It's the season of giving, not spending

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Hafoc Yates is learning to bake.

She managed to make it to age 49 without learning how. But after the Seattle freelance Web designer lost an account that helped pay for rent and health insurance, she needs an inexpensive way to bring joy to her home.

If she can take a computer apart and put it back together, she can mix sugar and cocoa. She hopes.

Yates has had to cut food expenses by $100 per month to keep her 14-year-old son in music lessons. "Facing the holidays with a child, even though money's tight, you have to have fun," she said. "You have to find a way to celebrate."

Baking, she noted, has two uses: "heats the apartment and comfort food!"

Countless retail surveys predict that consumers will cut back on holiday spending this year -- but what will they do instead?

In early November, the Seattle P-I asked readers to share their holiday shopping plans. Responses via e-mail and letter showed that people love to give gifts for which there is no price tag: time and energy and love.

"I have told my children and grandchildren not to expect any gifts from me this year, and requested them not to give me gifts since they too are being negatively affected by the current economic crisis," wrote Gini Paulsen of Seattle.

Her limited retirement has been reduced by the collapse of the stock market, and she expects her income to drop more in 2009.

She has been drying and canning foods, baking goods, knitting scarves and making lavender sachets.

Paulsen will indeed give gifts -- "Gifts from the heart and hands instead (of) from stores."

Another Seattle resident, Deborah Marlott, has been socking away small bits of money per week, all year. $10 here. $25 there. She looks for goods that are on sale.

"But the best thing I have done for years is to make up a gift certificate for family, or friends, to clean their home, pull their weeds or organize a closet for them," she said. "If that is all I can give, it's the best, and all love that gift."

Otti Niami of Redmond spends her days visiting her husband at his nursing home. She buys gifts all year long, wishing to honor loved ones and friends who help her with doctor appointments.

"I'm living on a tight budget, like many people all over the world and after paying my rent, energy, power, medication and groceries, there isn't much left (for) spending on gifts," she said in a hand-written letter. "I also buy wool at Value Village and crochet pot holders in various colors as gifts. ... Even with a small budget, thinking before you spend, you can beat the slow economy."

Among popular handmade gifts this year will be "no sew" blankets, homemade cards and baskets of treats, said Terri Daniels, spokeswoman for Zabitatz.com, a New Hampshire-based Web site for home projects.

The no-sew blanket is made by cutting many slits in the edges of two pieces of fleece and then tying the fringes in knots, binding the fleece pieces together.

"There's so many creative things you can do, you can buy different colors of fleece," Daniels said.

Not all Seattle residents are cutting back -- a region as affluent as this one will still see heavy shopping activity. But people are being more thoughtful.

Julie Gramm said that she won't spend less, but will spend more wisely. She likes the hustle and bustle of the stores before Christmas, she said, so she'll go to look for bargains and things to donate to charity.

"I plan to support local merchants and artists at the Pike Place Market and our West Seattle Junction," she said in an e-mail. "I'm looking for items that I believe will be really treasured by the recipients, or else food gifts that won't linger on as clutter."

Another respondent, Susan Carlson, said that her family and friends are in a position to buy what they want, but "accumulating 'stuff' is not our goal."

"I am at the stage of paring down, not getting more. So we have decided a nice card and a donation to a charity of one's choice is it for this season," Carlson wrote in an e-mail. "Spending time with friends and family is the most important thing."

Sequim resident Connie Kinyon said that she changed her shopping habits a few years ago. She gives experiences instead of gifts.

"The grandkids and kids have enough 'stuff' and barely remember what material things were given or even wanted," she said. "But they always remember the experiences we had."

She recalled a whale-watching trip where nearly everyone got seasick, a bowling party and a visit to Cirque du Soleil. For the whale trip, she gave everyone little whales that were hanging on her tree. For the bowling party, she found a bowling ball and pins ornament.

And there's always baking. Yates, the optimistic but economically challenged Web designer, says that losing money is a part of life, and she's looking forward to better days.

Until then, "We're hoping that the fudge turns out."
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