Yay! It’s official. Thanksgiving is finally over and all of the Grinches of the world who like to complain if I decorate before Thanksgiving have finally been silenced – because no one can really complain about Christmas decorations being up “too early” once Turkey Day is over!

They probably would cringe to know that I’ve been playing the Glee Christmas CD non-stop for a week now. Even my 3 year-old refuses to listen to anything except “We Need A Little Christmas”.

All of this is just to say that I’m a bit, erm, Christmas-crazed. I love the Holiday season – I love the lights, the music, the tree, the decorations – and I’ll confess that I may have the slightest addiction to buying new rolls of wrapping paper. As a matter of fact, I just bought 4 new rolls yesterday, and lets just say that I have at least 20 already. I can’t help it -it makes me happy!

However, as much as I love to decorate for the Holidays, I also like to buy gifts for my friends and family (and I have to save up for more wrapping paper, of course) which means I have to set an annual decorating budget and really stick to it, or I’ll be super-stressed in a few weeks when it’s “crunch” time.

So, armed with $50, I let myself loose in the Christmas Decor section of my Walmart, determined to decorate my house for less this year.

Here are some of the things that I found that I really loved:

• A real potted Christmas Tree – a miniature version – for $5. Perfect for my kitchen!
• Christmas Stockings for $5 – $7 – even licensed character stockings like Tinkerbell, Mickey, and the Grinch.
• 18 feet of artificial pre-lit pine garland – perfect for the mantel – for $12
• 50 Shatterproof ornaments – great for making wreaths or hanging on the tree – for $15
• Tree Skirts (and the pretty ones in silver, red, gold with lots of glitter!) for $10
• A HUGE selection of pretty, shiny Ornaments for the tree priced at $2
• Pre-Lit Mini Christmas Trees (I love to do a kid’s tree plus “mommy’s” tree) for $18
• Giant Red Bows with glitter for $5
• Holiday Time 400 count Mini Light Set for $10

So, what did I walk away with?

In the end I went with the mini potted Christmas Tree (it smelled divine!), a new red tree skirt (you have no idea how long I stood debating between the red and silver), two new stockings for Audrey Grace and myself (that I plan to have embroidered with our names), the 400 count mini lights, and the 50-count container of shatterproof ornaments.

A little math for you! $5 + $10 + ($5 + $5) + 10 + 15 = $50

I got a lot of things that I needed – we can’t find our stockings, our tree skirt is MIA and our tree lights from last year only work when you shake them (gee, we’re a mess!). However, I also got the adorable mini-tree to freshen up our little space. My favorite and most useful purchase (and the one I think is the best deal) is the container of shatter-proof ornaments because they have so many uses. That comes out to .30 cents an ornament – which is a GREAT deal. I reuse my non-holiday hurricane glasses that normally have candles in them and fill them to the brim with these ornaments and place them as the centerpiece on my kitchen table. I also did this in a few other places with a few inexpensive gold baskets that I had from past Holiday seasons and placed them around my house (even in the bathrooms) to give it an extra festive touch! I also took several and tied them to varying lengths of fishing line to hang in my windows – it’s a pretty, inexpensive way to decorate for less this holiday season.

How do you decorate for the Holiday Season? Are you Christmas-crazed like me? Share in the comments!

Disclosure: I was compensated for this post as a part of my role in the Walmart Moms program. Though I am not compensated to be a part of the program, opportunities to create content like this one are compensated. However, everything I said above is 100% my opinion and true. For more information please read my disclosure policy.