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33 Things to do for Christmas with your kids on a Budget.
One of my favorite topic of conversations with my husband is to talk about our childhoods. We were both blessed to have had great childhoods. Even through times of poverty, lost of family members, and life altering changes within our families, we both came out of our childhood with happy, joyous moments and events with our families.
Practically anything can bring up the conversations that will lead us to tell each other about happy memories from our childhood but I would have to say, during the Christmas season is when we share our most cherished memories over and over with each other.
Not sure if it’s because we both came from low income families or because life was just simpler then but we had similar family traditions. Because of how much we loved the traditions, we vision our children loving the same activities and to hopefully one day reminisce just like we do. We hope they appreciate how we as parents took more time investment into building family traditions than we did in financial investment.
Listed are 33 Things you can do with your family before Christmas (on a budget).
As a family of 7, when I say budget, I really do mean budget. Because we love to do as much as we can during the holidays keeping everything cost effective begins to pay a big factor into what we can do.
We do not get to do all 33 every year but there are a few on the list we MUST do every single year (like driving around looking at Christmas lights through neighborhoods with hot chocolate from Starbucks), but each one are ones that we enjoy and have experienced together as a family.
33 Christmas Traditions to start with your kids this season on a budget. Click To Tweet
Related Posts:
Seven Christmas Advent ideas for Couples.
The Husband Christmas gift guide
33 Things to do with your Children before Christmas.
Invite friends over to binge watch Christmas movies with hot cocoa and popcorn
Go to a Christmas play
Go to a tree farm (take some memorable pictures while you’re at it)
Read the Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John) together before bed
Visit a family member or friend that you don’t regularly visit
Volunteer at a Church
Donate food to a food bank
Go for a hike
Make s’mores
Take old toys to the thrift store – to make room for new toys
Take outgrown clothes to charity
Put up the Christmas tree
Decorate your kids bedrooms for Christmas together (The dollar store will sometimes have some great pieces to start with and shopping together will get the kids excited)
Go get a cup of hot cocoa for each of you at Starbucks and drive around neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights
Have the kids help you make tins of Christmas baked goods to your neighbors
Throw a Christmas party with your family and friends (Ugly Christmas Sweater theme is always so much fun!)
Make a Christmas photo album together that you can display for every Christmas season
Have the kids write their Christmas wish list. (My kids love it when I give them Holiday toy Catalogs from places such as: Target, Wal-mart, Macys)
Put Christmas lights up together outside. Little ones can do the tree shrubs and low branches
Give each child an allowance to go buy a Christmas present for a sibling
Write a list of what you are grateful for and your favorite memory of the year
Wrap presents together
Have a Christmas scavenger hunt either driving around or inside the home after all the Christmas decorations are up. You can use the décor as items to look for.
Shop for stocking stuffers together at the dollar store
Make a Christmas Trivia game you can play together or buy a fun Christmas theme board game. (Every year I make a jeopardy theme game with different Christmas topics and categories, it is always a big hit at our Christmas party. I include categories such as “Most famous Christmas movie quotes, Fictional Christmas Characters, Christmas Songs”)
Encourage your kids do a act of service for your neighbors
I hope this lists gives you some great ideas of what to do with your kids before Christmas. Let me know how it goes, which ones you tried.
Do you have any budget friendly Christmas traditions that is not on the list that we might enjoy?
In the 10 gifts rule, the four basic gifts remain the same and 6 more are added. These include something to give others, something to do for others, a toy to play with the family, something to make, and footwear.
There is no magic number but the general consensus seems to be between three gifts potentially up to around five. There will be many factors that contribute to this decisions; how many children you have, presents other family members may buy, how old your children are and, of course, budget.
Generally speaking, parents tend to spend £50-100 on each child at Christmas with those values going up or down depending on their age and how much you can afford.
“Quality is always better than quantity. Your child doesn't need 20 presents to be happy; a couple of thoughtful, well-chosen gifts will do just fine.” Of course, parents have varying opinions. Some follow the “rule of three.” This means that a child gets three presents, one for each gift baby Jesus received.
If the aggregate value of gifts from the same source on a given occasion exceeds $20, you may decline any distinct and separate item in order to accept those items aggregating $20 or less. Widely attended gatherings.
The annual gift tax exclusion of $18,000 for 2024 is the amount of money that you can give as a gift to one person, in any given year, without having to pay any gift tax. This is up from $17,000 in 2023 and you never have to pay taxes on gifts that are equal to or less than the current annual exclusion limit.
Make a list of your grandkids and split the money evenly between each kid. This is a great way to figure out how much to spend if you don't want to overthink it or you want to be totally fair. For example, if you've got $1000 for 8 grandkids, that works out to around $125 each.
Indeed, according to a Statista survey, American families project spending an average of $923 on Christmas gifts in 2023, just slightly less than the $932 recorded in 2022. This represents the highest result of the survey since 2019, when respondents expected to spend $942.
Based on the survey, it seems $200 is a good ballpark amount to spend on your 12-year-old this Christmas as it falls in line with the spending habits of most Americans.
Meanwhile, 35% of parents plan to spend between $50 and $150 per kid, while 12% are budgeting between $150 and $200. Just 19% of American parents say they'll spend more than $200 on each child's gifts.
Before you start buying gifts, it's important to set a budget. Financial experts often recommend allocating 1% of your annual income for holiday spending. This includes not just gifts, but also decorations, food, and other festivities. This recommendation could be a good starting point for your holiday budgeting.
Re: Birthday money for a 12 year old? Both of my children like to receive money, especially DS who is 14 next month. Their grandparents usually send around £25-30 on their birthdays (they probably see them twice a year) & my sister usually gives them £20 too & I spend the same on my younger neices.
In the five gift rule, the first four gifts are pretty straightforward - something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read.Then, the last gift is where you can really have fun.
Try to shoot for around 10-20 items. For example, let's say you have really wanted a digital camera for the past two years. That's something to keep on the list.
Two or three normal gifts is plenty. Normal gifts might be a pair of shoes, a new hoodie, a gift card, or a year's subscription to a streaming service. One if it's a big milestone gift like a car. (Very rare these days—even if it's a family hand-me-down.)
(In fact, charitable donations are often tax deductible.) Even if you make gifts to another family member who is not your spouse, a friend, or a business associate, they are not taxable under federal guidelines, until their cumulative value exceeds $15,000 (for 2021).
You must submit a gift tax return if you present more than $15,000 in cash or assets (for example, stocks, land, or a new automobile) to any one individual in a year. This condition does not imply that you must pay a gift tax. It simply means that you must complete IRS Form 709 to report the gift.
Can my parents give me $100,000? Your parents can each give you up to $17,000 each in 2023 and it isn't taxed. However, any amount that exceeds that will need to be reported to the IRS by your parents and will count against their lifetime limit of $12.9 million.
The annual gift tax exclusion is a set dollar amount that you may give someone without needing to report it to the IRS. The threshold is typically adjusted to account for inflation each year. The IRS announced that the annual gift tax exclusion will be $18,000 in 2024, up from $17,000 in 2023.
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Introduction: My name is Cheryll Lueilwitz, I am a sparkling, clean, super, lucky, joyous, outstanding, lucky person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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