My Frugal Life: Our Way of Celebrating Christmas

My husband is a long haul trucker and more often than not will not get home for Christmas until late Christmas Eve night and will have to leave again early on the 26th. The company he drives for makes it really hard on drivers who want to spend more than one day at home for the holiday. It's just the 2 of us since our kids are all grown and all live out of state, too far to go to visit in just one day.

So we have developed a tradition that we do every year now and we are able to enjoy the day and being together. There's no stress, and I don't spend all that one day in the kitchen cooking. I'm able to spend the day with him.

Here's how our Christmas day goes. A day or so before he comes home, I make a mincemeat pie for him. That's his favorite, and I make it a lot deeper dish than any restaurant or store-bought pie we've found. I also make some "tart" size mincemeat pies that he takes on the road with him after Christmas. This is a special treat for him.

On Christmas day, we get up in the morning and have coffee and cinnamon rolls (a real treat for us!). Then we exchange any gifts we've gotten for each other. After that we take it easy for a few hours, having a light lunch at home. In the mid afternoon we go to the movies. Going to the movies has gotten so expensive (popcorn and drinks) that we don't do this except on Christmas day anymore.

The rest of the year we get our movies from Netflix or buy them off the $5 rack and watch them at home. So going to the movies is another special treat for us. We try to find one that we have been wanting to see for many months. We may even stay for a second movie if we decide to!

After the movie we go to a restaurant for dinner. We have several here that are open on Christmas and serve a nice holiday dinner. And finally after dinner, we drive around town looking at the lights. We both enjoy seeing how people have lit up their homes and yards and it's a nice topper for the day.

Oh, I always fix a small "holiday plate" for each of my dogs, too. And they each get a new sweater that I've crocheted and a stocking full of rawhide treats.

This makes for a nice Christmas for us. No pressure and lots of together-time. We look forward to it all year every year.

By Cricket from NC