Gifts On A Budget

[MorningStar]

Christmas isn't too far away and I'm already stressing about gifts! My family has decided on homemade gifts or service gifts. I think we are going to make a gratitude book for my mom with pictures and letters from us. One year for my sister, I gathered every artichoke recipe I could find and made a book for her with a cute artichoke graphic on the front, had it laminated and bound, and she keeps it on a little stand in her kitchen she loves it so much. It took me at least 15 hours to type it all out and even more time just finding the recipe, so she really appreciated it. Either for her birthday or for Christmas, I am going to record myself reading "Superfudge" to her. When we were growing up, she used to make me read it to her at night while she fell asleep. I also want to find Kindergarten Cop on DVD because she used to come over and ask to watch it, then fall asleep before 10 minutes. I will call it her "Lullaby Package". I'm trying to figure out how I might record myself on a CD for her. Hmmmm ...

More than anything, I stress about not spending too much on the kids, but it's really difficult. We tend to throw in some needs like clothes, which they like. I end up buying for my little family last pretty often because we are trying to get something for all our siblings and parents too, but we just can't afford it. If we were stinking rich, we would buy my in-law's a new house, so it's not that we don't want to spend money on them - It's just that we have a very tight budget and want to put our kids' first. I'm trying to think of some inexpensive gifts for the kids and I want so much not to get into anymore debt.

Do any of you have any inexpensive gift ideas? I would like to hear some for women, men, and kids and get started on this now. Hopefully my friends and I will be able to get together and make candles like we did last year. That would be a good one.

What are your ideas?

:)

MorningStar

[Josie]

Some thoughts:

A book of your family history. Use the PAF file to Create a very nice layout of your ancestry and add pictures or personal memories.

Baby books for sisters or your brothers (and their wives may appreciate them more than the brothers do) or atleast memories from when they were young.

A memory book could be started for each of your children.

A book of poetry.

Make Christmas cards, putting your family portrait on the front, even if it is a snap shot, and write a wonderful note on the inside for each family or person you send it too.

Find a wonderful recipe that you just know someone would like and put all the ingredients to make it in a basket with the recipe on top for a family or individual.

Make up homemade cocoa and put it in jars with a pretty piece of cloth or paper over the lid and a ribbon and give it with mugs. You can buy cheap mugs for a $1 a piece in the dollar stores.

Make homemade cookies and wrap them in foil or colored see through paper with a ribbon. You could even include your card with them.

Go to the dollar store and get an inexpensive casserole dish or cake plate, fill it with good eats and deliver it to the family.

Hope there was some help there.

Josie

[MorningStar]

Thanks, Josie! Those are great ideas.

[Garden Girl]

One of the most difficult things for parents is when children are too small to understand "tight budgets" and just how much that Barbie doll costs... Even board games aren't cheap anymore. Over the years I've become almost a hum bug because I see parents going into debt to try and please their children and get them the latest "thing." And that has taken much of the joy out of Christmas and replaced it with stress... I think the problem is more prevalent outside of the Church because of our emphasis on staying out of debt.

I agree... those were good ideas Josie... something handmade is always appreciated... years ago, for women, I used to paint a small simple floral (like a rose lying on a table, 3x5 or 4x6) to compliment a woman's bedroom, put it in a lovely gold-leaf frame, and give it with a small easel stand. They loved it.

Some years I'd give a small terrarium in a lovely shaped clear glass bottle or vase with lid.

Recently, I've given teenage girls a pretty clear glass container with lid, tied with colorful ribbon, filled with rolled up different colored paper strips. On pieces of colored construction paper I'd type a bunch of questions so they could be cut into 1/2 inch strips...so on each strip is typed a question such as... What happened today that was special? Who is your favorite teacher and why? What is your favorite subject to study and why? What is your favorite musical group? What is your favorite scripture? Etc. Etc. Then I roll the strips up around a pencil so they are "curled," then place each strip in the container. The varied colors in the container make for a colorful gift. Each day the girl will take out a strip, read the question, and write a entry for her journal/diary. Sometimes I'd include a pretty "Write Your Own Book" with pretty cover and blank pages.

Actually, this also makes a nice gift for an adult woman with questions like... Where did you grow up and go to school? What is your favorite childhood memory? How did you meet your husband? What do you remember most about your mother/father? Etc, Etc.

I don't have a clue about boys, or what boys would want...

The Garden Girl

[Guest Iggy]

What my Mother did with each of us girls when we left home, was to type up all of our favorite recipes, put them in a recipe box along with the unused blank 3X5 cards.

I know have three receipt boxes. The one Mom started for me, and then all of my favorites since then (36 years! ).

After Daddy passed on, and money was even tighter Mom would do the same thing for the young women from Church who got married. She would include about 7 in each category. Sometimes she would also add a glass pie plate, small square cake pan, hot pads, a few wooden utensils all wrapped up in a kitchen towel! Or a 1 cup, 2 cup and 4 cup measuring cups, with measuring spoons, and wrap it up in a kitchen towel.

One Christmas I embroidered on flour sacking kitchen towels and pillow cases. For the men and boys I embroidered across the yoke of blue chambray shirts. My little sister complained that she didn't get a shirt - so the following Christmas I did shirts for everyone. I got my patterns for the children from coloring books. Now I would take them from LDS Primary clip-art.

Edited for spelling errors.