{"id":339,"date":"2011-10-18T02:38:13","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T02:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/?p=339"},"modified":"2011-10-18T02:38:13","modified_gmt":"2011-10-18T02:38:13","slug":"it%e2%80%99s-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/?p=339","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (Already?)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Anyone who knows me knows how much I, and my family, love the Christmas Season; and, how much we enjoy decorating and entertaining.\u00a0 Typically, we can\u2019t wait to get started.\u00a0 But, I must confess that I was truly shocked this past weekend when I went into my favorite warehouse store and found an entire section of the store offering a HUGE array of holiday decorations for sale.\u00a0 I mean, come on!\u00a0 The ghosts and goblins of Halloween haven\u2019t even begun to fly about the neighborhoods yet!!\u00a0 Obviously, neighborhood merchants and national retailers are already implementing plans to help us overspend for the holidays \u2026 which got me to thinking.\u00a0 How can we save money and still enjoy the holidays and make them memorable for our loved ones?<\/p>\n

Ironically, the first thing that I thought of was the year my wife and I became engaged and decided that, since we would be paying for our own wedding, we needed to find ways to save money that could otherwise be spent.\u00a0 With Christmas fast approaching, we decided that this was as good a time as any to put our savings plan into action.\u00a0 We decided that, rather than spend large amounts of money on gifts for friends, we\u2019d make gifts instead.<\/p>\n

One of the gifts was a wreath made with a metal wreath ring and macram\u00e9 yarn.\u00a0 The yarn was cut into pieces of approximately 3\u201d.\u00a0 Each piece was then formed into a \u201cU\u201d, placed under one of the ring wires, and the two ends were fed through the closed end of the \u201cu\u201d.\u00a0 When each ring of wire on the wreath was full of yarn, a wire brush was used to brush out the yarn creating a fluffy, cloth wreath that could then be decorated with inexpensive artificial poinsettia blooms, pine cones, bells, and red ribbons.<\/p>\n

When these gifts were given, our friends received a very special and unique gift.\u00a0 While these wreaths did not cost a lot of money, each was special.\u00a0 Each was made with its intended recipient in mind and decorated in a way that we felt was most appropriate and would be most appreciated by the recipient.<\/p>\n

At the mid-point of October, some will say that it\u2019s far too early to think about Christmas gifts.\u00a0 But, I would suggest that now is<\/span><\/em> the time to begin planning the gift giving and deciding how we can make these holidays special for those we love without breaking the family budget.<\/p>\n

In the coming days and weeks, I\u2019ll share some ideas and would welcome suggestions that each of you can provide.\u00a0 Together, we can enjoy the season without having to fear the bills that come in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who knows me knows how much I, and my family, love the Christmas Season; and, how much we enjoy decorating and entertaining.\u00a0 Typically, we can\u2019t wait to get started.\u00a0 But, I must confess that I was truly shocked this past weekend when I went into my favorite warehouse store and found an entire section […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[40,35,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holiday-savings","category-personal-finances-2","category-saving-money-personal-finances-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341,"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions\/341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eagleoneresources.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}