It's a time of good cheer for one and all, but if you have a large family Christmas can be quite expensive. You can try to get everyone a small gift for Christmas, but with prices these days you may still end up with a large bill. Try introducing the Secret Santa game to your family and at the party everyone can give one bigger gift to the person they picked. Or you can make up the Santa Grab bag. Where everyone buys one gift and puts it into a common bag for people to remove gifts at random. Though this can lead to an excessive number of gift cards in the grab bag. You may wish to reserve the grab bag game as a way of giving little gifts such as are found in the Christmas stocking.

Set up a crafts table for the children to stay entertained while adults sit around talking after Christmas dinner. Some simple craft ideas are making a construction paper Santa or kids can make up pine cone bird feeders as a special Christmas gift for the wildlife. You'd need pine cones, peanut butter and birdseed, coat the pine cone in peanut butter and roll it in the birdseed until it's entirely coated. These can be set up in trees or before coating them in peanut butter you can tie a string around the ends of them to hang on a branch or hook.

Sometimes the effort of the traditional Christmas dinner can be too much. To stay out of the kitchen and in with the party ask people to each bring something for dinner. You can call it "Potluck Christmas" and guests can bring things like That way you only need to worry about the main entre and guests can make sure they bring something they like. So get planning and give, eat and be merry this Christmas.