Doesn’t Christmas in the recession seem more depressing than fun?

More often than not Christmas shopping and gifts budget is almost impossible to put under control.

So here’s a major treat for your heart: Christmas decorations, gifts and hacks that won’t cost you a penny. And what is more, they all actually look cool!

The tips listed there have three reasons to appeal to you: these things are (1) free, (2) eco-friendly and (3) totally re-usable. So let’s celebrate a green Christmas on a budget this year:

1. Christmas Tree

Glass Bottle Christmas Tree: Do you like drinking bier? Do you prefer glass bottles? Do you know that the fun never stops even when the bottle is empty? Here’s a great idea for you to recycle those green glass bottles into a glamorous tree:

Hard Drives Christmas Tree: This one should appeal to real computer geeks. “In total there are around 70 old SCSI hard drives, between 9gb and 18gb in size each”:

Plastic Bottles Christmas Tree: This hanging Christmas Tree is made of 300 recycled water bottles. The installation looks beautiful casting and reflecting beams of light and thus creating an eye-catching display:

Also be sure to check this post for numerous ideas of less impressive but still 100% eco-friendly Christmas Trees.

Recycled Christmas Decor

This cute snowman made of plastic cups would look great in your house and I am sure your kids will enjoy creating it:

Plastic Bottle Snow Flakes: The author of this artistic design offers to use it as a room divider or a curtain. I think these look like snow flakes and they will definitely contribute to your home Christmas spirit:

Christmas Wreaths

Stay-at-home moms should appreciate this Christmas wreath. It is made of white buttons and looks really nice:

This wreath consists of an old dead power source, an old mouse, an extra power cable, two CDs, and an extra fan cable (by the way, here’s another geeky wreath (and one more) for you if you like this one)…

Christmas Gifts

This “ship in a bottle” motif is a whimsical way to wish your beloved ones happy Christmas. I am sure the one who receives a message like this will never forget it. Wouldn’t you like to make this Christmas special?

This nice candle holder gift made from recycled CDs will take you no more than 10 minutes to create. Just take a couple of old CDs, microwave them for about 5 seconds and add cute candles:

Snow in a jar: all you need is to take a glass jar, attach pieces of a small plastic landscape (available at toy and novelty stores) and fill the jar with water and a sprinkle of glitter. Your kids will be impressed and inspired (oh btw, and here’s a similar concept you may be interested in):

Christmas Lights

Ping Pong LED lights: Has it ever occurred to you that you can turn Ping Pong balls into multi-color fairy lights? Follow these instructables and you will create one!

This “Candelabra” may be too much for your living room but it can be turned into an unforgivable Christmas decoration:

This glowing jar can be used all over the year but on Christmas it can make a killer holiday decoration (oh, and it can be a nice Christmas gift as well). Inside the Sun Jar is a highly efficient solar cell, a rechargeable battery and three low energy LED lamps.

To make these cool wine bottle lights you will need empty wine bottles, a string of Christmas lights, and a drill.

50 plastic cups and 100 multi-color mini-lights are needed to create one sparkle ball. But the result is well worth it: the color and lights effects are impressive:

Christmas is not far away and there is cheer all around. It is that time of the year when people go on a shopping spree, buying gifts for family and friends. The advent of online shopping changed the way people shop. Most people prefer doing their shopping online now, to be able to save time and money, especially on gas.

While some can spend huge amounts of money, others do their Christmas gift shopping on a limited budget. But for every shopper a free delivery sounds attractive.

Amazon is the first one to give a Christmas gift to its shoppers. It has come up with a “free delivery” scheme. Shoppers do not have to spend a whole lot of money to be eligible for the free delivery scheme. All they need to do is buy products worth a mere £5, when earlier the limit was £15 with Amazon. What this means is that 90% of the orders end up getting their purchases shipped to them free without incurring packing and postage costs.

It was as early as 2002 that Amazon first offered free delivery in the UK but only when a consumer purchased £39 worth of goods. Later it brought down the limit to £19 and then to £15 three years back, in 2005.

According to Bruce McBride, Amazon UK MD, “It is to get people lifted for Christmas. Times are tough out there and this will come as a welcome bonus for people.”

Free delivery is something consumers appreciate and it has the power to make people buy without inhibitions. This could be because people feel that the cost paid towards shipment is money they are not getting anything out of, especially those that buy less priced items. According to consumers, they say that they feel penalized when they have to incur delivery charges on low-cost items. Imagine buying something that is worth £10 and then paying the same or more towards delivery charges. Research shows that a large percentage of customers feel that free delivery is the most important factor they take into consideration before making a decision to buy something.

This super saver scheme enables consumers to buy whatever they want and it is going to help them when buying those CDs and DVDs that cost just a little more than £5. Now they will be delivered home free. This is a two-thirds reduction from Amazon’s original £15 threshold.

According to Amazon, orders placed using the Super Saver Delivery scheme are generally expected to take anywhere between two and four days later than the same orders that are placed using the first class paid delivery.

Other than Amazon, you can also take advantage of several other Christmas promotional offers. You can make searches for “free delivery” and see what you find and compare prices before placing your order. There are many companies that hike up the product rates while giving free delivery of products. You can check out Amazon rival Play.com, which offers free delivery on all orders, even those to many destinations internationally. Zavvi.co.uk is not far behind and offers free delivery on all purchases.

Not having to pay delivery charges makes Christmas shopping much more fun for everyone. You are only paying for the item you buy and nothing else. There is no need to get Christmas shopping blues.