http://www.myfreedigitalphotos.com/nature/plants/flowers/wilting-rose-280.html
I have a humongous family. My family is so big that a long time ago we came to an agreement to draw names by family and have each family buy one another family gifts. After a while this was deemed a problem as well. Some families were a lot bigger then other families. So we all came to an agreement to not do the gift exchange thing anymore.
By all I mean those of us with more pull. It kinda, if I’m honest, annoyed me. I mean why couldn’t we all just pull individual names? Men pull men names, women pull women names, children…well you get the point. If spending money was the issue, why not set a price limit? I mean doing away with giving gifts outside one’s immediate family just seemed a little scrooge-y to me.
Gift giving is my favorite part of Christmas, it makes Christmas extra special for me. So, I started giving little gifts to everyone. Small dollar store ones, stocking stuffer ones because I was still in high school at the time. I didn’t want people to feel like they were obligated to give me back anything, I just wanted to be able to give my family gifts, all of my family.
Now that I’m older I realize that Christmas is a stressful,expensive time of year for lots of people. So I’ve started to give out homemade Christmas gifts to everyone. That way people don’t have to feel obligated to give me back something that costs a lot of money. Last year I gave every family a box filled with assorted cupcakes. This year it’s going to probably be bath products. I plan to make these and put them into empty glass coffee containers with pretty labels on them. Some people will probably get cookie tins. And for the little ones? Homemade candies and finger puppets. I should probably be starting on that soon…
Great Sites for Homemade Gift How tos:
for:
The place where I’m going to get my images and labels:
http://www.graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/
They also have lovely images that would look fantastic framed or decopodged on the back of a clear glass plate.
I will also be posting a how to on finger puppets soon.
