Invest: Christmas Shopping.

I always find my student loan arrives at the wrong time; 3days after my rent is due, 2 weeks after the start of term and this year, my student grant was 2 months late- Thank any and all religious figures for my parents for covering my bills and rent over that time, or I just wouldn't have been able to come to uni for first semester at all.

After reimbursing parents for that, paying for unexpected "graduation fees" and now the looming dread of Christmas shopping- there just won't be enough in my bank account to shower my nearest and dearest with the gifts they really deserve (I tell you when I finally start earning something, after rent, bills and groceries- everything I make I am turning into wonderful gifts for my family). I feel so bad about giving people mediocre gifts, but it's so difficult to juggle making 20-odd sock monkeys and writing a dissertation. There might be some hope however, after trawling through the internet, I think I have found some fairly affordable solutions!

1. Make your own gifts!
Last year I attempted to make everyone I knew a sock monkey. I made 5 and gave up because a) it took too long and b) I got sick of pricking myself with the needles c) related to the previous point, but blood-spotted sock monkeys make morbid Christmas gifts.
However, if you are far more patient/efficient/hard skinned than I, sock monkeys make cute and charming Christmas presents- Look at Sir Monkington-Smythe:

He was given to me for my birthday last year, and assumed the duty of protecting my birthday meringues- a fine and noble position for any sock monkey.

If you've already made an army of sock monkeys, then how about knitting some sort of critter to give to friends and family? My niece and I went through a knitting-craze over the summer, and promised ourselves that when we gained a little more skill, we would buy this book and make the "Squirrel on Wheels".

The creations in this book are fairly small, so if you have some skill of knitting already, you should be able to make a few quite easily and quickly.



2. Show them you care with a "Care Package"
You might not be creative enough to make your own gifts, but now is not the time to despair! I have found this little gift-shopping haven which might just hold the answer!
If you click through to its "Unusual Christmas Gift" section, you'll find a range of beauties from as little as £2. I was particularly struck by

-Suki Shoulder Bag £1.95: Reduced price, recycled material, cute and girly. Can't really argue with that. And there's a less girly version for anyone offended by dolls here.

-Popcorn Holder £1.95: I've seen this in other shops retailing for a lot more, so this has really got my attention. What would I do with it?
~I'd go to some accessory shop and buy a multi-pack of earrings, some form of miniature stationary, a pack of bathbombs/other small toiletries e.g. mini perfumes.
~Pop some popcorn. Natural popcorn, probably not the flavoured stuff.
~Half-fill the popcorn holder with the cooked popcorn- this will act like a packing material. Break up the multi-packs you have bought and hide an item from each inside the popcorn holder! So instead of buying for one person a 3-pair pack of earrings, separate the pairs and gift them to 3 people! Doing things like this can make your money stretch a lot further, and your gift recipients will have lots of little knick-knacks to play with (and some popcorn to eat, omnomnom)

I highly recommend looking through the rest of the website for other gift ideas, they have a really good selection of oddities, and if you can clear most of your Christmas shopping list in one place, you can save on paying lots of delivery charges.

3. Get creative in the kitchen!
They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but I assure you most women (that I know anyway)  also fall for this culinary ploy. Whip up a batch of gingerbread cookies, and turn them into Christmas decorations! I've made a Christmas tree from gingerbread, and it struck me that I could have threaded pretty ribbons through the left over shapes to hang up on the tree/wrap in pretty cellophane pouches to give away. Curses. But there you go, learn from my mistakes.

Sadly I can't find a link for my Christmas Tree Cookie Cutters- but I got them from Lakeland for about £6 (I can't remember exactly). They even suggest a vanilla cookie recipe on the back of the box, and provide you with 2 piping bags in the box- how very thoughtful of them!