Give Together, Laugh Together

A Cheapskate’s Guide to the Holiday Season: 7 Cheap Gift Ideas

Celebrate the holidays on a budget! From Christmas to Kwanzaa, discover 7 thoughtful, wallet-friendly (cheap) gifts to start your “cheapskate” journey.

Packed with hilarious observations, unusual tips, and the stingiest advice money couldn’t buy, The Cheapskate’s Handbook is the perfect gag gift for your favorite miser—who might just be you. Skinflint Mifflin Lowe invites fellow cheapskates to come out of the closet in a celebration of all things free, complimentary, pro bono, and if need be, cheap. Read along to this excerpt to find cheap gift ideas for the holiday season.

What’s to Celebrate?

Originally, of course, the word holiday came from the Middle English word haelidaeg, meaning “holy days.” Nowadays, maybe it would be more accurate to call them “hole-y days” because of the hole they’ll put in your pocket.* Clearly, holidays have become occasions for bilking the public by shaming people into buying corny, stupid, useless, incredibly overpriced cards that are frequently handed over without a scintilla of sincerity, just so you don’t feel guilty (see “Mother’s Day”).

*Forgive me, I pun.

Even worse, as card manufacturers, trade associations, and overpaid lobbyists continue to proliferate, there are now an increasing number of “holidays” each year, including: National Stepfamily Day, National Pot Pie Day, National Boss’s Day,** National Sweetest Day,*** and perhaps best of all, Global Belly Laugh Day, which even has its own website!****

**Are you kidding me? Is this a joke?

*******Founded, imagine my surprise, by the candy industry.

********The website says “global,” not merely “national.” I like the chutzpah.

After reading about National Stepfamily Day, National Pot Pie Day, and, above all, National Boss’s Day, the only one I felt like celebrating was Global Belly Laugh Day. I mean, what’s next? National Change Your Electric Toothbrush Head Day? National Throw Out Your Old, Disgusting Underwear Day? Sponsored, of course, by Calvin Klein. In fact, how long will it be before there will be more holidays in the year than actual days on the calendar, forcing you to buy two stupid, corny, useless, incredibly overpriced cards and several worthless gifts on any given day? Well, I’ll tell you. This will happen just as soon as the various trade organizations can figure out how to get money from retailers to publicize them and convince shopping outlets all across our beautiful land to sell associated products.

Given the fact that there are now a gazillion “holidays” that used to be just regular old days until Hallmark and American Greetings decided they had to be celebrated with their own special $9.95 cards, we now celebrate not just Mother’s Day and (oh all right) Father’s Day but also National Grandparents Day, National Child’s Day, National Aunts and Uncles Day, and, seriously, National Cousins Day. I mean, do you really like these people? Do you even know who they are?

Fortunately, as a practicing cheapskate, you can simply ignore most of them—cousins, aunts, uncles, and so forth—and their so-called days. There are, however, a few you’ll have to handle a little bit more adeptly. While Father’s Day is always in question—I mean, you can always forget it and still have confidence Dad won’t break down in tears and make a scene—you simply can’t ignore your mom on Mother’s Day . . . right? Nonetheless, you can handle both of these days cheaply and with great sensitivity.

The Holiday Season

What we now call the “holiday season” (formerly known as Christmas and Hanukkah) has become, indisputably, nothing more than one great big huge five-month-long reason to forget everything that could be considered deeply holy or even marginally spiritual while encouraging people to be as greedy as humanly imaginable—engaging in materialistic feeding frenzies that make the activities of bloodthirsty piranhas and hungry sharks look civilized by comparison.

After months of being exposed to advertisements that tell us we’re really thoughtless jerks if we don’t buy what they’re selling, the holiday season really gets rolling with the frightening, aptly titled “Black Friday,” when greedy hordes of overweight shoppers trample old ladies and run over little children with motorized wheelchairs if they happen to be standing between them and a big-screen TV that’s on sale. Let’s consider that Christmas was originally about the birth of Jesus. What would Jesus do at a typical “doorbusters” event? Weep? Run away screaming? Let us consider the day and the way we’ve come to celebrate it and maybe how you can avoid getting through the occasion without going into bankruptcy.

Christmas

Many of us celebrate Christmas with a family fruitcake. All of us, however, celebrate Christmas with a fruitcake family. The simple truth is that during the holidays, you will have to spend more time than is humanly endurable with relatives and lots of other people you don’t really want to know. The worst part is that you’ll not only have to send expensive cards to people whose names you can’t remember, visit relatives you’ll spend the rest of the year avoiding, and eat food you can hardly digest—you’ll also have to give gifts to practically everybody and tips to everyone from the doorman to the garbage man to . . . well, EVERYBODY. In the process, you’ll have to make several thousand trips to the ATM, buy a lot of things you can’t afford, and put on about fifty pounds you really can’t afford either.

If you’re married, you’ll spend the entire time before Christmas arguing with your SOSO about how to decorate the house, what to buy the kids, whether to have a tree,* etc., etc., etc. Be very, very careful here. Many of these incessant arguments lead to eventual divorce, and that is, of course, the most costly eventuality a cheapskate can face.

*Your spouse will insist that “Christmas just wouldnʼt be Christmas” without a tree. Of course not; it would be much more peaceful.

At any rate, in the process, you’ll be forced to buy a lot of food, liquor, and expensive stuff you don’t even get to eat, drink, or keep. And the truth is, no matter what you give anyone or what you get from anyone else, it will never be the right thing! Kids will inevitably end up with underwear, pajamas, battery-powered socks, and clip-on ties. Wives wind up with toaster ovens, ironing boards, Santa-themed lingerie, fake jewelry in ersatz Tiffany pouches, and sweaters that force them to wonder if the person who gave it to them is legally blind. Husbands will get cologne that smells like bacon, couples’ spa days, tie clasps that aren’t even made of titanium, and airplane tickets to visit their spouse’s family! In short, nothing anyone in their right mind would want.

Despite spending more money than anyone not named William “Bill” Gates or Malcolm “Steve” Forbes can afford, you will never purchase anything anybody wants.

There’s even a good chance you’ll use some of the unsolicited credit cards you get in the mail about twenty times a week in the months preceding the holidays and go into debt, from which you will never recover. No matter whether you’re a man, woman, or child (or some combination of the preceding), you will still manage to purchase absolutely nothing anybody wants for Christmas. Conversely, you will never, ever receive anything you really, truly want. But there are ways to avoid this whole mess, which you can read about later in the section titled “Cheap Sentiment: The Fine Art of Gift-Giving.”

Hanukkah

The real miracle of Hanukkah is that anybody remembers when it’s celebrated. It is, in fact, celebrated on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev in the Jewish calendar, which basically means nobody in the United States, outside of rabbis and a few people in Brooklyn, can actually be sure when it starts or finishes. At any rate, the whole confusing timeline is the perfect “out” for anyone who wants to avoid giving anything to anybody during the eight days of Hanukkah—whenever they are.

For the first few days, you can pretend you didn’t get anything for anyone because you didn’t know Hanukkah had started. “Didn’t you read the Kislev calendar?” they may say. “I tried,” you can answer, “but it was the Sabbath and I couldn’t use my computer . . . so I guess I got it wrong.”* After the first couple days, you can tell people you went shopping—but all the good gifts were already taken so you didn’t get anything. They won’t believe it, but they can’t prove you’re lying without a full-scale Senate investigation . . . so you’re good. The last couple of days, apologize for ruining Hanukkah again this year and promise that next year, you’ll get a brand-new Kislev calendar and get it right.

*How do ultra-orthodox Jews ever show up for anything on time? I mean, they could be centuries early or decades late depending on which calendar they use. At the very least, it would require all sorts of mathematics, conversion charts, figuring, and tabulation—and theyʼre not even allowed to use computers on the Sabbath. In any case, itʼs amazing anybody gets to temple on time.

In fact, if you want to give people a cheap gift, send them a downloadable Kislev calendar, which, as the website www.hebcal.com notes, is free. You could print it out, put it in an envelope with a card, and maybe throw in a dreidel. But you don’t really have to. Another year, my friends, out of a total of 5,777 (in the Kislev calendar), when financial disaster can be avoided! L’chaim!

Kwanzaa

Remind your African-American friends, neighbors, relatives, and coworkers that Kwanzaa was really just one more week out of the fifty-two until 1966–67, when somebody thought it would be a great idea and tacked it onto Christmas—from December 26th to January 1st. In fact, most people who celebrate Kwanzaa also celebrate Christmas, which means it’s basically just another opportunity for people to force you to do more shopping so they can get more stuff .**

**Of course, the upside is that you can go shopping after Christmas, when everythingʼs on sale!

Since Kwanzaa is not really a traditional holiday anyway (I mean, how could anything from 1966–67 be traditional?), that means you really don’t have to buy gifts if you don’t want to—and my guess is you don’t. More to the point, please remember that nothing that happened in 1966–67 should be taken seriously and is probably better off being forgotten. Think of bell-bottom pants, Nehru jackets, and Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin’s duet in Sam’s Song. It’s hard enough to remember how Kwanzaa is spelled, let alone what days it falls on, so why not just save yourself some money and forget about the whole thing? Nonetheless, if you know someone who’s part of the 1.6% of the US population that intends to celebrate Kwanzaa, give a Kwanzaa card. Yup, the implacably thoughtful Hallmark Company makes ’em. So, of course, does American Greetings.

Cheap Sentiment: The Fine Art of Gift-Giving

Whether it’s a birthday, special day (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Stepfamily Day, Bosses’ Day), or holiday (Halloween, Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa), when you’re giving something away, it isn’t the thought that counts. It’s the expense. Here are tips and principles to keep in mind:

1. Whenever possible, give something homemade.

Remember when you were a kid and gave your parents potholders, painted shells, and crumby clay ashtrays? Remember how thrilled they were to get something just because you made it? Remember how thrilled you were to give it—because it didn’t cost you a dime? Well, the same principle applies now. Not only are homemade gifts the cheapest things you can give, but people are reluctant to criticize them for fear of hurting your feelings. And don’t worry if you can’t paint, weave, knit, or whatever. When it comes to homemade gifts, discernible talent is neither expected nor necessary.

List of suggested homemade gifts:

Imitation leather wallet
Neckerchief slide
Anything knitted
Macramé plant hanger
Paint-by-numbers picture
Driftwood sculpture
Shell ashtray
Photo of recipient’s pet or family

2. Give something religious.

If the recipient of the gift is a member of an organized religion, you may give him an inexpensive medallion, painting, dreidel, necklace, garment, or book in the complete confidence that no matter how cheesy and tacky the gift is, no one will have the guts to point that out.

3. Sentimental favorites.

If you don’t want to make something homemade or give something religious, a great way to get off cheaply is to give a photo. For instance, take a picture of your brother’s family on a summer picnic, then blow it up and give it at Christmas. For less than $6, you’re off the hook.

4. Regifting: an act of genius.

Like nuclear fission, Newton’s laws, vacuuming robots, and the La-Z-Boy reclining chair, regifting is one of the great acts of genius of all time—a giant step forward in the history of mankind. Just think: all you have to do is rewrap whatever it is, put on a new gift tag, and voilà—it hasn’t cost you a nickel. However, be careful to never regift someone something they gave to you. It can lead to hurt feelings, and you may have to buy an extra-expensive gift just to make up for it.

Remember, when you’re giving something away, it isn’t the thought that counts.

5. Search the attic and scour the basement.

Look through the junk that’s piling up in the far reaches of your house. You’d be surprised how many times you can come up with something that just needs to be dusted off or given some paint to make it look like a thoughtful gift.

6. Free samples or government publications.

Samples of perfume, soap, and cologne are available free in most department stores. Also, government publications, such as Dog Care, Raising Your Own Vegetables, and How to Care for a Snake Bite, are available online or at any US Post Office.

7. Give something politically correct.

Give a $12 box of UNICEF cards along with a picture of the child/village/country/continent the purchase will help. In our politically correct era, no one will do anything other than gush over how great it is, how wonderful you are, and how they couldn’t have imagined a better gift. Better yet, give a charity collection box, which the recipient will have to fill in with his or her own nickels, dimes, quarters, and even dollar bills. How funny is that? The recipient actually finances what you’re giving her or him.

Cheap Trick

If you’ve bought someone a gift but you’re not sure they got one for you, leave your gift in the car. If they give you something, you can always say, “Oh, I forgot!” and run out to the car and get your gift. Otherwise, forget it. Take it home and keep it.