Christmas Outfits

Christmas Crackers

What to wear in the season of spending goodwill!

Christmas is one day. I have said it before and I'm saying it again. Why does it take over so much of our time and money in the preceding months if it is only a day! It so easily snowballs with gifts, food, entertaining, new outfits and before you know it the cost is running into four figures without you even trying. I confess to getting completely swept along by it all many a time. Once the tree is up and the carols are playing, my resolve weakens and I fall prey to the retailers seasonal assault on our festive good nature and I'm off. The new dress, the extra decorations, the presents for everyone including the milkman , hair done, nails done, cried at the John Lewis ad and watched The Snowman on repeat whilst eating a mountain of pringles. But my word doesn't it mount up!! 

So,this year we have all agreed to only swap presents around the extended family for children. My husband and I will of course buy each other something. When you have a large extended family it becomes expensive not only to buy presents for people, but for people to buy for you. We are always conscious that there are five of us - not a cheap family to buy for. This way we can focus on the adults birthdays throughout the year instead and get them something worthwhile then instead. I sensed relief from most people we talked to about this! This will save us hundreds of pounds so that's a good start. My children are going to have inventive presents and I am using every deal and voucher I have at my fingertips again to keep the cost down. We are sharing Christmas dinner at my mums this year. Everybody is bringing something. My job is roast potatoes and a Mary Berry chocolate log. Already I can feel the pressure is off and Christmas has become less complicated again. 

We do have a few events to go to and I don't intend on missing out on the festivities so I will be dressing up, but do I need another new dress, really? I have a ball to go to, but I really don't want to spend all that money on a dress I will wear once. I would rather have those Ash Jalouse ankle boots I am hankering after please!

Now if you read my blog, you know me well enough now to know when I can afford to, I love a good shop, but I have looked realistically through my wardrobe and I have a number of combinations that I could easily rehash to seem new to save me spending out again. I know a new dress is nice, but only when you can afford it. If you are facing some events this Christmas and need some festive outfits, but don't have the budget to buy an expensive new dress, here are my suggestions for an upgrade of your existing wardrobe.

• Don't spend money you don't have - you will regret it later!
• Look at your existing wardrobe with fresh eyes 
• Turn an existing dress into a smart/casual outfit by adding some new sparkly leggings.
• Change the feel of last years dress by adding new accessories or shoes - less expensive than buying a whole new outfit.
• Could you have anything in your wardrobe altered? I have a ball to go to on the 30th Nov. I have a beautiful dress from Wallis , but it has a small 'train' I don't like. I've not worn it for years because of this so I am altering it and removing the 'train' myself.
• Swap with or borrow from a friend. 
• Scour the charity stores - harder to find , but dresses are out there!
• Dress up a pair of wide legged black trousers with a new sparkly top and jewellery.
• Focus on a great hair do and some statement jewellery to jazz up an existing outfit.
• Focus on the night out and the people you are with and have a great time, new dress or not!
• Go for dramatic red lips and a bright manicure - a party look in any outfit!

Here are some of my picks to top up an existing wardrobe for the party season. All £50 or under.I need to state that I am not an over the top dresser so if you are in the market for something extremely flamboyant and over the top Christmassy , then look away now :

Stella and Dot have a sale on at the moment. Lots of items to choose that are reduced and many below £50. I have now written my wish list for my hubby for Christmas! I adore these earrings at £22.50 , reduced from £45...hint hint OH.

Black Velvet Tapered trousers from Next. I think these would look great with some 
sparkly heels and a statement top.£32

Basic Sling Backs With Ankle Strap from Zara. These are a great shoe for only £29.99 and a festive colour too - stunning with black trousers.

Short Knitted cardigan with sequins from H and M . £24.99. Would look equally great with jeans or paired with a dress on a night out. Multitasking item for sure!

Topshop Glitter Flock Leggings £28.Not too over the top! Perfect under a tunic or dress to change an outfit .

Urban Code Black leather clutch Bag with Shoulder strap at Asos. Love this! £50 was £108. Very tempted.

Snakeskin print . coated jeggings from M and S Perfect under a shorter dress to make a different outfit - and can be worn after the party season has finished too. £35

If you are in the market for something a bit more sparkly to carry how about this  from Next, Glass bead Clutch for £35.

Have you equipped yourself with sparkles and sequins in preparation for the onslaught of Christmas or are you sitting this one out?! 

Christmas Crackers

Christmas Crackers

Decorating

I will admit up front with no messing that I am controlling when it comes to decorating the house. I am that parent who will let the kids decorate the tree, smile sweetly, then redo it after they have gone to bed, or at the very least rearrange the branches that have 15 ornaments hung on them.

Just call me Monica.

"You won't get me to sit on the couch and talk about my problems until I have straightened things up Dr. Hunter."

I always think that decorating the house for this festive season divides people into two categories. It's either Santas grotto in your house or subtly reigns supreme. We have both types amongst the members of our family so I will be careful how I proceed. 

If you wish to decorate every nook and cranny with all the bits of tinsel and baubles and flashing snowmen that you can find then you go ahead, but I'm probably not the one to give you advice on that! I'm sure my kids would love me forever if I did, but I'm not, so there you have it. 

I'm a tree,candles and lights gal.

So can you decorate and make your house festive on a budget at Christmas? 

The first question is, "real or fake tree?" Hmmm. I love the smell of a real tree and thought I would never go down the route of an artificial tree , but when we had our second baby 9 years ago I could no longer stand the hourly destruction of the lower branches of the tree. Needles galore! So we purchased what we thought was a pretty good artificial tree at a cost of £49.99. Over the past 10 years (it will be it's tenth outing this year!)it has more than paid for all the 'real' trees we would have purchased of course, although that was not my motivation at the time.

If cost is your primary concern then I would suggest looking at an artificial tree or a potted real tree that  you can re use each year. However, you can also pick up bargains last minute if you are happy to wait. One year, before we had gone down the route of an artificial tree ,when we only had one small baby at home and we were both in full time work we waited until Christmas eve to purchase our tree. It cost us 99p from B and Q for a 6 foot beauty!

If you are starting from scratch obviously it is going to cost you more so pick and choose from these 10 ten tips for what is relevant to you. We do opt to have a tree, but of course you don't need to if you want to cut costs further:

• Keep things simple - you don't need to decorate everywhere.
• Fairy lights can change the feel of a whole room and can be picked up as cheap as chips.

• Some candles on the mantle piece with a few sprigs of ivy is a lovely simple way to change up a Christmas decoration.
• Use greenery and berries from the garden or a friends - it is free and smells divine. I decorated our banister last year with ivy, a few sprigs of holy, some red baubles and some fairy lights - beautiful.

• Make a decoration for your door. It doesn't need to be an expensive wreath. A few bits of greenery mixed in with a few silver decorations, tied with a silver ribbon looks very classic.
• When you buy decorations, invest in ones that will last and store them carefully. Pick up new decorations in the sales after Christmas - never pay the silly prices they charge prior to then. Wrap them in tissue and pack in boxes. We also get the children to write a letter about what they hope for over the year to come and put it in with the decorations. They love opening them when we decorate the tree!

• I do splash out on a bunch of lilies and/ or red roses . I try and get these before the prices go up for Christmas! If you get them tightly budded they will last right through.
• A simple nativity scene, particularly if you have young children, adds Christmas spirit to the season. I purchased this papier mache one for £20 about 5 years ago. The children rearrange it regularly. I seem to have missed out a shepherd - got them down from the loft to photograph during my sort out. I expect he is lurking in another box of decorations. We have had many funny combinations set up!

• Buy a wooden advent calender for the kids. This will pay for itself as you won't have to buy disposable ones every year. I can fill it with chocolate for £1.00 . They take it in turns to open a drawer. It cost me £10.99.

• For my last tip here are a selection of simple and inexpensive decorations to make and use, either as table pieces or around your home:

1.  Pine cones sprayed in gold and silver
2.  A glass bowl filled with silver or glass baubles
3.  Candy canes grouped in a small vase tied with a red ribbon
4.  A glass bowl with a bundle of battery operated fairy lights
5.  Use empty wine bottles and spray silver,white or gold and put tall white candles    in. Cluster them together in the centre of the table.
6.  A simple Christmas banner - Use some garden twine and hang an selection of items  along it. You could go really homemade and get the children to decorate brown tags and tie these on, or hang a selection of small wooden Christmas decorations or alternate two colours or 100s of small baubles ( these are so cheap to buy!)
7.  If you are a bunting maker - make some simple Christmas bunting in red, white and  green to string around your room.
8. Use the kids stockings ( or any stockings) and fill them with wrapped empty boxes for that ultimate Christmas feel. Hang along the banister or above the fireplace.
9. Wrap a few small boxes neatly in brown paper and decorate with ribbon in one colour. Arrange on a surface.
10. To display cards. Get hold of a child's hoola hoop. Cover it in Christmas wrapping and tie a ribbon at the top. Peg cards all the way around to make a card wreath.

All of these decorations are pretty basic and don't cost the earth. Of course if you have a bit more cash to splash you could make things a little more complicated and elegant, but I'm saving what I can for my new kitchen so I shall be keeping it simple this year!

What are your decorating tips?

Christmas Crackers

Christmas Crackers......

The Budget!

That's a word that has the ability to have even the most organisationally obsessed amongst us running for cover. The thought that we may have to not only restrict our spending, but give account as to where the money has gone is enough to make us throw caution to the wind and do away with The Budget once and for all! 

My OH is the sort of person who thinks a day performing risk assessments and recording the results on a detailed spreadsheet counts as fun so you can predict what his attitude towards budgets will be. He would budget in the hamsters pocket money, if they had any. So, there is no budget avoiding in our house anymore and I am slightly sheepish in my admission that I think this is a good thing.

If there is no budgeting to your spending, things run away very quickly. I have learnt this the hard way . I don't spend a lot on myself, but with 3 children it is easy to overspend on clubs, clothing and days out. My children are expensive! Money can just trickle through your fingers without you realising it.

Beware of little expenses , a small leak will sink a great ship.

Christmas is no exception. If you, like us, have a big family, you can find yourself with a huge bill at the end of every year that is just difficult to swallow. We found ourselves a few years back, not only buying numerous presents for our own kids and each other, but for every member of our extended families. We were also the ones who entertained everyone at Christmas, and whilst I enjoyed this, doing it was expensive . In hindsight I should have requested  contributions from other members of the family in the form of a desert or drinks, but you live and learn!

So my first, very simple bit of Christmas advice ( and I will be taking my own advice this year) is to set yourself a spending budget. How you do this depends on where you are financially at the moment. You may have a  figure straight away that you know you have to spend so that is your starting point. You may wish to start with a list of people you have to buy presents for and the meals you have to cook , then allocate a reasonable amount to these areas. However you do it, make sure you are firm with yourself and  stick to it. I tend to have a food/drink and decoration budget and a present budget and I set the figures for these at the start. This means that the money I have available governs what I spend rather than how much things cost!

 We are not at that stage of our lives where we are living hand to mouth anymore, but I don't like to give our hard earned cash away without thought. So for starters, here are ten of my tips to reasonably cut back on that Christmas budget:

•  Make a list of everyone you buy presents for. Re evaluate this list! Does Aunt Dolly's hairdresser really need a gift?
• If you have a large family suggest putting all the adults names in a hat and doing a secret Santa. Everybody buys one present then instead of 20. 
• If you have a large family suggest you all contribute to a charity of your choice this year instead of buying numerous unwanted and unused Christmas gifts for one another.
• Buy your children one main present. Don't go overboard with the extras.
• Wrap presents in value paper or brown paper that the children can decorate . It lasts 10 seconds at the most.
• Do a car boot with toys your children have outgrown to fund this years purchases.
• Keep food shopping to a minimum. The Supermarkets are only shut for a day. Don't panic buy your food. 
• Shop around for the lowest priced goods and food. If you can't get it within your budget, don't buy yet!
• Take the time to look for vouchers, codes and the cheapest deals on the items you are buying.
• Change your focus from giving presents to spending time together. An activity that can cost next to nothing, but be worth everything.

It all sounds so terribly unfestive and scrooge like doesn't it. Sorry. I do love Christmas. What I don't love is how it can dominate months of my life and swallow hundreds of pounds of my money without a second glance. Christmas is in December. It is one day. I want to keep it in perspective and not have to spend the whole year paying for it!

In my next Christmas Cracker I will be focusing in more detail on Gifts and how to find low budget alternatives to popular gifts.

What tips do you have for keeping Christmas budgets under control? All suggestions gratefully received by a Mum of 3 trying to keep tabs on the spending!

No talk of Christmas before November.

Thats the rule in our house!

For quite a while no sooner did the summer holidays end than the talk of Christmas would start amongst the kids, with hastily written Christmas lists being thrust under my nose at every opportunity. So we implemented the rule of, "No talk of Christmas before November." Unfortunately, as is typical of children, we now have a count down to the beginning of November and they get more excited as the day arrives with whispered plans of what they might talk about!

I am a planner and an organiser. I don't like to leave things to the last minute when I am then presented with the only option of smash and grab at the supermarket and panic buying presents for relations. However, I refuse to let Christmas take over my whole year by snaffling presents away at every opportunity and spending too many months excessively plotting and planning what is in effect, one day. Christmas is in December, planning a reasonable budget and being strategic about what and when to buy means Christmas does not need to dominate any more time than it is meant to! 

So, starting in November ( as I am allowed to talk about Christmas then) I am doing a series of posts from budgeting to present buying to budget Christmas dinners. I shall call these posts Christmas Crackers so watch out for them!!