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This year, for Christmas, I'm (practically) broke. I have 16 people on my list to give presents to, and less than 200 to come up with gifts for all of them*.

Nevertheless, the shopping is almost complete, on 130, no less. There are several food items that will have to bought fresh, but they will be included in the weekly grocery budget-flour is cheap, as are eggs and butter, which are things I usually include on the list about every other week, anyway.

What am I giving? Lots of homemade things:

1) Scarf-hat-mitten sets. 1 meter of fabric makes two scarf-hat-mitten sets-get two, and you can make them reversible! These are practical-especially if the recipient is anything like me and always losing a glove-and can be quite nice, especially if you can find fleece. I've made mine lined with fleece on one side and a soft terry on the other.

2) Beaded wine glass markers. Y'know those little tchotchkas that you can hang on the stem of your wine glass so that you'll always know whose is whose? There's no reason why you can't make them yourself. Fishhook earrings can be bent to fit around the stem of a wine glass quite easily, and beads are cheap-plus you can use any extras for other projects, like....

3) Homemade artist bag, for little kids. Personally, I've never known a kid who wasn't excited to get crayons/markers for any occasion. Make a little bag out of old ratty jeans or any other fabric scraps you've got lying around, personalize it with some applique patches, and stick in a pack of markers or crayons, and a little cheap notebook. This also works great if you've got an adult artist on your hands, too-just upgrade to quality art items and better paper.

4) Cookies/muffins in a jar. This an old frugal hack, but it's worth repeating: if you can get a jar for 2, and flour-sugar-nuts/chocolate/ras ins for 5, why pay 10 for the EXACT SAME THING?

5) Make yer own gift basket. I personally love doing this: assembling all of the various and sundry things that the person in question would like, toss in a few homemade cookies or a jar of homemade jam, and voila-insta-present! Braeburn apples are really good this time of year-I may eat them all myself.

6) Chocolate-you can't go too far wrong with chocolate. Even better is to take a bar, send it through the food processor, layer it into the bottom of a clear glass cup, and add a little tag telling the recipient to just add hot milk. Spiking the chocolate with flavored sugar or cinammon is entirely up to you. Loads better than any powdered crap, and positively decadent.

The real trick to making homemade gifts delightful is not to skimp on the packaging. Do spend money on ribbons, scrapbook-quality paper for gift tags, and cellophane wrap for the cookies-it may be a lot of money up front but keep in mind that you can use these all throughout the year, for any gift-giving occasion.

*It's not for lack of saving-it's just that the money I have saved needs to go elsewhere.

Learn more about this author, Judy Lin.
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