Time to Start Thinking About Christmas!

I know Halloween was only yesterday, and that we still have another holiday in between now and Christmas, but if you are like most single moms you don’t have a bundle of cash sitting around come December when it’s time to start Christmas shopping. If you start now, it helps keep the holidays a little less stressful, plus now all the Halloween candy is on clearance. That means you can get a ton of candy to fill those stockings for dirt cheap! Candy can get expensive around Christmas time because it is in such high demand. This way you don’t … Continue reading

Christmas Shopping as a Single Parent

It’s the week before Christmas. Normally, I have the majority of my Christmas shopping done by December 1st. I find that if I work ahead I can just sit back and enjoy the Christmas season while everyone else is out there frantically searching for everything on their Christmas lists this year. But here I am, six days before Christmas, and you guessed it, I’m still not done with our Christmas shopping. As a single parent, it isn’t always easy to make it to the store without your kids. So quite often you pack them along with you, even though it’s … Continue reading

Buying Christmas Gifts for Your Ex Husband

When you are divorced and the holidays roll around there is the question of who to buy gifts for. Do you buy a gift for your ex husband? Your ex in laws? What about your little nieces and nephews? I know I didn’t want to buy anything for my ex husband but I felt it was important for Hailey to give her father a gift. As for in laws, mine had passed away so that wasn’t an issue. The big question was what to get her father. I wanted Hailey to be able to share at Christmas, I wanted her … Continue reading

Free Christmas Apps for Android Devices

Did you start your Christmas shopping on Black Friday? By now, you might be having difficulties making ends meet after paying for all those extra expenses. Wouldn’t it be nice to get something fun, and free, for Christmas? You can! There are plenty of free Christmas apps that are designed to be used on android devices. Christmas Sounds Soundboard is available for FREE right now. This app has 36 of your favorite holiday sounds. You can set them as ringtones, and use them for notifications and alarms. Or, you can let your child be amused as he or she plays … Continue reading

Christmas Debt

It’s that time of year again. Everyone is out and about trying to get their shopping done for the holidays. Some of you may have even braved the Black Friday sales last week. As a single parent money is always tight. Most of us are living paycheck to paycheck. There’s barely enough money to provide the essentials, let alone everything else. There is rarely any money left over at the end of the month as it is. The thought of having to find a way to finance Christmas on top of that can be more than a little daunting for … Continue reading

Gifts for Single Parents

Am I late or is everyone else still Christmas shopping? I always promise myself I’ll be done by now, but I always end up with lots of last minute gifts to buy. Some people are so much harder to buy for than others, like my Dad, what can he possibly need? I try to get thoughtful gifts, something people wouldn’t get for themselves but in this post I’m going to give you ideas for single moms and dads. As a single mother the gift I needed most all year long was time, there was never enough of it. It’s hard … Continue reading

Have You Started Christmas Shopping?

Our neighbor from down the street, a single dad of two young children, announced yesterday that he is done with his Christmas shopping. Apparently, he went to Toys “R” Us last weekend and purchased five toys for each kid, and officially called it a day for the year. He’s done. He’s delighted. He’s so not me. I barely made it through September and am slowly limping my way to the end of the week. Christmas? I can’t even see beyond Columbus Day. Yet, like it or not, the gift-giving season is quickly moving in for the kill. My 7-year-old has … Continue reading

What’s on Your Child’s Christmas Gift List?

The Salvation Army’s red kettles have been out since before Halloween, the bell ringers got to work last Friday and some guy is selling Christmas trees across the street from our church. I guess that means I should be done with my holiday shopping, right? A year ago this week I was in desperation mode trying to track down a bunch of motorized rodents—-a.k.a. Zhu Zhu Pets-—to put under the Christmas tree for my kindergartener. This year Zhu Zhus are passe and Zoobles are all the rage. For the blissfully unaware, Zoobles are brightly colored creatures that fold into balls … Continue reading

Christmas Showdown: Parents vs. Toy Packaging

Some call it “wrap rage,” others call it a nuisance; I like to refer to it as a parent’s worst nightmare. Moms and dads with young children, you know the pain I am describing: The agony of liberating new toys from their plastic packaging. It used to be that on Christmas morning all a parent needed nearby was a camera, a pad and pen to jot down who gave what to whom, and maybe, maybe, a single pair of scissors to release a few stubborn pieces of tape. (Though, if someone in the family had sharp teeth you could skip … Continue reading

Parents and Christmas Firsts

Like it or not the holidays make people very nostalgic. It’s hard for some parents not to think of their son or daughter’s first Christmas when hanging stockings or trimming the tree. Then, there’s the tidal wave of memory triggers that come to us via the media. For example, if I see that TV commercial about the mom being “forced” to buy her daughter a new cellphone plan because “it’s the first Christmas that she won’t be home,” I’m going to hurl. Do you remember the first Christmas your child didn’t spend with you? I can’t imagine it’s a very … Continue reading