Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Gift Ideas

Everyone has a number of people who are challenging to shop for.  I thought I'd share some of my ideas in case they might help someone.

Gift Basket

My kids and I collected some of our favorite foods to send as a gift.  I had each child make a tag for one item to personalize them. They drew a picture on the tag, wrote why the liked that item and signed it.  Then we attached the tags with red ribbon.  Some of the items we included are
Archer Farms Black Bean and Corn Salsa (Target)
Archer Farms Butter Crunch Cashews (Target)
Dickenson's Lemon Curd (Safeway; my family called it lemon butter and it's great on rolls)
Krusteaz Orange Cranberry muffin mix (Target)
Gummi Bears
Celestial Seasonings Cinnamon Apple herbal tea

Gift Card With Suggestions

I like sending a gift card so that the recipient can get whatever they want.  But to make it more personal, sometimes I'll include a note saying what I considered getting them.  This might include one or more books, CDs, DVDs or other items that I really like.  My kids have helped me with this too, adding their recent favorite items for a family member.

Photo Ornament

I found a variety of holiday ornament photo frames at Michael's craft store recently.  There were several for baby's first Christmas, in addition to "Our First Christmas" for newlyweds and many others.  I scanned a photo, printed it and added it to the frame.  This makes a special personalized gift.

Donation in Honor of Teachers

Teacher gifts can be really hard to choose, especially when each child has ten or more teachers counting the related arts teachers, other school staff, scout leaders and religious education teachers.

The last couple of year, I've made a donation in honor of my kids' teachers.  I include a note with their card (see below) saying that a donation was made by our family and to which charity. My favorite for the last couple of years has been Water.org since they help build clean water sources in developing countries which drastically improves the people's health and helps more kids get to school since they're not walking hours each day for water.

The thank you notes I've gotten from teachers for this gift have been very enthusiastic and appreciative.

Note for donation:



In the spirit of the holiday season, our family has made a donation in your honor to Water.org to provide clean water sources to families in developing countries. Clean water improves their health and enables more kids to have time to attend school.

Thank you for all you do!!

The _______ Family


I hope these ideas have helped!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!