by Sarah Le-Fevre

Created on: November 03, 2009   Last Updated: November 07, 2009

Christmas can be financially demanding for everyone, regardless of income. If you have children, it is likely that they will want to join in by sending some gifts of their own, thereby bringing extra pressure to bear on your purse. In these credit crunched times, it makes good sense to enlist the help of your kids to make this your most creative and cost effective Christmas yet.

Delicious gifts

Grandparents, aunts and uncles will treasure handmade gifts and appreciate the care and love that has gone into making them. At the same time, the kids get an opportunity to be creative and learn new skills. Easy to make edible treats can look as good as anything you buy from an expensive chocolatier if you pay a bit of attention to presentation. The very easiest are dried fruits dipped in melted chocolate. Dried apricots, crystallized pears or ginger are good for this. The crystallized fruits are a little pricey, but remember, the very best chocolates come singly in tiny boxes, so you can give as many or as few as you like.

For slightly older children, find a recipe for chocolate truffles. At its most simple, the mixture is melted chocolate, thickened by the addition of double cream. Once cooled, roll it into balls and coat with cocoa powder, icing sugar or melted chocolate. Half a dozen of these, presented in a suitably decorated egg box look (and taste) absolutely amazing.

Set aside tiny portions of Christmas cake mixture and bake in ramekins to make mini Christmas cakes for those who will not be spending Christmas at a big family gathering.

Crafty gifts

Very young children will have a more limited range of crafting skills to draw upon but with some help can use their enthusiasm for paper, paint and glue to create gift projects. Possible collage style gifts are scrapbooks featuring the child's photographs and artwork, pictures made up of coloured paper scraps from magazines, or Christmas cards and decorations made from cards received in the previous year.

Children from about six upward can be taught to crochet, if they don't know how to do it already. The ultimate frugal, and useful, gift is the rag rug. Depending on the age of the child, they can cut the 'yarn' themselves or an adult can prepare it for them. Yarn is created from an old cotton jersey teeshirt. Start at the bottom and cut a long spiral strip all the way up to the armpit. The strip should be about half an inch (1.75 cm) wide. The smaller lengths cut from the sleeves can be tied on to the main length,

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