An Aussie Christmas

Christmas.

For some, it is the most joyous time of the year and for others, it can be very stress-inducing. It should be an end of year cleebration, a chance to take stock, relax and enjoy with family and friends. However, it can quickly turn into turmoil over how much to spend on presents and wondering how on Earth the credit card will be paid off. The average Australian credit card debt after Christmas is $1666 with a whopping 82% of people taking up to six months to pay it off and 18% taking even longer!

If you are stressing in the lead up to Christmas and aren’t sure how to go about having a fabulous time and not getting credit card hangover, look no further. Six Aussie bloggers are sharing how they celebrate Christmas in a frugal and fun way.

Whether it is traditional family time, fabulously frugal food or neat savings ideas to take the stress out of your holidays season – you’ll find some great reading here!

Starting today, there will be six posts for you to read! Some of them are not posting until later this week, but be sure to head over to their sites! Check out great posts by Ms Frugal Ears, Enough Time To, Money Meet Mind, Get Money Wise and All About Balance.

You may remember last year, Poopsie and I discussed how we celebrate Christmas. Most things have remained the same but this year, we have started a new tradition.

Now that we are moving interstate, in the future we will need to travel to Queensland in order to see our family for Christmas. This means that the meal together on Christmas Eve that we mentioned last year is no longer viable, as we will likely already be at one of our parent’s houses by then.

Wanting to create our own special time together, and to make a tradition out of setting up our tree, we brainstormed a little before Poopsie came up with a new tradition. We conducted this tradition last weekend, so the photos included throughout my description are of the inaugral event!

On the first weekend of December (given busy work schedules, we could not commit to the 1st of December as a lot of the time it would fall on a work day) we will hold our own special Christmas dinner.

The setting up commences.

To begin with, we set up our tree together. We only have a small tree, with fairly standard decorations. Most of it was bought years ago and we reuse them yearly. I have a few Star Wars decorations that were acquired a few years ago when Kinder Surprise were giving them out as toys. Not really a Kinder Surprise eater, I managed to gather these via friends and family. They now hang on our tree every year. We also have a lovely mandolin ornament that belonged to Poopsie’s great-grandmother. Now that my nephews are getting older, I am very excited about receiving homemade ornaments from them (hint hint to my sister reading this post).

The cute Nativity scene my mum brought me back from Alaska.

Of course, while we were setting up the tree, we had Christmas carols playing. My preferred Christmas album is Michael Buble’s. Poopsie isn’t as big a fan but is a smart man and knows not to fight me on this one.

That morning we had coincidentally finished our Christmas shopping, so I also spent this time wrapping the last of our gifts. I may not always be as organised in future years, so the gift wrapping is an optional bonus to our tradition.

While setting up the tree is important, the real point of this new tradition is to share a Christmas meal, just the two of us. We decided we would take it in turns each year to select and prepare the meal. I was quite unwell with a head cold (which Poopsie has now got), so Poopsie volunteered to take this year.

The Menu

Starter: Beetroot and goat cheese tart

Main: Roast lamb, hassleback potatoes and broccolini

Dessert: Chocolate tart with cream

As I was sick, we didn’t drink but the week before, we had practiced a Christmas cocktail Poopsie had discovered on one of the blogs I read. It was delicious and we will be using it during our Christmas festivities in the future.

Apart from the lamb and the gifts to be wrapped, we really didn’t spend anything out of the ordinary for this day. We did our grocery shopping as normal, just purchasing a lamb roast which isn’t something we normally buy. It was a wonderful evening, creating a lovely memory and cost very little money. For a frugal Christmas event, you really can’t beat it!

Be sure to check out the other editions in this series from Mrs Frugal Ears, Enough Time To, Money Meet Mind, Get Money Wise and All About Balance.

And tell us, how do you celebrate Christmas? We’d love to hear!