40-Day Christmas Challenge | Day 21: Decide What Is Actually Worth Making • Everyday Cheapskate

Homemade Christmas gifts have a certain glow about them. Thoughtful. Personal. Frugal.
Made with love. And sometimes they are all of those things.

Other times they’re made with $47 worth of supplies, three trips to the store and language that does not sound particularly Christmasy. I’ve been there.

So before we start knitting, baking, sewing, pouring, painting, gluing or otherwise creating Christmas presents, today’s challenge is to answer one question:

Should I actually make this?

Today’s Challenge

Look at any homemade gifts you’re considering and decide whether they make sense for your time, your budget and the person receiving them.

If yes, wonderful. Let’s get moving. If not, today is an excellent day to change the plan.

No guilt.

Do This Today

1. Look at what you’re planning to make.

Pull out your Master Giving List from Day 6.

Which gifts are homemade? Cookies? Bread? Jam? Candy? Ornaments? Candles? Photo gifts? Something knitted, sewn or built? Something involving a glue gun and confidence?

Now look at the whole list, not just one project.

Three homemade gifts may sound delightful individually. Seeing that they require three completely different sets of supplies and approximately 19 hours of your life provides additional information.

2. Count the real cost.

Homemade doesn’t mean free.

What do you already have? What will you need to buy? Do you need special packaging or equipment? Will you use the leftover supplies again? And how much time will this realistically take?

You don’t need to assign yourself an hourly wage and conduct a cost-benefit analysis on Grandma’s scarf. Time spent doing something you enjoy has value of its own.

But don’t pretend time is unlimited. December will correct that misunderstanding for us.

3. Decide: Make, Simplify or Buy.

Give each homemade gift one decision:

MAKE IT. You have the supplies, time and desire. The recipient will appreciate it. Excellent.

SIMPLIFY IT. Maybe twelve varieties of cookies become three. The elaborate gift basket becomes one favorite homemade treat with a nice note. Six handmade ornaments become two.

BUY IT. The project sounded wonderful when you thought of it. Reality has since submitted additional evidence. Buy the gift. There is no Christmas tribunal.

Quick Win

Choose just one homemade gift and make the call:

MAKE. SIMPLIFY. BUY.

Then update your Master Giving List.

Homemade Is Wonderful When…

You enjoy making it. You’re good at it. You already have most of what you need. The recipient genuinely appreciates it. And you can finish without sacrificing sleep, sanity or the dining room table until Christmas Eve.

That’s a pretty good homemade gift.

There are things people genuinely look forward to every year. Your fudge. Dad’s barbecue sauce. Grandma’s knitted dishcloths. A loaf of cinnamon bread. A photo album made especially for someone you love.

That’s not “cheap Christmas.” That’s personal.

Homemade Isn’t Automatically More Meaningful

This one is worth saying. The amount of effort you put into a gift does not determine how much someone is required to appreciate it.

Ouch. But true.

You can spend 14 hours making something for a person who would genuinely rather have a bookstore gift card.

Remember Day 9: Give people what they’ll actually use or enjoy. Homemade should be about the recipient too. Otherwise we’ve accidentally made the gift about us.

Don’t Buy a Hobby for One Gift

Before you buy supplies, check what you already have. Yarn. Fabric. Jars. Ribbon. Gift boxes. Baking ingredients. Paper. Frames. Baskets. Containers.

You may already have exactly what you need.

But here’s where homemade can get expensive fast. The gift requires a special tool. And special materials. And a kit. And perhaps an online tutorial because apparently resin casting is more complicated than the 43-second video suggested.

If you want the hobby, fine. That’s different. In fact, Christmas can be a perfectly good excuse to spend an afternoon doing something creative you enjoy. Just don’t spend $90 acquiring a hobby you don’t particularly want so you can save $15 making one gift. The arithmetic is trying to tell us something.

If You’re Making It, Here Are Some Ideas

Now, if you got to MAKE IT and thought, Good. I was hoping you’d say that, this part is for you.

I love a good homemade gift. Especially one that’s useful, delicious or made mostly from things I already have.

We’ve got plenty of ideas here at Everyday Cheapskate, including homemade vanilla extract, DIY luxury lotion, homemade seasoning mix, Ultimate Caramel Corn, Christmas Walnut Toffee and simple homemade gifts that don’t cost much to make.

Pick something that fits the person, your skills and the time you’ve actually got. You don’t have to prove you can make everything yourself or turn Christmas into craft camp. Make something because you want to, for someone who’ll be glad you did.

Give Bigger Projects an Exit Door

If you’re taking on something that will require real time, decide now when you’ll stop trying to make it work.

If this isn’t finished by __________, I’m going with Plan B.

And decide what Plan B is. That isn’t admitting defeat. It’s refusing to let one Christmas gift hold the rest of the season hostage.

Why It Matters

Homemade gifts can save money. They can also cost more. They can save you from shopping. They can also consume hours you don’t have. They can be deeply meaningful. They can also become obligations we created for ourselves.

So the question isn’t: Is homemade better?

It’s: Is homemade better for this gift, this person and this Christmas?

If the answer is yes, make it. Enjoy the process. That’s part of the gift too.

If the answer is no, let yourself off the hook.

Either way, you’ve made the decision before the half-finished project is sitting on your dining room table three days before Christmas.

Your Turn

What’s a homemade gift you actually love making or receiving? And have you ever started one that became considerably more ambitious than expected? Tell us in the comments. I suspect knitters have stories.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow we’re turning our attention from gifts to the house itself.

Before Christmas convinces us we need new pillows, new dishes, new decorations and a completely different living room, we’re going to see what we can do with what we already own.

A shopping cart is not always required.

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