The Lead up to Christmas...

Readers who have been following the blog for a while would remember that each year about this time my thoughts turn to mini Christmas stockings. It would have been 2014 when I discovered that the founder of Knitting for Brisbane's Needy and her husband were spending hundreds of dollars of their own money on buying sweets to fill the mini stockings that the group members would make each year. Various community groups who work with the needy would distribute these little gifts; often to recipients who would get no other gifts except these humble offerings. What started out as a few hundred little stockings grew to a mind-blowing several thousand. Last year K4BN distributed 6500! 

So in 2014, I asked friends and relatives ( and other K4BN members) for help to provide the mountain of sweets needed to fill 3000 stockings. ( that number has certainly crept up over the ensuing years) The lovely Sunday Stitchers group continues to help each year without my even asking! 

These are some of the sweets donated by Sunday Stitchers this year...

Susan and Lynda also make stockings; the next photo shows the 50 felt stockings made by Susan this year. That is a lot of cutting out and stitching up there and it's really appreciated Susan.

As part of my plan for sourcing the best lollies' buys, I went to Costco that first year. My lovely sister and brother in law who are members, took me as their guest. 

The bucket on the left was a great buy that first year as it contained lollipops and wrapped sweets. 

The following year, that bucket of sweets was still available but these last 2 years it's not been at Costco. Each year, I check out and compare lolly prices at various 'bricks and mortar' shops, as well as online. Costco seems to be the best value for the lollipops. 

Last Tuesday, DsD2 who is a member of Costco took me and DsD3 there as her guests. I had been given money to help buy sweets for this year's stockings. In each stocking we place a lollipop and a few wrapped sweets. I planned to buy some of the packs of 100 chupa chups/lollipops...It would work out to be 19 cents per lolly. In shops the unit price of this popular brand is anything up to 50 per lollipop. 

But then I saw these! 

That's a tin of 1000 chupa chups...unit price 17 cents...but boy that tin was heavy!!!

DsD3 to the rescue!

So that was Tuesday night...next day there was a K4BN Knit and Natter...and knitting/crocheting was put aside as the ladies got to work packing stockings. 

We ran out of stockings before we ran out of lollies! We filled 267 stockings that morning. One member quipped that we just had another 6000+ ones to do by the beginning of December! 

Since last Wednesday I've been alternating between sewing stockings and knitting them. I had been working on stockings on and off for a few months but had only made a pitiful 12 which got filled at the Knit and Natter. 

Thankfully my output has increased! 

Another member dropped off 70 stockings last Friday...

Next Tuesday we have plans to fill more stockings...on a bit of a roll here! 

Costco...

Over the years I have heard people talking about a giant wholesale warehouse chain called Costco. For an annual membership fee, members of the public can shop at Costco. Friends who had visited the Costco in Melbourne raved about how wonderful/cheap it was. Well not long ago, Costco has opened at North Lakes, a community just to the north of Brisbane.

DH and I weren't really interested in paying for a Costco membership as buying in bulk is not imperative when you live in a 2 person household. Also bulk buying needs some sort of storage space...I'm a knitter and a stitcher...any space is filled with fabrics and yarns thank you very much! lol. (Many people we know have joined as the discount on petrol is considerable...but not if you have to drive a fair way there and back to get the fuel!)

But then my SiL, who is a member, suggested that perhaps Costco might have lollies in bulk at good prices which would be handy to fill those mini Christmas stockings, gift bags and boxes for K4BN. So that's how come DH and I accompanied his brother and SiL, as their guests, to Costco last Thursday. (If you are not a member you cannot even get in the front door of the warehouse, unless you are a guest/visitor accompanied by a  member. 

The trolleys are large! And we saw people with 2 or 3 filled to the brim trolleys at the checkouts!

Technically DH and I couldn't buy anything but we were able to have a look around. It's strange how items that went into our relatives' trolleys ended up at our place later on????
Most of the confectionery was bulk packaged chocolates which are not suitable for filling the mini stockings with our summer heat here, but we did find 2 varieties of sweets that would be suitable. 

DH bought a new 'surge protector' power board, a big tub of yoghurt and a few other things that were definitely cheaper than supermarket prices. You need to know 'your prices' as when you calculated the price on some items, they were not as inexpensive as at first sight.
We thought these were a good buy...

DH takes muesli bars for a snack at golf...this box of 2 dozen have saved quite a bit on supermarket prices. 

When the North Lakes Costco opened, my friend Sue wrote about her very positive experience as a business member at Costco here.
The place is huge and walking around with my SiL, we seemed to walk for 'miles'! lol.
(DH and I won't be paying the $60 membership of Costco as our circumstances don't really warrant it but now we can say we've been and had a look!)