Christmas is that time of year where spend control is out the window and it’s easy to spend too much with the perfect justification of “It’s Christmas”. I decided to buck the trend this year and spend nothing on Christmas. This is not an easy task given everyone around me is fully into the Christmas spirit.
How I controlled spending on Christmas:
Christmas Tree – We were travelling a lot this December and I wasn’t keen on battling through the clutter in the basement to get through to the Christmas decorations. My Husband was not keen on doing the heavy lifting either so we ended up not setting up a Christmas tree which meant I didn’t need to spend on additional decoration to get it ready. Do I miss not having a Christmas tree? Actually, no and my Child does not seem to notice or be interested in us having one.
Christmas Gifts – I informed my friends I do not want any Christmas gift from them as I will not be gifting at all this year. I hope they listened to me as if they end up gifting me, I will not be reciprocating. I will just regift forward whatever I get for someone else next year. For my Child, I have decided to make an additional investment in December rather than buy a gift. Instead of a new gift, I will be wrapping up some toys that have not been opened or used this year.
Christmas black tax – The tradition every year was for me to send a substantial amount of money to my home country for my Mum to distribute to family members, friends and any one she concludes needs financial support for the season. I realised that despite my goal to control gifting this year, I still spent a lot of money on gifting so I decided to do nothing more for Christmas. I feel slightly guilty about this as some people now expect to have this annual money gift and I suspect they will be disappointed.
I did get an unsolicited feedback from a friend who indirectly told me I’m acting like a grinch. Well, I choose to ignore this rather than be bothered by it. How I celebrate Christmas is my choice and no one else’s. We will still have fantastic food with family and we are going away for some days to spend time with family members. This travel is fully funded via sinking fund.