you are putting it on a credit card then I would say it is TOO much and NOT necessary.  When we first married  10 years ago we would put upward of $1000 on our credit card for Christmas each year.  It was absolutely absurd, all to make sure people got "something" for Christmas!  Do we really need "something" for Christmas?  We finally decided about five years ago that we didn't care any longer about what others thought of our Christmas gifts.  What we cared about was the heart that was put into the gift and that we weren't just buying more junk for people to stow away until the next goodwill drop off.  Because seriously we were not buying anything for these people that they "needed" or even "wanted", it was just something that we roamed the Mall for hours wondering and hoping that this was the right thing for that person.

We are working on downplaying the gift factor in our own little family even more this year.  I have a friend who celebrates the time between Christmas and New Year by doing something special each day.  Something special meaning maybe a craft or watching a holiday movie not going in some expensive excursion.

So I am challenging you if you don't already to look at your holiday and downsize it.  If you do celebrate the holiday in a simple way please share by making a comment.  If you want to take the hundred dollar holiday challenge let me know as well.  I would love to have others along with the ride!

Grace and Peace

~Holly