The cold early morning air indicates that Christmas is indeed fast approaching!  Even the radio blasts Christmas songs every morning.  Christmas is still more than a month from now but the festive spirit is already everywhere. 

The true spirit of Christmas is love and sharing.  Although, it is not the most important essence of the season, gift giving is still considered a significant part of Christmas and is observed every year.

Buying your gifts earlier to avoid the Christmas rush is a good strategy.  Everyone would like to buy a well thought of, but less expensive gift for a loved one. 

Here are some meaningful and precious gifts which are inexpensive and could easily be prepared by you:

A poem written by you

What is most meaningful than a poem written by someone you love most?  Write a poem from your heart and design it with colored papers.  This will cost you just a few cents.  What is important is the emotion and love that goes with the poem.

If you want to spend more, then you can mount it and have it laminated.

A CD or cassette tape of your theme song or favorite songs sang by you

Blank CD’s and cassette tapes are cheap.  All you need is your room and a recorder.  Be sure to close all windows and doors when you record.  Do this when it is quiet; if this is not possible then just close all the windows and doors to your room and that will do.

A simple cross stitch done by you

If the gift is for your family, make a clock - cross stitch.   The materials needed are inexpensive.  This would be an excellent and practical gift. 

If it is an individual gift, then a flower-cross stitch would do.  You can select from a wide variety of designs.

Design a personalized Christmas card

You can make use of cheap materials or even free materials which are available from your environment.  You could make use of  dried tree twigs, leaves, flowers, pebbles,  old newspapers,  sand;  look around  you,  with a little imagination,  I’m sure you could come up with beautiful, personalized Christmas cards with very minimal expenses.

Shells designed into a work of art

If you’re near a beach, you can pick up shells and design them into beads, necklaces or bracelets.  All you need is a strong piece of nylon or a thread and then the ingenuity to create designs.  You would be surprised with the various works of art that you can come up with.

Handy and useful  paraphernalia from old newspapers

Old newspapers are always useful. Do you know that you can create a desk organizer from an old newspaper?  Make use of your imagination.  You could cut the newspapers into strips and weave them (to make them sturdier) and come up with a jewelry box, a desk organizer, a holding cup, a pin holder, and many more.  This is actually a thriving business with some people.  I can’t see any reason why you can’t create one too.

A spiritual offering

You can offer a 9-day prayer vigil, or your own personal new year’s resolution to your loved ones.  This would be the most precious but inexpensive gift you could give them as this will entail your personal and dedicated participation even after Christmas is over.

You could write down the vital things you wanted to fulfill, place in a simple envelope and give this as a gift.

You are giving them your gift of becoming a better person not only during the yuletide season but onwards.  The best gift a person can give to loved ones is the gift of becoming a better person.

What better ways to prepare gifts for Christmas than the above mentioned?  Definitely, they are inexpensive but very meaningful and precious Christmas gifts to the persons we love.