I've made this huge type of mistakes before. I've forgotten to deduct things - like the house payment one time and another time a big payment I did online, I was walking around thinking I had all this money and I didn't
I hope your utility company will work with you - I've done the same thing before. Are you on budget billing with them? If not, that might help you to get on that, so you know exactly how much your bill will be each month.
Ebay or selling things here are terrific ideas if you can do that. How about brainstorming for things that you could make for your children. Or perhaps you could work with you children to come up with some great ideas for how to spend time as a family during Christmas that doesn't involve money.
Another idea to stretch your money is the dollar store -- it is really unbelievable the things you can uncover there. Just this last weekend, I saw ABC morning news do an entire thing about the bargins people are finding at places like Dollar Tree and Dollar General. They showed a guy making 6 figures shopping at the dollar store, and talked about how people who shop high-end stores are also shopping at the dollar store.
But most importantly you may have a great chance to put the focus on what Christmas really means; it's hard to understand how Christmas came to be about this huge mound of wrapped gifts, when really it's about accepting God's greatest gift to us.