Last Post of the year!

I thought about doing a blog "year in review" but I only have half a year, due to losing my blog Art Spectrum (as many of you know. If not you can read about it here). That's ok because looking back isn't really my style anyway. I prefer to look ahead.

Unfortunately, sometimes you have no choice but to face your past. In this case, it would be Christmas pasts! I am two Christmases behind, meaning I have bills from last Christmas and this Christmas. It really drives me nuts! All year long I am a responsible person, when it comes to spending, but for some reason I lose a little bit of that common sense and restraint at Christmas time. Everybody loves to give and make others happy, but where do you draw the line? I can never seem to measure that one perfectly. I mean, I don't completely go overboard. I set a limit but that limit always seems to exceed available funds. Thankfully, there are some extra funds that cover this debt as the year progresses. However, I would much rather use those funds for the current year not the past. It's no fun paying for the past, right?!

That is why I have decided to start saving for next Christmas, now!
This is how:
We had a family meeting the day after Christmas (I think my boys are old enough to start thinking about saving and the value of a nickle, dime, quarter, even a penny). I took an empty popcorn Christmas tin, that we received as a gift this year, and put the change from my wallet into that tin. I sifted out the pennies and put them in a separate container. The boys looked in the tin and were not too impressed. I asked them how much money they thought was in the tin. My older son said, about $5. I told him to take it out and count it. To all of our surprise there was a little over $11 covering less than half the bottom of that tin. We conservatively estimated that one layer of silver coins would equal about $20. We than estimated that it would take approximately 100 layers to fill the tin. My son quickly did the math and said, "That means $2,000!" Now, I don't know how accurate that is but I'm sure it will be an impressive amount once completely filled!
As a family, we will be adding coins to this tin all year and will count it on December 1, 2010! Whatever that total is, that is what we will have to spend for Christmas!
And we may never look at a quarter, dime or nickle the same way again!


picture taken by Noah, age 8

Lucy's already dreaming about what treats await her, next Christmas!

Have a Happy, Healthy and Safe New Year! See you in '10!!

P.S. I hope this blog makes it through the year, so that I can refer to this post on December 1st 2010.