Hey, it’s Christmas time already!
I would like to know what are your tips to have a simple and stress less Christmas, and I will tell you mines!
We will begin by some gift ideas for children. To avoid having gifts you disapprove or dislike or just too many useless toys, here are some ideas which can help you.
I use to ask family and friends to don’t do any gift which is :
-made with plastic
-electronic or needing battery
-violent or inappropriate (everybody has his own criteria for that)
Just this, is already very nice to avoid “bad” toys! Another thing is limit the amount of toys. You can manage that by telling everybody in your family that you would like one good quality toy for your child so they can arrange themselves to share the expense.
It’s always better to have one good toy than 10 from the 99cents shop!
Something that we used to do when I was a child was to give away one old toy for each new one received. It’s a good way to teach children to share.
There are nice shops who have wish lists so you can do your own and give it to your family and you will not have bad surprises regarding to inappropriate toys.
Here are some links to shops that I love for my daughter:
They are very good shops to find the nice toy your child will enjoy and remember a long time! If you have to do a gift to a child and you don’t know what to choose, a very good option is a gift card from one of these shops. Parents will be for sure thankful, and children happy!
Remember that the most wonderful gift a child can have is YOU!
A very nice gift would be a membership for a zoo, a children museum, or another place to go all year long for the hole family! I will get a membership to Phoenix Zoo this year and I am sure we will enjoy so much to go each week and have time and fun together!
If you have more than 2 children, you should prefer “community” toy, I mean a toy or game that they can play together, so they learn to share and enjoy the company of brothers and sisters.
In Europe we believe that Christmas gifts are just for children! We use to give a nice family portrait to the grandfathers and Christmas cards to the family and friends.
I am used to give some yummy goods to family like cookies, home made jelly, etc… put it all in a nice basket and that’s it!
I don’t know if this would be appropriate here in the U.S., that’s just the way I do it!
I would love to know what you think about this so let your comments here!
