Fire power

You can't beat logs for a perfect glow. Ideally, you should burn them in a well-designed stove, so there is a radiator effect from its metal body. With the doors closed, you get more efficient combustion by controlling the draw of the chimney and the amount of air entering the stove. An ordinary open fire grate looks great but sends much of the heat straight up the chimney. The wood ought to be seasoned, which means dried out for maybe a year – otherwise your fire is wasting energy drying the "green" wood of its sap and is also coating the chimney with a tarry deposit. At Skipton Stoves (01756 790507), they recommend wood that has been dried for two years.

If you live in a "smokeless zone" you can still burn wood on certain approved stoves (check with your local council), but not in an open hearth. Which is cheaper? If your wood is free there's no contest; coal is denser and burns hotter and, in my view, is more economical. Logs are typically sold by volume, not weight. The going rate for a pick-up load of logs is around £40. If it's a single cab truck, that's a much better deal than from a double-cab, which has a shorter load bed. Supertherm smokeless cobbles cost me £16 a cwt.

Frederic Manby

Wine

Supermarkets and wine merchants should have their Christmas offers on the go by now. Two economical bottles from Oddbins are Storm Bird, an unusual Australian Colombard Sauvignon Reisling (£4.99 or £3.99 as part of a mixed case) and the rich and aromatic Portuguese red Quinta de Bon-Ventos (£5.49, or £4.39 as part of a mixed case).

Books

Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman, Harvill £15.99 At almost 900 pages, it ought to keep you occupied long into the night. Unforgettable narrative sweep of life on the eastern front. The best Russian novel of the 20th century.

Towards Another Summer, Janet Frame, Virago £12.99 Set in wintery London and (mostly) Yorkshire, this autobiographical novel, which was published posthumously, covers themes of shyness, loneliness and homesickness.

Zennor in Darkness, Helen Dunmore, Penguin £8.99 A family saga of the hardships of the home-front during the First World War – with DH Lawrence as a peripheral presence who befriends a budding artist besotted with love for a reluctant soldier.

In Zodiac Light, Robert Edric, Doubleday £16.99 Post-World War I, the poet Ivor Gurney is sent to a sanatorium. Edric (who lives on the Yorkshire coast) draws on contemporary accounts as well as his own imagination to re-create Gurney's stay there.

Reporting America: The Life of the Nation 1946-2004, Alistair Cooke, Penguin £25 Cooke modestly described himself as a "reporter". These dispatches – perfect for historical context at the beginning of a new Presidency – prove he was also an exceptional writer and observer.

Duncan Hamilton

Games

All that technology we have stuffed into our homes these days means that families can too often spend hours on separate pursuits in different rooms. Put down the joystick and bring back a little family fun with board games. Super Scrabble (£39.99) is our current favourite. My heart sang when I heard that a new bumper version had been launched, with double the standard number of tiles, a much larger board, and quadruple letter and word scores available. "Jazz" and "puzzle" are now possible without having to use a blank, and in longer, higher-scoring games those who fall behind can catch up again and even possibly win.

Sheena Hastings

Learn a language

We're often told by our political leaders that this is a "global" economic crisis that requires a "global" solution. So I'm playing my part by investing in some language tapes. My favourites are the Teach Yourself series. A grounding in each language is available in a combined CD pack and workbook for about £14.99, but also highly-rated are courses from the BBC and language expert Michel Thomas for about the same price. Then, if you're lucky, Santa might bring an internet radio (from around £30) allowing you to listen to about 14,000 stations from around the world, immersing you in any culture you so choose.

Tom Smithard

Arts and crafts

You may think you can't draw, paint, knit or sew, just because you haven't lifted brush or needle since school days, and night classes may be shrinking, but we all have arty friends who can help us to get started. A couple of decent pencils, a rubber, a small box of poster paints and some cheap paper are all you need to have a go with art. Most knitters are evangelical about the therapeutic effect and artistic satisfaction of their craft, so teaching you would probably be no trouble. A thrifty tip is to unpick an old sweater in a great colour, and re-knit it into a great new scarf using basic stocking stitch. Add simple knotted fringeing, and voilà! You'll soon have the confidence to move on.

Sheena Hastings

Tart up the house

You can give a room a fresh look without busting the bank. Comb your local market for ends of rolls of fabric that can be run up into new cushion covers. One coat of paint can freshen up a room or hallway. If you want to add some drama then try wall stickers. Ikea do packs for £10.

Charity shops are fabulous hunting grounds for nick-nacks, pictures and small pieces of furniture. Don't be snooty about pound shops. You may have to hunt for small treasures, but you'll certainly find some in budget stores like Wilkinsons, Home Bargains, Instore and Woolworths.

A new look for a room can be achieved by taking down all the pictures, mirrors and ornaments then rearranging them or putting some in a different room for a change. You could also sell on eBay anything you don't want and use the cash to bag a bargain on the online auction site.

Sharon Dale

Some call them chores

...but these jobs can be very satisfying:

Reorganise your wardrobe, filling charity shop bags with items you no longer wear. Dust the shelves. Keep the kids occupied by letting them dress up in some of dad's more garish old gear or your nasty '70s go-go boots. Put back only clothes and shoes that you know you'll use. .

Decant those shoeboxes of photos into albums, throwing out the fuzzy or unflattering. Electronic photo libraries should be culled regularly, as computer systems run sluggishly if overly bulky picture files are clogging up the hard-drive when they should be edited then stored on CDs.

Plan a new look for the garden. Draw it as it is, and use gardening books from the library and seed catalogues to plan what you might do to change it next year.

Replace your light bulbs with low-energy versions. Feel saintly.

Sheena Hastings