I must say I'm proud that I have not bought a new holiday piece of decoration in years, and yet I think our place looks nice.
But I found that I wanted white-wired Christmas lights on the walls instead of the green-wired that we had.
Of course I could have gotten to a store and bought the white-wired ones for a ridiculous amount of money (I know how cheap the stuff is!). But instead, I posted on a local mommy board and asked whether there was somebody who wanted to trade with me.
Within a day, I had 4 boxes of used white-wired lights (the woman had used them at their wedding, and ever since they were lying in her basement), and she had my green-wired lights for her tree.
She thanked me for giving her the idea of "things like this".
It's so easy - you have something that you don't need anymore and need something else - just check with the community and trade. It saves you money, energy and the environment gets a break as well.
Oh, and thrift stores have wonderful holiday decorations this time of year! Go check it out in your local "second-hand stores" (as we call them in Europe :-)
Happy trading!
