How can you give gifts without contributing to the chaos in their lives? Consider giving consumable Christmas gifts they can enjoy but will not clutter their homes afterward!
Consumable Christmas Gifts
From: Rachel H:
I was reading your post about Christmas. I have 5 grandchildren. The oldest will soon be 4, the youngest is 4 months. I keep my eyes open but just don’t find appropriate toys that are affordable, which they must be when buying for five! I am an avid couponer and love the buy 1, get 1 sales at Publix and Winn Dixie.
Today I was at Publix looking at some Del Monte fruit cups I had a $1 off coupon for, when it suddenly hit me… My grandkids would love these! Why not give food for Christmas presents? Sure, their parents buy food for them, but they buy toys too. I can use my coupons to purchase fruit cups, pudding cups, candy bars, cookies, etc… It’s in with my grocery bill each week, and I can start buying now and put in a box till December. The main thing is that at this age they love to unwrap. It doesn’t really matter what’s inside. I may not be able to do this forever, but who knows in later years, maybe treats and some money, they can buy what they want.
We do this at our house. The kids don’t get “special” food items like these on a regular basis so they get them as treats for the holidays. Santa often brings them packets of microwave popcorn, juice boxes, gum, pop tarts, fruit roll-ups, fruit gummies, cocoa packets and all that kind of stuff that is the staple of most of their friends’ lunch boxes. Of course we regulate how much they can eat in one day. :-)
For birthdays Mike will get his favorite tea, candies or ice cream sauce. I will get my favorite tea, nuts, blueberry jelly or other goodies.
This is a great way to get the one your love a gift without all the clutter.
-Tawra
Tawra mentioned something that has been a pet peeve of mine for years and that is “treats” for our kids. We are depriving are kids of so much by giving them too much. We are depriving them of the excitement, joy and anticipation that comes from looking forward to and receiving a special treat.
They get all these things, which we used to think of as something special, on a daily basis so they see them as just everyday fare. When kids are given everything, they have nothing to look forward to. A whole can of pop or a novelty ice cream was something we looked forward to getting. The excitement of thinking about getting it was almost as wonderful as the treat itself.
Not only that, as in any war, my mom used all of the weapons she could and she never hesitated in blackmailing us. If we didn’t do our chores or behave properly, we didn’t get our treat. Stop depriving your kids by starting to deprive them a little more. Give them something to look forward to and add a little joy to their lives.
-Jill
My grandparents did this for all of us one Christmas many years ago. We each got a large brown grocery bag filled with small, stapled-shut lunch bags. In each small bag was a “treat”…individual-sized fritos, hostess cakes, etc. Each day we would reach in and choose a treat for our school lunch. Even over 40 years later, that is still the gift I remember most from them!
Love the ideas. One thing I do for my kids each year is a box of “mixes” for desserts. I take a large box and fill it with brownie, cake, pudding mixes, icing etc. and they open it on christmas morning. They love it…then they “cook” dessert for us during the year. One year, we did fancy ice cream glasses ($1 or $2 at Walmart), syrups, and sprinkles. When my 25 & 20 year old sons were little, I filled a large gift bag with cereals I didn’t normally buy…this is what I considered junk food but they wanted. While they loved it, they did find out that some of the junk tasted bad and didn’t ask for it again. That was an unexpected blessing!
My mother in law for years would fix a large box of things to use for Christmas baking, and Christmas dinner (we lived out of town and weren’t with them at Christmas)and would give it to us before Christmas as a gift.
That box was a life saver for us so that we could always have a nice dinner and treats before. I loved getting her box each year. We love our “treat” foods even when we are grown.
Jill
My favorite Christmas gift is the box a good friend gives me of things I use….motor oil, toilet paper, soap, lint remover tape rolls, and a special treat, my favorite kind of alcohol!! Every year it’s a little different and I love it!!
I remember one year for Christmas my parents, who always had very little, got my sister and I these neat, large bags full of hairspray, body spray, soap, etc.. We LOVED them. As teenagers we were going through this stuff like mad :) And we also got some cheap make-up in all those wild 80’s colors in our stockings and we were in our glory :) Dollar stores are wonderful for these things and you can buy them slowly, cheaply.
I had a great aunt who used to do this kind of thing for us years ago when she was still alive. She would put a whole bunch of stuff in a box or whatever she had – very practical items like cake mix, flavored rice mix, a box of tissues. Seriously, even though my cousins and I were not really old enough to cook or run a house, we LOVED to dig through our box from Aunt Thelma, play with and compare the goodies (I got chocolate cake! What kind did you get?) and look forward to having them prepared for us in the near future.
i do this too…. for years i used to do “theme” gifts… where one yr everyone got a special gift.. same gift for all.. but now i make “nummy” gifts…
so much easier…
i normally add things you can bake and/or beauty items… for my mom, who is almost 81, i do the beauty products bc well with her diet, she has to be careful of how much baked goods she can have… but for the others, i normally do the baked goods bags…
one yr for my son and daughter, i had allowed a certain amt and well couldnt really decide what to get htem… so i divided the amt equally and got gift certificates to many different places that i knew they went to… their favorite eating spots, the gas station, walmart and their favorite food supermarket… i did this with my mom too and well was told this was by far the best gift ever!… it was like they could go shopping, again! .. heeehe.. adn for mom, i always give a book or 2 of stamps (she writes letters) and really pretty writing paper… normally the dollar store has nice computer paper and bc of the size and thickness of the package, she gets alot of paper for very little money .. i also make sure she gets a big box of envelopes too…
this is another great gift for people who like to write letters… and dont forget that the post office sells post cards already stamped … my sister sent our mom this too…
yep, lots of great ideas for the holidays! :D…
What a great idea. I would have never thought of that, but how true. As a child we didn’t have soda, chips or candy around cause my mother couldn’t afford it on her tight budget, but once a month we would watch a special show on TV and have popcorn or potato chips and soda as a treat. It was always such fun and a great way to spend time with family. My mother also made her wonderful cinnamon rolls on special holidays and it would fill the house with a wonderful scent and we knew we were in for a great treat. Happy holidays to all.
I like the idea of consumable food gifts. Also, practical gifts like pretty boxes of tissues, soaps, unusual shampoos, and other toiletries can be fun to get, and fill a need.
That’s a neat idea! It’s true, it’s kind of nice to have something to look forward to for a special occasion. I remember “working” for a gift once – learning the multiplication tables to get a Play-Doh set!
Food gifts work for older ages, too. When my friend was a college student, living in a tiny apartment and eating cheap meals all the time, her older brother fixed her up at Christmas: he went to a warehouse club and got a large quantity of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (her favorite). I think they had several packages shrinkwrapped together, enough to last a family for months. The brother’s girlfriend wrapped it up fancy so it looked like something in a big expensive gift box from a department store. When he came home at Thanksgiving, he left the wrapped gift at their parents’ house. He told his sister, “now don’t shake it very much, it’s breakable.” Of course, being very curious, she shook it — and heard the dried pasta rattling inside the boxes. For weeks, she worried that someone had dropped and broken her gift. When she finally opened it, everyone had a big laugh. She said the food gift of macaroni was especially great because it wouldn’t spoil, like a basket of fruit or a cheeseball would. The mac and cheese was something she could store in the kitchen and then fix when she was running low on groceries and money. It lasted her all semester.
Every year I make cinnamon twists (twisty buns) for Christmas Day breakfast. This year I made them a few weeks ago and froze them. The kids have been begging for them to come out of the freezer. I also give them as gifts to the neighbors.
this year I am giving my son and his family 50 egg rolls, 100 you call them pasties I call them meat turnovers, and about 30 pizza rolls.
It has taken me 2 weeks to get them done but finished them yesterday.
The only problem with this gift is my husband eats them almost as fast as they come out of the oven or the deep fryer.
Oh well they are all safely frozen and will be on the bus on Sunday, along with the other gifts.
Just have 2 gifts to get on Friday. An external hard drive for my sons computers and some coffee cards from Tim Hortons for my DIL.
no last minute shopping this year for the first time ever.
Also finished the barbie and ken outfits for my grand daughter.
Merry Christmas everyone.
For years my mother has given us “the box” and its our favorite gift! Its a reusable tote full of bath items, laundry soap, batteries, special food treats, just about anything is fair game for inclusion in “the box”. She has continued the tradition with my kids, and they love it too. All year long they will say, “tell grammma to put that in my box!” For them she gets the fancy body washes and colognes, batteries for toys, candy, etc.
When our kids were little, they were not allowed to have the sugary cereals kids always beg for (thanks to incessant advertising!) but we allowed them to open a gift or two on Christmas Eve and those gifts were always funny new PJ’s to wear to bed and a box of the junkiest cereal I could find for each one of them [ BATMAN cereal, BARBIE cereal, etc )and that’s what they ate for breakfast Christmas morning. They LOVED it! When my oldest son was a hungry teen, one of his gifts was a package of two beautiful steaks (obviously refrigerated until the last minute!) But the very favorite family tradition which still causes laughs is the fact that I always frugally saved good quality food and household products boxes throughout the year to wrap small gifts in…and sometimes I also gave actual food gifts so the kids would open, say, a box of cocoa and speculate over whether it was actually cocoa inside or something else. But unfortunately sometimes I didn’t pay enough attention when wrapping the gifts which resulted one year in my teenage son opening a gift that was wrapped in a “feminine hygiene product” box which resulted in a great deal of hilarity – as well as a bright red face on poor Jack. He has certainly never forgotten THAT gift, LOL! I also made the excitement last longer – they opened their “best” gift last, which I turned into a scavenger hunt with cryptic clue after clue after clue which they had to figure out to find where their gift was hidden. They tell me now that the hunt was more fun than anything else and one year, when I was too tired to do the work involved, they were SO disappointed! For my preteen granddaughter, I once opened a can of spinach (with one of those smooth-edge openers) and filled it with one dollar bills. I then glued the cover back on and wrapped it up, hinting to Katie that I was giving her some “green stuff” for Christmas. Naturally, she was expecting $$$$. Her face, when she unwrapped the spinach, was PRICELESS! She still laughs about it. Christmas should be more about family and fun….and less about the actual gifts. And parents need to remember that, in gift-giving, “Less is more” APPRECIATED.
That reminds me of the first Christmas I had with an old boyfriend. My brothers were around 10-12 years old at the time. They gave him a potato wrapped in a light bulb box. Why? We’ll never know, but it’s the most memorable gift ever exchanged at home!
When my children were infants and toddlers my grandparents always gave us a pack of diapers, baby food, baby cookies, wipes ect. It was a blessing for a for my husband and I. As the children got older they got special treats at the holidays. My kids are now in there 27,24,21 I think there favorite christmas experience is opening thier stockings. I always buy there favorite candy, tooth paste, tooth brushes, shavers things like that. I enjoy watching them dig into the stockings and talking about what they got. To funny…
For Christmas this year my husband and I built a hand rail in front of my parents home. They live on a hill and getting down to the drive way was becoming dangerous. It was something they greatly appreciated and I feel a little more at ease that they will not fall.
Happy Holidays
I’m almost done making double batches of three different biscotti recipes. These are quicker and easier than cookies in my book. They are expensive to buy, but really inexpensive to make. Thus, they make great gifts! We made gingerbread, lemon/white chocolate and double chocolate biscotti. Each family will get one dozen, along with some goodies from Trader Joe’s and gourmet coffee beans from Henry’s, some fruit, nuts in the shell, gold coin chocolates and cinnamon roll bread. (I just make the cinnamon rolls up to the part where you slice them in to rolls and just cook the whole loaf in one piece, then slice it.)
My favorite place to find gourment, but simple recipes for free is: CookingLight.com. I don’t mean to say all the recipes are simple, but they have healthier versions of many favorites.
Happy Nativity!
I agree. I think we rob children of joy by giving them too much too soon. I think it is wonderful to see a child enjoy simple things. Some think it is deprivation but look at how happy children can be with simple things, that is not deprivation!
its funny that i found this article to post on ..
yes, i am already getting ready for this yr’s xmas gifts … but this yr, everyone is getting homemade hand soap, laundry detergent (i think just the powder version and if i do the liquid version, then small bottles of it), and homemade dish soap and homemade citrus spray (i found a recipe from the hillbilly housewife and it seems so simple to make) ..
i went to a place called “olde time pottery” and htey have small and cute spray bottles and not too expensive either ..
as for the laundry detergent i have small baggies and i am thinking of getting a pkg of those bigger baggies and i will double bag those .. and the spoons i will get from wendy’s .. (we always ask for extra whenever we get a frosty bc we share the large size; its cheaper this way) …
my mom thinks this is awesome .. bc its something everyone can use and i will give the others the “recipe” of these items ..
yes, so much to share and learn from each other ..
thats what i love about this site ..
thanks for sharing everyone :D
Great idea!
When my kids were younger, (they are 19 and 26 now),I didn’t just buy them the newest toy or things they may have wanted because we were at the store shopping.I wanted their birthdays and Christmas to be special times to look forward to. I agree that they have nothing to look forward to or appreciate if they get it every day.
I have cut way back on the things I usually make but I have made and am making more things to give to more people this year. Don’t know how I can do more but also do less at the same time.
I guess because I am using cheats.
I make pasties every year because my one son just loves them. I used to take days making them from cooking the roast then cooling it then grinding it up. The the next day making pie dough and then rolling it out and making about 200 over 4 days of work.
My arms are not doing so well this year so I was going to buy a mix for the dough. The store didn’t have any but a friend who works there said we have something simpler and it is on sale. I said easy and sale are words I love. She took me to the refridgerator section and showed me the pillsbury tubes and they had pie crust already rolled and all you had to do was unroll it and pie crust was ready to use. They were 2 for $6. so I said ok but was wondering if they were too expensive was I losing some of the spirit of the gift but right then my hands started shaking and I decided what the heck. So went home rolled them out and then cut them. I got 18 little shells out of the two packages. I still have the other so will finish them today.
Sometimes cheats are good.
I also found a mini quiche recipe and the crust is butter, cream cheese and flour. mix until smooth and roll into little balls and push them up the sides and the bottom of a mini muffin tin. no rolling pin and strong arms so they are wonderful. They will be done today as well.
Mini biscuits with seasoning already in them. When baked you put tuna salad or egg salad between the cut ones and you have mini sandwiches.
No egg rolls but I did make a few pizza rolls and I bought mini tart shells frozen and made pizza tarts. They taste great and the crust is just the same as for pies.
My freezer is almost filled with gifts for others and I am not exhausted and sore.
Sure does feel good to be almost done without the stress and the pain of previous years.
I do have to make a french bread pizza to send with the package. My 11 year old grandson calls them garlic bread pizza and he asks for it every year. Last year his dad burned it so they didn’t have mine. This year I will send instructions to the little ones saying when pizza is in the broiler don’t bug the cook.
Hard to believe Christmas is almost here and Don and I are not stressed out as we usually are.
He likes to give gifts to friends but his idea and mine do not go along the same price range. This year we are on the same page fortunately.
Thanks for listening to this long winded lady.
Loved your post and all your ideas. You did a great job!
Since my kids have been young, we have given stocking stuffers of the travel size items of things they need. We always open our stockings after dinner and there was always an orange and nuts in the bottom with the goodies on the top. Sometimes a game or something fun that was small. Our daughter is married and gone now but we still hang her stocking and then mail her the goodies after Christmas.
The other thing we do now (our son is in the area but living on his own) is give each child a $100 gift certificate to their local grocery store. I used to purchase food items for them but it is cheaper to mail the gift card than the gifts and let them pick out what they need. My daughter’s husband’s family comes to spend Christmas with them so after they leave, the gift card is great to help her replenish her kitchen. My son loves to cook and uses his to stock his freezer for easy meals during the winter. His commute to work is long and to have easy items to cook in the freezer lets him have good food with little trouble. We will miss my husband’s mom this year. She loved the stocking with all the special little things she could not purchase for herself. She died this summer so Christmas will be different this year. The faces around the table grow less every year.
Thanks for all the ideas for gifts. I might make some spaghetti sauce and freeze it for my son.
I still put an orange at the bottom of the stocking, for the son who’s still home, the nephews and my husband. I left it out one year, and they all told me never to leave that out–something was missing! It really is the simple, sweet, thoughtful things that they remember the most.
call me old-fashioned but in my house we just don’t have the latest of anything. Am I depriving my children by not giving into their wants all the time? I say NO! My children have grown up with us frugal parents and I know have one daughter who is frugal as is her husband. Her children don’t have all the latest in anything but they are NOT deprived. They watch older movies on DVD that my daughter and her husband by at the pawnshop for $1.00 They play outside and they color and do activities that most people enjoyed when I was growing up. My granddaughter loves rock collecting and my daughter has a special glass bowl that they display her rocks in. My son didn’t grow up having the latest of anything but he has managed to get himself in college while he still in high school something we could never afford to do if we were deeply in debt had we have made purchases of the latest brands from cars to appliances. I pay 10.00 for dial up-hey my internet does not make me money I don’t run a business so why pay for all the bells and whistles? I have landlines phone that has never failed me and I have a prepaid cell phone I use only for emergencies. We shop sales and thrift stores and I got a few great bargains out of the dumpster. Children are not deprived at least mine never were.
Here is an article I wrote on Are We Really Depriving Our Kids that some of you who liked LAC’s post. At the bottom of this same post there are many other articles which cover this same subject and also teaching kids about money.
Real deprivation would be if they are deprived of nutrients, or safety, or clean clothes. Not getting the latest i-phone does not count as deprivation, even though an immature person who asked for one and didn’t get it would tell you it is.
Last year I made jars of the Mocha Cocoa recipe, and everyone loved it. A friend reminded me of it, and so I’m going to make it again. I bought the large containers of cocoa, instant coffee, and powdered creamer from Sam’s Club. I also added a bag of colored Christmas marshmallows to each gift bag, which was a nice touch. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like hot chocolate on a cold night!
A couple of years ago, I bought quart canning jars and made soup mixes. With that gift bag I included a bottle of sparkling cider, which was very inexpensive at Costco.
One of my brothers and one of my sisters don’t have full time employment currently, and the same happened a few years ago. I fixed them up each a box of canned soups, crackers, noodles, spaghetti sauce, popcorn, Tang, etc. of items I knew they liked. They really appreciated the box of goodies. I also added toilet paper and lightbulbs. Something it seems you can never have too many of. I’ll probably do the same for them this year, too. I’d rather give them something they need than a candle or another knick knack.
this year I have been canning anything that doesn’t move. A lot of it will be gifts for christmas.
But my mother lives in Florida over the winter so sending her something in jars would be way out of the budget. So I am packing homemade soup mixes with dehydrated vegetables. Instead of packing them in the pretty jars everyone here will get hers are in sandwich bags. Also going to send her one jar of green tomatoe mincemeat and a jar of homemade tarragon vinegar. It is almost ready to ship out to get there before the Christmas rush.
Friends and family will get canned things some for pleasure eating and many that will make up a meal.
I even found a recipe for hot sauce that I made for my son. Didn’t know if it was hot enough so I had my neighbour try it and he says it is delicious. Guess he will get a jar as well.
Other elderly friends will get turkey soup with just the meat so they can add what vegetables they like and jars of pickles and stuff like that in nice baskets.
A few friends are very tight for money so they will get almost complete meals in jars. Meat in a sauce they just have to add flour to it and make a stew or leave out the flour add vegetables and make it a soup.
Went down to arrange shelves again and Don and I figured we could be well fed for a month just from the canned goods and add in what is in the freezer make it 4 months. So I have decided to spread the bounty a bit.
Friends get a nice gift and a few nice handy meals and I get pleasure and more room to store more things as I make them.
Make a bit extra when you work on your hobbies and you can give wonderful from the heart gifts to many people.
The year my daughter got married, she and her husband had just purchased their house and funds were tight. We gave them gift boxes of food items (some of the special things they liked – muffin mixes and brownie mixes and candy), things they couldn’t afford on a limited budget. Also, some household tools and light bulbs, too. They were so appreciative and the cost was no more than something they really didn’t need. As the years have gone by, we still do something like this but also include a grocery gift card so they can get what they need. My daughter says that is one of their best gifts each year. Also, since their anniversary is on Dec 19, we give them a gift card to a nice restaurant so they can have a night out without spending their own money. Nothing to find a spot for and good memories. They always take a picture so we can see them having a good time.
My son so liked the grocery gift card that we now give him one, too, since he has his own place. He stocks his freezer and eats from there til spring. He is single and cooks nearly every night so this is a great gift for him. Now, if I could just have an angel to do that for me.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Those boxes and gifts like that are great. For a few years my in laws did something similar for us too and I loved it. They would give us all the ingredients for the candies and things I would like to make at Christmas plus special things for our Christmas dinner (the years we didn’t spend Christmas with them). I loved getting those grocery boxes with the treats in them.
I know a couple of years when my husband first left the kids and I were struggling so bad. I didn’t even have enough to heat the house. Someone had their church give us a care package. Now I did appreciate the thought behind it but when we brought it in all excited to see what was in it it broke my heart to see the look on the kids faces to go from excitement to horror. There was nothing but dried beans, rice, tuna, oatmeal and things like garbanzo beans in it. What people sometimes don’t realize is even though we were grateful those were the only things I could afford and we ate all the time so at Christmas it really wasn’t a treat.
What a difference when a friend and his young marrieds group showed up at our door later. They started hauling in sack after sack of stuff – cookies, candy, pop, chips, dips, special treats for Christmas dinner, chocolate chips and things to bake with but it didn’t end there. They also brought things like toilet paper, shampoo, potatoes, cans of yummy stuff, fresh fruits like oranges, grapefruit. The list was endless. I just sat down and cried. It meant so much to us and they didn’t make us feel as if we were someone who was so poor we only deserved the dregs of the barrel. But you know what meant most to me? These were young marrieds and didn’t have a whole lot themselves and in some cases I know they sacrificed so we could have a nice Christmas. Now that is what I call truly caring.
When I was newly married, I loved it when my grandparents gave us a food box for Christmas. It usually contained country ham, eggs, bacon, canned bisuits, a tub of margarine, and jellies.
My in laws would give us a food box at Christmas and I loved it so much. Besides the practical she would stick in extras like chocolate chips, marshmallow cream and things like that so I could make us some Christmas goodies too.
For my husband’s family, we adults do a grab bag type gift that you draw a number then someone reads a story with all the numbers in it. As your number is read, you go grab a gift and unwrap it and then when someone else’s number is called they can either “steal” your gift and you pick another or they grab a gift out of the pile. Last year I made a “goody bag” with a small notebook of about 25 favorite recipes and the dry ingredients of one of the cookie recipes that I had in the cook book. I threw in some fun oven mits, bright spatulas, and kitchen towels that I had bought on clearance during the year and that gift made the trade/steal 8 different times. It wasn’t expensive, but it was something personal and memorable. I already have my gift bag made for this year and my husband put together a bag with some deer jerkey, his recipe, a pair of gloves and a headlamp flashlight. We’ll have fun again this year!
I LOVED it when my uncle gave me a big bag of plain M&M’s for Christmas every year. I always gave my parents their favorite candy. WE always got those books of life savers too. One year we gave the kids money to buy each other and us presents and we all got cookies, candy and other treats and LOVED it.
When my dad was unemployed and still had t2o kids at home they did the same thing. Why not?
YUMMY!
We are having an old-fashioned Christmas in the mountains this year. Instead of going on an exotic trip when I retired, I rented a cabin for my kids, grandkids, and my mother to spend time together. The kids drew names. I told everyone that the gifts had to be homemade. I made:
knitted scarves
pajama pants
body lotion
sugar scrub
hot pepper vinegar
aprons
art kits for the kids
bean soup mix
We are only two weeks away from our trip. Everyone has had a blast making for each other. It will be the best Christmas ever!
We live in an apartment building and there is a soda machine right outside of our door. I hear several of the neighbors with their kids at that machine every single day. How expensive does that get at 75 cents a can?! After a long week of online school at home, I allow my son 1 can of soda on a Friday if he’s been focused and worked hard. He gets a 6 pack on major holidays and his birthday. I let him slop down as much of it as he wants when he wants it but he’s learned to ration it out. An easy treat and some life lessons all in one!
I so agree with this idea! I also have a pet peeve about spending so much a Christmas. My grand kids each got two toys this year and some coloring books and PJ’s. My daughter goes yard-sailing a lot so they don’t need so much. Not having to spend a lot at Christmas is the real joy because you don’t go broke spending money you don’t have! I believe making things like cookies and buying favorite treats that can be carefully used throughout the year is so much better!!
My kids are teens now and told me how they don’t get much throughout the year, only at special times like Christmas and birthdays. I agreed and said we don’t really buy games and toys for them very much as they only play with a few things. When they were little, we would buy them one toy for Christmas. My aunt thought I was crazy not to buy alot of toys but I disagreed. Now, with my husband unemployed and me working a low wage job, I can’t afford to buy those things. My sister’s birthday is tomorrow and I got her a box of food since she is out of work and her husband isn’t making much as an appraiser. She seemed happy about it. I got her a box of goodies for fun that will come by mail for 2 months. Small sample items in it like cookies, make-up, bath salts, etc…She said it was really nice. This holiday season, I will use points I’ve accumulated from websites to get gift cards. Everyone seems to like them.
That is a really good idea. I never thought of doing something like that. I will remember that for the future.
My kids are very happy to have second hand toys and gifts. ..I was worried that they would notice that they were not in the original boxes but they were and are just so happy for the item it has never been a problem. One year I bought Lego second hand ..the new boxed item from the shop had a very limited number of piece for a high price so I bought some second hand at a garage sale and got a big container full cheaply. Another time a friend gave us a bag of cloths her daughter had grown out of, so I went through them when my kids were not around and found a few items that looked almost new and used them as gifts for my kids.. I know this sounds bad but we would rather have pre loved things then nothing.. We look at the item not how many people have handled it before we were blessed with it. I have painted up a old dressing table black and changed the handles to silver handles, my teenage daughter loves it. Christmas in our house is more about the food and family. Every year we all choose 2 meals we love and then that is what we eat for the 5 days…we do enjoy cooking together…I just have to keep an eye out that we don’t end up with 5 sweet desert dished and no healthy food dishes.
For the past 2yrs I have given a bag of groceries in a reusable bag and a bag of toothpaste, mouthwash,lotion, etc. for each family. I am on a fixed income so I buy all year using coupons, 90% off sales. I fix a bag of candy for each of the grand children.
When Keurigs first came out and everybody on earth was offering free samples I sent off for everyone I could find to my house and my brothers address. I saved them for 6 months and I went and bought a nice looking glass container at a flea market. I filled it with all the cups and coupons that were included and gave it as a gift for a friend of mine that had just bought a Keurig. He loved it and enjoyed trying different coffees, teas, ciders, and hot chocolate for months……
Growing up we had a roof over our heads, food in our belly’s and heat in winter. We would get some sort of sweet about once a month, unless Momma was in a baking mood and bake a cake. Occasionally she would make cookies. At Christmas they bought us er Santa did, all sorts of fresh fruit, chocolates by the score, and we could have all we wanted. Back when I was growing up most of your fruit was the canned variety. I am the oldest of 7.
I had a wonderful mother in law, God bless her soul. She would give my daughter bubble bath everytime she came, that was something that just was not in our budget at the time. When son got old enough she would bring him his own bottle. The kids loved the bubble bath and bath time was no problem. I find myself doing that for my one and only granddaughter, all the boys didn’t like baths, they took showers from about 2 on up. My little granddaughter loves the bubble bath. This year I am dipping my toes into soap making, I have started with melt and pour, gave her a few bars this summer when I saw her. My daughter said when they got home, she made sure she had her soap for her bath. So This will be attempting CP soap as all the grandchildren, great grandchildren and children are getting home made soaps, creams, and lotions as gifts. I call them gifts from the heart. Otherwise there are so many, and 7 grandchildren that haven’t started giving us great grandchildren yet, so that will keep growing as 4 are old enough to start. Next year I think I will start early and try and make the Grands and Great Grands quilts, suggestion from my daughter. She said, “Mom that would be something they can have to remember you by. I am no spring chicken at all, 70 hits tomorrow. So those are ideas, my family likes.