By Priscilla McLeroy
That special time of year is finally close at hand again. The time when Crosby croons “White Christmas” on his regular family Christmas special and save-for-a-rainy-day money comes out of hiding.
But, if you are like most people, that rainy day money was spent on other things that seemed impossible to do without at the time. If you fall into this category of not owning even a “ha’ penny,” there is a way to squeeze by and possibly come out on top of Christmas sharing. The solution is the ‘ole imagination-renovation.
The first part involves sending Christmas cards. Remember those postcards you picked up last summer on vacation? If you remember you stuffed them, dig them out. With the cards you can create your own special Christmas message, making the whole idea much more personal.
Next on the list is a solution to obtaining a gorgeous Christmas tree. It seems that a person naturally appreciates something a lot more when he or she has had something to do with it. This year have something to do with your Christmas tree. Instead of rescuing it from the expensive hands of the local grocery store, get a friend to go out and help you find your tree in the woods. This way you will be killing two birds with one stone. One, you will have saved $6-$24 and two, you will have burned up to 400 calories that probably needed to be burned.
Another idea is an answer to how a person can save on gift-exchanging. For the first part, you should find that radiant yellow sweater a close friend gave you but you felt was never really you since you both knew (especially the close friend) you couldn’t shove yourself into it. After you have dismally located it, start preparations for putting stripes into that old sweater. New colors should dim the old sweater’s yellow. The process is to (1) place sleeve in front and fold into pleats using lines as a guide. (2) Tie a string around the pleats to hold them firmly in place. (3) Prepare half to one package of Rit Kelly Green dye in hot water. (4) Strain the dye one inch deep into a long cooking pan. (5) Place one edge of the sweater into the pan. And (6) take out the sweater and rinse and dry it. You can repeat the process with a scarlet or blue dye on the other end of the sweater. After this is done, wrap it up, present it to your close friend and let her try shoving into it!
Gift wrapping is probably one of the last expenses of Christmas buying. To settle this problem, you should start saving old Sunday comic strips and/or brown grocery bags. With these papers, a package different from everyone else can be created. As for ribbons, you could round up the leftovers from birthdays and anniversaries. Or, if you are an artist at heart, draw with crayons or felt tips ribbons, faces, or secret messages.
Though this imagination-renovation routine will not meet with the approval of the ecologists or Hallmark or the apparel shop, it may give an answer to this year’s bounced checks. What’s to lose? If it does not work out, then next year on those rainy days remember what happened to you this year.