Kate Hudson Plans Christmas on the Cheap

Kate Hudson is still shopping for Christmas presents. But in tough economic times, the actress says she’s feeling the pressure to cut back on spending – just like everyone else.

“I think it’s a really weird time and I think that everyone is feeling it,” the Oscar nominee told reporters Friday at a Los Angeles press conference for her new film, Bride Wars.

Instead of buying expensive gifts, Hudson, 29, says her family relies on handmade presents to save money and to keep things more personal.

Holiday Crafts

“We’ve always been pretty crafty anyway,” she says. “We all knit. The girls knit. This year I’m doing these great big knit…well, actually I shouldn’t even talk about it because I can’t say it!”

As usual, Hudson will spend the holidays on the slopes in Colorado, with son Ryder, 4, in tow. Ryder started skiing last year, Hudson says, and quickly graduated from the bunny hill.

On his first day of lessons (at the same ski school Hudson attended as a child), the actress showed up at the bunny slope to ski with Ryder and let him show her his new skills.

But Ryder was nowhere to be found.

Snow Days

“I started panicking a little bit because I couldn’t see him anywhere,” Hudson says. “And the [instructor] came over and said, ‘Oh, actually, he’s up on the mountain.’”

Shocked, Hudson made her way to the base of the mountain in pursuit of her son. “I’m standing there in my skis and I’m looking up and all of a sudden I see this little kid in camouflage and I’m like, ‘No!’” Hudson says. “He is just zooming down the mountain and I started to cry.”

It was just a wave of nostalgia though, she says, she wasn’t worried… yet.

“I grew up skiing, and then you see your kids ski and there’s a freedom in it, a freedom in that that you recognize in them and a confidence that kids start to get when they do things like that,” she says. “It was a big little moment.”

“Now he’s going to be terror,” she says. “So the helmet is on. I’m going to put like those rubber things on the bottom of his skis so that he doesn’t go too fast.”