I'm Dreaming of a Dollar Store Christmas

Some things in life never change, and for me that's frugality. I like nice things but what school teacher can afford that?

And so, if you couldn't tell from the title, this is what I did with our little apartment on an even littler budget. 

^^^ In the foreground you see our Christmas Tree Ornaments from a set of 100 cheap ones from Target. In the background you see our advent wreath. The Dollar Store did not sell purple and pink candles so we made do. The "wreath" around the candles is from the trimmings of our tree.

Our Nativity Scenes and Holy Family images/ statues were gifted, and we are so grateful for that. Our Christmas Card holder is repurposed from the "Card Box" from our wedding. When you're on a budget, nothing is cheaper than free.

The lighting is bad here but this is our Advent Calendar. Twine, clothes pins, construction paper, and a big bow (seen here clipped to day 20). It doesn't take much people, you just need to use your frugality to inspire your creativity.

I've already talked about Herbert the Tree, but our Angel was passed down from my Mom. Note the color change in the tree lights. That's from reusing lights Tim already had on the bottom which were apparently a different "white" than the ones we bought from Target that went on the top of the tree.

I bought a pack of ornaments from the Dollar Store and the bow came in a two pack with the Advent Calendar bow. Tim already had the cheap Walmart wreath so for $1.50 I embellished it by holding everything down with pipe cleaners.

The cookie cutters came in a set from, you guessed it, the Dollar Store and the jar was one I grew up with.

Even my head gear for our Christmas picture was cheap, cheap, cheap. But just these simple little things went a long way to make our apartment feel oh so cozy. As excited as we were to celebrate the Epiphany today, we are a little sad to move back into ordinary time and ordinary decor. It's a bit grim to walk through our neighborhood and see the used trees lining the sidewalk. Miss you already cheap Christmas decorations, we will see what other disposable, breakable additions we can come up with next year.