What one FREE thing will you do this year for the December holidays?

[erinalexmom]

This year, the economy has changed everything not just for my immediate family but also for my extended family. I got my kids gifts of course but I really want to focus the holidays on so much more than that so they have memories and "celebrations" to focus on. So I thought it would be fun to start a thread where we share ideas for fun and frugal or free things to do at the holidays that dont focus on $ or gifts.
For example: our town has a Christmas party and the kids gets cookies and pictures with santa (my dh ) who rides into town on a fire truck that our local volunteer fire dept. provides.

[beks37]

One of my favorite things to do is to drive around and look at all the Christmas lights. The only thing it costs you is a little gas!

[Contrary Housewife]

You can make 'decorating' a family event.

Do holiday crafts together. Make cookies.

Go to the church pageant.

[Debbie-cat]

Build a snowman
Go sledding
Go ice skating at an outdoor rink.....these three are only good if you live in a cold area of course.

Make paper chains for the tree
Go to a nursing home and visit with the residents
Volunteer one day at a local food bank
See a school Christmas concert

[Ceashels]

Growing up, decorating the home was a family event. You could make the ornaments and decorations very easily then choose one to put away for next year while the rest get recycled (paper chains, paper flowers, etc).

I like the crafts idea. You can prep the items ahead of time if need be then have the kids and friends over for an ornament making afternoon.

I just cut the paper squares for one of these Paper Flowers – Anyone Can Do That | FindInspirations.com out of my Yankee Candle magazine. ... and I have several other magazines waiting for me.

[valerian]

Sometimes we make homemade ornaments with our kids and they love that. We do a reading of the Christmas story of Jesus' birth and then each person lights a candle after they read their part. Dh assigns each person a part to read. When youngest ds was too young to read, he just lit a candle with help. We also light one in my Grandma's place for her since she is gone and can no longer light it herself. We ride around sometimes and look at the lights. Every year someone mentions when oldest ds was small and got so excited and said "Yights! Yights! Kissmas Yights!". Aah, the memories...gives me the warm fuzzies! We watch our favorite Christmas movies and usually make cookies or some other treat. We also play some board games or Wii games together. There's lot of cheap or free things that you can do.

[Trishagirl]

We like to go hiking in the woods after it snows. Or go to a free concert or contata. Make cocoa & go sledding!

[pollypurebred39]

We do our own kind of advent. It's more a counting down the days till Christmas kind of thing. We watch a VCR tape of a Christmas special, one each night as we count down. Everyone has their own favorite, my husband loves Charlie Brown, DS1 loves the Grinch (the old version) DS2 loves Tim Allen's movie The Santa Clause, and I like the new Miracle on 34th street. We make a big deal out of it, I put out cookies or special cakes. I serve homemade egg nog, or hot chocolate. It's lots of fun.

We also attend the kid's Christmas play at church each year, and attend the Christmas musical (DH's in) each year.

My absolute favorite thing to do though is, a live nativity.

[MaryCarney]

Make an Advent calendar with Hershey kisses or peppermints for each day.
Host a cookie exchange
Sort though, make copies of and distribute family photos you might have - or host a family scrapbook day

[Rosebush3]

Tomorrow night my kids are going to be watching the Lobster Boat Floatilla, local fishermen deck their boats out with lights and decorations and have a parade through the reach. Music plays, it's lovely - but cold, always. There is a Christmas memorial set up in a local campground where trees are decorated in memory of those who have passed. It's a quiet experience driving through that leaves you more thankful than ever for who you still have around you while you remember those that won't be with us this season.

and this: http://www.bangordailynews.com/story...ap-tree,159414

[sunshine]

We do lots of free Christmas concerts -
the local high school has one, my dd's band in college does one, several of the area churches do concerts/plays, etc. . . we also do the free live Nativity scenes (2 of them even serve free meals/hot cocoa), to caroling (go to a nursing home, if the weather is too bad to walk around town) Watch Christmas movies on the net (hulu, joost, etc.) write a letter to a soldier and find someone's address to mail it to them (my son loved to get mail, even from people he didn't know)

[HisDaisy]

We like to drive around and look at the Christmas lights. Our town has a Christmas parade that we are going to take the kids too.
We also like to decorate the house and bake cookies together.
Also we like going to free or in expensive concerts.

[Momto5RN]

tonight is our towns christmas firetruck parade - trucks from several local towns all decorate one of their trucks and there are parades in all the towns over the next weekend - friday one town , sat night another sunday night another etc.

they really do a great job and of course santa is at the end .

saturday the weekend before christmas the local fire truck goes thru the town and the santa on it has candycans and santas helper will run one to yoru child looking out the front door if they arent dressed to go out yet .

now while free for me it seems the money is coming from somewhere so we always make sure we support fundraisers that have to do with town celebrations which pays for these things.

we drive around and look at lights ( gas money only )
volunteer to help wrap gifts and goft baskets at the church
decorate the house ( already have the decor)

abc has a christmas show / movie on each night starting about now .

we go thru things we have and dont need and give away on freecycle ( esp toys so maybe a mom / dad in a bad situation can use them as gifts )

make cookies - etc

dh does the advent candles prayers with the kids that are home each night .

[shoiji]

The town I live in has a Christmas festival that we go to. It is free and has a great hometown feel. The best is that I have a friend that works a stand. We get free funnel cake and fried oreos!!!

There is also a colonial reenactment in the city during the week of Christmas which is also free.

Growing up one of the things I enjoyed was the candle light service at church. I always thought it was really fun and pretty to go to. There were also the holiday neighborhood gatherings.

As a family the "girls" would get together and make sugar cookies.

[pollypurebred39]

"We get free funnel cake and fried oreos!!!"