Everything's Coming Up Green

Archive for the ‘Gift giving’ Category

The Hallmark store in the Westroad’s Mall is closing. Everything is marked down to 50% off. I am seeing some great presents for future birthdays or next Christmas. I didn’t get a chance to go in since we were on a mission to get to Old Navy. I hope to stop by in the next week or so to see what kind of deals there are. I’ll keep you updated!

  Well Christmas is over. This year Joel and I tried to start some family traditions. This is not our first Christmas with Emma, but last year doesn’t really count since she was only a month old having been born the day before Thanksgiving. And the fact that I didn’t even bother to pull out any of the Christmas decorations for the same said reasons.

So this year we were establishing a few traditions with the hope that if we start now they will truly become family traditions and not just failed attempts.

Here are a few we tried this year, how well they worked, and what I would do different next year.

Family Christmas photo cards and letter. First I would start by taking said family photos earlier so that A) we can take advantage of all the great freebies that are available and B) so we can get them ordered and to us in a timely manner they arrived 3 days before Christmas and have yet to go out.  I also would not take the pictures so late. We decided we would do them when we celebrated Thanksgiving with my parents because we were putting up the Tree that day and thought it would be nice to have them taken in front of the tree. And since my brother is a photographer and would already be there it seemed it would all work out smashingly. But dinner didn’t start until 3:30 and everyone was tire after dinner so tree decorating got pushed off. By the time we got Emma dressed for pictures it was after 7pm and time for her to go down for the night. She didn’t really fuss but she didn’t really smile much either.

We will for sure be doing this next year. I just need to be prepared earlier, including starting on the letter sooner.

Decorate the Christmas tree on Thanksgiving at my parent’s house. This overall worked out well. We had gone out to my parents’ house the night before so that I would be there to help with dinner preparations in the morning. I had Joel get out the rest of the decorations and the tree from the attic the night before so that mom and I could sort through what we needed for the next day. In the morning I put up the Christmas tree with the help of my wonderful husband during lulls in the kitchen. Having the tree up and fluffed ahead of time really helped. I would try and have at least the lights on ahead of time next year, maybe even the garland. The guys weren’t too interested in putting ornaments on the tree but next year Emma will be old enough to really enjoy it. On a side note, my mom was so grateful to have family there to decorate the tree and some of the house. When you are a teacher who sometimes doesn’t get much time off before the holidays having time set aside to decorate and family there to help can be a huge blessing and gift. We will definitely be doing this for many years to come! 

Celebrate Christmas morning at home with just us and the kids.  Well, this sort of happened. As many of you know the Midwest got a loooot of snow the night before and the day of Christmas. My parents live out in the country so we knew there was no way we would make it out there the day of Christmas like we had planned. So sadly we made a compromise. We had our Christmas at home with Emma in the afternoon on Christmas eve and then headed out to my parents’ house before things got too bad. Though it was not Christmas morning we still had a great relaxed time and enjoyed having family time with each other and Emma. Plus it was fun being snow in out in the country the whole weekend. Next year will be a different story. We rotate holidays with the parents and Christmas is in Kansas with Joel’s family next year. We will just have to be a little creative.We absolutely love this tradition and will be keeping it for sure. There is nothing that can replace intimate family time

 

Handmade gifts for Christmas.

I tried my hand at this with a couple of Emma’s gifts. I made her egg shakers with different items inside that made different sounds. I also made her jingle bell bracelet things. Basically it’s just ribbon sewn into a loop with bells sewn onto it. I had a lot of fun doing this. I have to fix both of the jingle bell bracelets since one of the bells came off and the other I didn’t sew it far enough in to keep it from pulling apart. I also have two egg shakers to re-glue. I used super glue but apparently it wasn’t so super after all. I may try a hot glue gun.

I want to do this again next year. I may even set a goal to make everybody’s gift. We shall see. I am addicted though. I know Emma’s gifts were simple but you have to start somewhere right?

 

Make Christmas Cookies.

Mom and I worked on this the weekend before Christmas. We made 3 batches of dough. Let’s just say it was a little bit of overkill. I think I ended up eating half of them myself (not good, but oooh so good). It was a lot of baking, but we had lots of fun talking and icing/decorating them. Having brightly decorated cookies everywhere made it really feel like Christmas. Emma helped me cut a cookie, but after she got her hands on a little piece of dough there was no going back. All she wanted to do was eat it!

What I would do differently- I had intended to give away way more cookies than I actually did. This was in part because we made them so late so I would definitely start earlier in the month next year. I also needed to have a better plan for who I was actually giving gifts to. This year I only needed them for gift boxes I was making for Joel’s work and a last minute Christmas part we were invited to. I also want to try using a “glue bottle” from a craft store filled with icing to decorate them. I saw it done on TV and their cookies turned out amazing!

In the end I think we will be keeping all the traditions we tried. Next year I want to add making a gingerbread house with Emma. I know she will only be two but I think she will enjoy it. I picked up a gingerbread kit after Christmas for just $2.49 and extra candy decorations for $.50 a bag. I also got a foam manger for us to assemble. Maybe that can be a father/daughter project, we’ll see.

What traditions do you have in your family? Did you try anything new this Christmas?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

    I’m still getting used to the reality of not having co-workers and a boss to make and give gifts to. I admittedly love making and giving gifts. This year and last I have been living vicariously through my husband. Last year was fun because where he was working had a lot of employees, a Christmas party and a name exchange. This year is a bit more of a challenge for me. You see he now works for a company with only three people involved-Joel, his boss, and his boss’s business partner. Oh and they are all men. Men can be difficult to shop for when you are related to them, let alone someone you work with. The question became “how do you come up with a gift that is sincere, useful, and won’t break the budget?” Since I love putting together gift baskets/boxes this seemed like the obvious choice for the year (I’m already thinking about what I want to do next year). I am the type of person that simply cannot stand to pay unthinkable prices for baskets of goods that aren’t that good and that there isn’t that much of. And now that I have gotten a better grasp on sales and coupons I can give a great gift with a price tag that is a great on my budget.

What is in the box:

A half pound of Starbucks Holiday blend coffee and Christmas mugs: free-thanks to my awesome brother who gave me his coffee mark out for the week as well as the mugs he got a couple of years ago after Christmas that have sat in his Christmas box waiting to be loved. (I think the mugs were originally $8 each and the coffee is $6 per half pound)

 The Christmas box: $3.50 (30% off)

Bag of Ghirardelli Chocolate $3 each

Bag of chocolate dipped Dried Apricots: Homemade- I think I paid $1 for the chocolate chips and the Apricots were what we had on hand.

3 bags of Christmas cookies/ 3 cookies in each bag: Homemade-The only thing I went out and bought was a pound of sugar which was $1.98 everything else I bought a while back in bulk so I already had it on hand. (you can go here for the recipe)

2 mini loafs-1 pumpkin, 1 cranberry: Homemade

A very pretty Glittered pinecone ornament: $2 (was $3.99 ½ off)

Ribbon: $2.50 (was $4.99 1/2 off)

All said and done I think I spent around $11.50 per box (I divided the cost of the chocolate, sugar and ribbon between the two boxes). Plus I have extra ribbon, extra bread, and lots of extra cookies to share! A tin of 12 cookies at Mrsfields.com is $29 and that’s just for cookies that are rather small. My boxes are over flowing. I had to actually leave some stuff out just because it wouldn’t fit. I really love the way these turned out. I think they look beautiful. Thank goodness for wired ribbon, a God send for those of us that are challenged in the way of making bows!

Are you making anything special for Christmas?