Homemade Christmas presents

I hate having to buy cards! Call me a scrooge but whoever invented this card giving thing has cost me a fortune

I make jam and pickles for the family throughout the year. I set one bottle aside from each batch to use as Christmas presents. It's not big and it's not expensive, but the preserves are great and it's a "money can't buy" type of gift.

I will make my own christmas cards for all my family members. I hope they will like it! That was my friends idea and I had to use it for my presents as well!

One year I was totally broke (my parents sent me the train fare to get home for Christmas). So I chose books from my own shelves that I thought would suit each member of my family. I wrote a small inscription in the front, wrapped them and handed them round on Xmas day. People loved them.

love making xmas cards, its nice to have a personal touch to them and a lot more thoughtful.

I am terrible at sending Xmas cards unless you live next door! I have found this year that sending an e-card is just as good, especially to overseas. Whats more, it is usually free so you don't have to pay for posting and pray that it arrives on time.

I made the mistake of buying some poster paints and sponges for my 2 year old great-niece and gave her an old roll of wallpaper and spent a hour or so painting with her, now every time she comes to visit, she expects to paint!!!

For Christmas I bought her a plain wooden box with a hinged lid, painted pictures and her name all over the outside, varnished it and filled it with paints, paper, brushes etc. No only did the whole family love this original present but it was the most fun I'd had for ages!!!

Guess what I'll be doing next time I see her????????

My christmas cards where awesome! Everyone was so excited and impressed about my cards! Im sure i'll do it next year again

I noticed a distinct increase in the number of home-made gifts I being exchanged underneath our Christmas tree this year, and I thought it was lovely. I gave a complicated gift involving DVDs, home-made CDs and the Broons annual, hand-packaged and personalised, to my sister-in-law, and her husband gave her a fabulous calendar made with photos of them and their friends. I was given a beautiful book of photographs taken by a friend: it was fully bound and presented as an anthology, and looked every bit as professional as something you'd buy in Borders.

Contrast this with the Secret Santa present I got this year at work - a tiny candle in a holder with Santas on it. Which I didn't receive until January. Sometimes, home-made gifts are worth far more...

I think something homemade comes out of the heart and not out of the wallet. You have to invest time and love into the present which will be recognized by the presentee.