Advent Conspiracy This Year

Many of you might have questions of what an Advent Conspiracy Christmas looks like. We spend less $$, give relationally, and give the $$ we would have spent on ourselves and our families to initiatives that will help the poor around the globe.

For us, it doesn't look much different than most of the Christmases that we have spent as a married couple. We've never had much extra income... in fact, we rarely have extra money floating about. So, we've always spent less money and more time. About 3 years ago, I began making the majority of gifts that we give. This year we made the majority of our gifts. We also decided that having a tree was a waste of money and time. We still decorated the house...but our focus was somewhere else.

Here's a breakdown of our Christmas spending:

Pair of mittens (Total price: $6)
Kitchen counter (Total price: $4)
Superhero masks (Total price: $5)
Recycled Nintendo DS (Total price: $0)
2 dresses and bows (Total price: $3)
Couch caddies (Total price: $5)
CD of pictures (Total price: $0)
Bible cover (Total price: $6)
Fandango certificate (Total price: $15)


Add postage and our total Christmas expense is around $50. Thinking that on average we would normally spend about $20/person - we spent around $250 less than the normal household...and I think that is a conservative estimate.

We were able to give much more than we thought possible to both our church and to the Advent conspiracy initiative. And at no point during the Christmas season did I miss pretty packages, a Christmas tree, or going to the mall.