Our Christmas Budget So Far

This week our Christmas budget took a major hit.   

Last spring, while purging and packing up for our failed attempt to move, we decided to donate our huge seven foot Costco Christmas tree to the thrift store.  I planned to buy a new smaller one for our new place which was also smaller than our current home.  It seemed reasonable as I was making fairly good money at my old job. 

Fast forward to the present and, as you all know, our circumstances are much different and I took on the $100 Christmas Challenge this year.  Over the weekend I climbed into our attic to see if our old four foot tree was salvageable.  I figured, despite it being wrapped in plastic, it would be dusty and that I could wash it up in the shower.  Worth a try right?

 

We found it intertwined in the middle of an abandoned raccoon’s nest.  Three years ago our next door neighbor had a portion of her fascia board on her side of our townhouse sag and some critters moved into her garage attic.  She had them removed and the repairs made but apparently before that happened they chewed through to our side and also set up shop.  By the condition of the nest I’d guess they didn’t have the opportunity to fully move in and other than a pile of chewed insulation they hauled over from next door they hadn’t done any harm.  Thank goodness.

Needless to say I was no longer interested in trying to salvage this tree, now full of chewed up insulation, and only God knows what else, so I placed it in our trash can and bid it a fond farewell yesterday. 

After a family meeting we decided to try to find an affordable tree to replace ours.  We discussed all options including cutting down one in the forest or at my parent’s property.  I’m not a fan of live trees for a variety of reasons, although they really smell nice, so I nixed this option almost immediately.  The girls impressed upon me that the tree was more important to them than the gifts that might go under it so I knew we needed to make this happen. 

Wednesday evening we headed over to Big Lots to see if we could find a nice looking and affordable tree and we did.  They had a seven foot unlit tree that looked really nice for only $49.  It is thinner than our old one and to me that was a bonus.  Our old one was really too big for our home.  We purchased it and used up half our budget in doing so.  I had just ordered a couple gifts for the girls from Amazon so now I am just a few dollars away from $100.   

Will we stay on budget?  No, I seriously doubt we will but I’ll try to stay close.  Should I even count the tree purchase as part of our budget?  Good question.  I probably should.  What do you think?