Restaurant.com for Christmas gifts?

Let me start by saying I am probably at least a month away from making a final decision on this. :)

Since money is super tight right now, I'm trying to find a way to cut expenses for Christmas. Since I already bought things for two of my brothers, I'm thinking immediate family can stay at my normal budget of $10/person and the extended family is being scaled way back. I thought the restaurant.com certificates might work for the aunts and uncles.

Since the one lives in the area and I know they gave my parents a restaurant.com GC last year for Christmas, I'm sure I can do it for them. It should also be a little bit easier to figure out where to get it to, because I can ask my parents and other folks up here. The other aunt and uncle live in Columbus -- I'm in Cleveland. I have no idea what down there is any good.

So the first dilemma is how do I know which is these places they would like? The second is, I know a lot of them are for say, $25 off XX purchase. Do you think if I went ahead and just gave them the certificate and maybe used my scrapbooking supplies to make it a little prettier that would be fine?

Plan B is to just say the heck with it and make them something. I made coasters for myself entirely out of my quilting scraps, so it's probably going to end up being either a set of say 4 coasters or sew something on a dishtowel or two.

At the risk of sounding like scrooge, maybe it's wise to ask if everyone is going to be giving gifts this year or maybe a "family" type gift would be better. Our family is huge, we cut way back years ago to just the immediate kids. (neices & newphews since there's only 6 total) the adults don't bother if we do anything it's like a little movie basket that we make up and throw in some special things like nuts, special coffee, movie gift card and some popcorn? I'm only saying it bc the homemade/thought behind it is usually appreciated more and in these times, some may be finding it harder anyway.

I'm going to wait until SR kicks it into high gear with the holidays and buy things like nuts from nuts on the net, coffee, popcorn etc and make baskets up for the teachers/family etc. I know it'll be cheaper in the long run and more appreicated to.

April, we are going to do the same thing this year. With the restaurant certificates, in these difficult times even coming up with the amount you have to spend to use the certificate can be challenging.

That said, we haven't exchanged with other adults in the family in years. Just the local neices and nephews (2 each).

I have given Restaurant.com gift certs as presents in the past. I printed the cert onto pretty parchment-like paper and then, after I trimmed the edges, pasted it onto another pretty solid color paper. I put it in a 8x10 or 9x13 envelope, which I also decorated and it was a very nice looking certificate (IMO, it looked a whole lot nicer than a gift card in a little envelope).

I don't think I'll be giving them this year because the preferred restaurant has changed their terms and I don't want to obligate the recipient to spending more $ at a restaurant they didn't choose. (In the past, it was a flat $25 cert. with no restrictions and was so good while it lasted :)

BTW, this is the first year, families on both sides are not trading gifts. It's just crazy for the adults to be out spending $30-40 a piece and then we all sit around saying "we shouldn't do this." So, this year, we're not. We're just going to give small "stocking" gifts.

I guess I'm lucky here. We don't exahcnge anything with Mom's side, so it's my dad's two brothers, thw two aunts, my grandma and one cousin, so 6 people total for extended family to buy for. Everybody else is still relatively well off right now, so I'm pretty sure we're still doing gifts and I would feel even more like crap if I did nothing. I'm not planning on buying any restaurant.com GC's till at least next month, so we'll see what peole say at my Dad's birthday party in a few weeks. That's usually the deadline for submitting a Christmas list.

I've always had a fairly low per person budget, so getting crative here really isn't new to me. A lot of the gift ideas from SR are just more than I could afford. This was the first year I was supposed to be in a decent job and I was excited that I'd be able to get nicer stuff. Then some other stuff happened....and taht thought is on hold till next year.

These are the caosters I made for myself. I think I fugre that they probably ran me around a buck each to make, but since it was stuff I had on hand, it was really free.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...s/coasters.jpg

I know the one aunt likes when I make them stuff, so she and my uncle might get coasters too. I've made placemats, tablerunners, and even a wall quilt or two for gifts in the past. That one aunt loves that kind of thing. The other one....I dunno. I only see the stuff I've made and given them come out when they have a big party.

I have a few ideas for my mom as well, and I've been keeping an eye on the ads in the paper to see if they go on sale. I've also thought of making her some Sudoku coffee coasters, since she's addicted to her sudoku. Since it's not really possible to make the whole grid on one, I'd make her NINE 9 patch coasters. Then when she opens it up and asks why the heck she needs 9 of them, I'm gonna tell her cuz she drinks a heck of a lot of coffee!

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Originally Posted by mmm611

I guess I'm lucky here. We don't exahcnge anything with Mom's side, so it's my dad's two brothers, thw two aunts, my grandma and one cousin, so 6 people total for extended family to buy for. Everybody else is still relatively well off right now, so I'm pretty sure we're still doing gifts and I would feel even more like crap if I did nothing. I'm not planning on buying any restaurant.com GC's till at least next month, so we'll see what peole say at my Dad's birthday party in a few weeks. That's usually the deadline for submitting a Christmas list.

I've always had a fairly low per person budget, so getting crative here really isn't new to me. A lot of the gift ideas from SR are just more than I could afford. This was the first year I was supposed to be in a decent job and I was excited that I'd be able to get nicer stuff. Then some other stuff happened....and taht thought is on hold till next year.

These are the caosters I made for myself. I think I fugre that they probably ran me around a buck each to make, but since it was stuff I had on hand, it was really free.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...s/coasters.jpg

I know the one aunt likes when I make them stuff, so she and my uncle might get coasters too. I've made placemats, tablerunners, and even a wall quilt or two for gifts in the past. That one aunt loves that kind of thing. The other one....I dunno. I only see the stuff I've made and given them come out when they have a big party.

I have a few ideas for my mom as well, and I've been keeping an eye on the ads in the paper to see if they go on sale. I've also thought of making her some Sudoku coffee coasters, since she's addicted to her sudoku. Since it's not really possible to make the whole grid on one, I'd make her NINE 9 patch coasters. Then when she opens it up and asks why the heck she needs 9 of them, I'm gonna tell her cuz she drinks a heck of a lot of coffee!

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Those are adorable! If I had a creative bone in my body I would do stuff like that. It makes it mean so much more when it's made from the heart. :sunshine: