Advent, Leftover Turkey & A Frugal Christmas Tip

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. I had a nice time with my Sunday school class discussing Hope- one of the themes associated with the first advent Sunday. We read a couple of verses from Isaiah 9:2 & Isaiah 9:6.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2 (NIV)

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6 (NIV)

The star is one symbol of hope, so we glittered paper stars. Then frosted graham crackers for a fun snack. We sung the first of many Christmas Carols in service today as well, I love Christmas carols! It was a nice day at church.

Tonight for dinner, it was day four of a Turkey based meal, I had to come up with something different. We always have tons of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner, so Friday we were able to have another full turkey dinner with fixins, last night we mixed it in with pasta, tonight I wanted to try a new recipe.

I don't very often try recipes from the back of boxes, I have many homemade casserole recipes rolling around in my head, and I don't love all of the added salt in boxed mixes, but the recipe for Easy Turkey Bake on the back of a spare Stove Top Stuffing box I had in the pantry looked yummy, and an easy prep for a Sunday evening, so I decided to give it a try. Here is a link to the recipe at Kraft's recipe website- Easy Turkey Bake . This recipe was super easy to prepare, and only called for a few basic ingredients, like frozen broccoli, cheese, milk, turkey, and cream of chicken soup, along with stuffing for the topping.

Here's what it looked like before I added the topping.

Here it is with its topping.

Baked in under 40 minutes.

Ready to serve.

This was a yummy dish, and a great way to use up left over Turkey, next time, I would pre-steam the broccoli and add a little pepper. I will put this recipe in my notebook for next time I have turkey left overs!

I would also like to share a Frugal Christmas Tip, I will be sharing some of my Christmas planning tips over this next week, the first one I would like to share is how to generate extra Christmas money. This way you can avoid putting a strain on your household budget, and avoid credit card debt.

When I was a young house wife, with a very tight budget, I made Christmas money the way I had seen my Grandma make Christmas money growing up, making and selling crafts at craft bazaars. My grandma is a very talented seamstress, and was able to generate a good amount of extra Christmas money by selling beautiful doll clothing at craft bazaars every year. I loved hanging out with her at these bazaars as a child, so it was very natural for me to do the same thing when I was older, and I loved it.

Be sure you have a craft that is inexpensive to make and very well crafted, and sell at a reasonable price so you can sell enough to make it worth your effort. You may want to share a table with a friend or sibling at first to make sure you have a market for your items. One of my favorite Christmas years was when I sold my crafts at six bazaars and made every penny of my Christmas money and more. I also found some wonderful hand crafted toys and dolls from other vendors for my children's Christmas gifts that were wonderful. Now a days you can sell your crafts through Etsy and Ebay as well as going to bazaars.

The last couple of years I have made extra Christmas money by organizing my home and finding things I am no longer using or the things the children are no longer using and selling them on Ebay. This helps clear out clutter, as well as to get an idea of what type of things are not being used in the home so you can avoid buying more of the same. For example, my children are now in their teen years and have outgrown many of their toys, we save a few of the sentimental ones, and the rest can be sold on Ebay. Name brand toys in good working order, like Lego, do really well. So do video games that are in good shape. If they haven't touched them in a year, and don't have a sentimental attachment, ask if you can sell them on Ebay. When they know it is going toward this year's gifts it is motivating. Look around the house and see what you can find, I have fun doing this, and love the extra money I can generate for Christmas.

I would love to hear any of your tips for making extra Christmas money, does anyone else love to craft for Christmas Bazaars?