1 post tagged “best gift”

What is the best present you have ever given?
Submitted by quornflour.

I think I'll expand on this QotD today, in the spirit of Christmas, and talk about gift giving in general. I love gift giving. It's kind of a mania around our house. Any occasion is a good occasion for a gift. I love gift giving that is uniquely tailored to the receiver of the gift. Every gift one gives should be different, and purchased or created with reflection and love. My love of gift giving has actually been inspired by distaste for consumerism, which seems like an oxymoron, but I'll explain. For years, I hated the idea that useless junk was piling up around my house. Bath and Body Works lotions that I'd never get to, potpourri sets, ugly sweaters, stinky candles...it all seemed so garish. It would pile up in my storage closets until I would finally throw it out a year later. I had been guilty of the same kind of thoughtless gift giving, so I'm not judging here. But I started to realize that in the Christmas season in particular, all meaning in gift giving is lost by buffet style shopping. We're all so stressed out by the size of the Christmas list that we make a mad dash to Kohl's or Target on Black Friday and just toss the great deals into the cart, and assign them to gift receivers later. I just got tired of uninspired Christmases full of junk. And I wanted my gift giving to reflect that I'm a creative, expressive individual devoted to my family and friends. And this epiphany also coincided with rising environmental consciousness. I didn't want to continue to contribute to the steady stream of junk plaguing landfills anymore. So...I tried some different kinds of gift giving. Five or so years later, I have to say I'm pretty happy with the results. In honor of Christmas, I'd like to share some of my favorites. They range in price from extremely inexpensive to a little bit pricey...so here's a representative slice.

• The Grateful Jar. Total Cost $10. We made this for my mother-in-law a few years ago for Mother's Day. I bought a large mason jar, and some cardstock in pretty pastel colors, along with a small spool of ribbon. I cut the cardstock into 52 long strips, about an inch thick each. I then divvied up the 52 strips of paper among my MIL's three children and 2 grandchildren, and charged each of them with writing reasons they were grateful for my MIL. We all took the task seriously and had a lot of fun with it. They all handed their strips into me before Mother's Day, and I crimped the pieces of cardstock or rolled them around a pencil to make them curly and pretty, and then stuffed all of the strips into the large mason jar. I made a pretty label that fit over the mouth of the jar, and then attached a tag with ribbon explaining that this was a "grateful jar" for my mil, filled with all of the reasons her children, children in laws, and grandchildren were grateful for her being in their lives. There were 52 strips of paper in the jar, one for each week of the next year. She could pull one strip a week. She went wild for the jar, and it was a big hit in the family. It was such a treat over the next year to get a random phone call on Sunday from my MIL to my husband, saying, "I just read one of your strips today! I can't believe you remember how I used to help you with your paper route when you were a little boy!" Still one of my favorite gifts, and so incredibly inexpensive.
• Food for a Week. Total Cost $60. My dear friend L just had a baby in September, her first. I wanted to do something really special for the birth of her first child because she is a good friend to me, and I didn't want to contribute to the growing pile of baby stuff overtaking her family room. I settled on making her and her husband meals that would last at least a week. I scrutinized all of my Mom's best, time-tested comfort food recipes, and I made seven different meals for L and her husband, plus some muffins for breakfast and some dessert bars. All meals froze well, so they could store the meals and get to them as needed. It was a very time consuming venture, probably about 10 hours of cooking in all, but so worth it! They were so appreciative that I was happy I did it.
  

  this is what a week's worth of food looks like!

  1 comment
  • Recipe Book. Total Cost $15. I've done this one a few different times. I've made a recipe book for brides-to-be, but also for a good friend last year who shared with me a love of cooking. My friend T and I lived in Oklahoma together for a very boring and uninspiring six months. The only thing we had for entertainment was one another, and so we would concentrate on throwing lavish parties for the pilots at the base, to test out all of our favorite recipes. The soldiers LOVED us for our parties, and we had a great time tinkering with soups, sauces, pastas, appetizers, desserts...it was our most cherished hobby together. When I left Oklahoma last December for the tundra of North Dakota, I made a small, inexpensive 5 x 7 book on Shutterfly for T, and filled it with all of the recipes I had made that were her favorites during our parties. I was able to put mix some pictures in the recipe book, so it turned out to be a hybrid scrapbook/recipe book. She loved it, and it is still such a great way for us to commemorate our time together. Time together that would have so terrible without good friends and food.
  • A Gift for Each Month of the Year. Total Cost: $200. This one was very special, and for my dearest friend, so I obviously didn't mind shelling out some cash. Not something I would recommend for an acquaintance or anything, but worth it for the one in a million friend or family member. When my best friend J got pregnant last year, I was really sad because I wouldn't be around for the birth of her first child. She has been such a special person to me, and her pregnancy and the birth of baby Sophie was one of the times I was saddest that I was a military family, because it was hard to miss out on. I came home last January for the baby shower that her mom, aunts and I planned, and I had a really special gift in tow for my honorary future niece. I took a large wicker basket, and purchased twelve different gifts, one for each month of Sophie's first year of life, and wrapped them and attached small letters to Sophie. The gifts were reflective of special things about Sophie's family, like an "arts" month with a handprint kit, books and cds since her daddy is an artist, and then other months that had fun themes like "April Showers Bring May Flowers" filled with bath stuff and a baby hoodie robe. It was a very time consuming and expensive gift, but so fun to put together, and to have mementos for Sophie to look at when she's older, so she can feel like I was there even when I wasn't.
    
  

  a gift for each month of the year
  
  *The funniest thing of all is that I ended up moving home to Ohio two months after Sophie was born, since Alexa got diagnosed with cancer. Strange the way things work out! 
• A Book About You. Total Cost $50. Another gift for my MIL, this time for her fiftieth birthday. I again got the kids and grandkids together, and this time asked each of them to submit two 12 x 12 pages to me. What they put on the pages was their choice. It just had to be tribute to my MIL for her fiftieth. It was really fun what they gave me back: poems, personal letters to my MIL, colored pages from the kids, pages of mother quotes, and my husband even took the time to make a time line of their life together from his earliest memories in life....it was really beautiful. I compiled the pages in a 12 x 12 album, and then added a few really simple scrapbooked pages with pictures. Another big hit, and it was nice because we all made it together. She still cherishes that book and talks about it all the time.

• Date Nights for Alexa. Total Cost $30 each. Alexa is the kid who quite literally has everything. She has her mom's family, her stepdad's family (divorced, so two sides), my husband's family (divorced, so two sides), and my family. She isn't hurting at Christmas. In fact, it's gotten so out of control that we've had to scale back our Christmases for Alexa, because she's just lost the ability to appreciate anything, she's so overindulged. I'm not kidding when I say Alexa probably gets over a thousand dollars in Christmas gifts every year. It gets a little disgusting, and it definitely deflates the fun out of Christmas. So last year, I decided to do "date stockings" as part of her Christmas present. I am trying to reorient Christmas for her maybe into more experience based gifts, since we're literally at capacity when it comes to presents in this house. I picked up some stockings and supplies from the dollar store. Hubby and I each picked the content of our own date night with Alexa. Hubby decided to take Alexa ice skating and then make dinner with her at home together (which was hilarious, since both of them would normally starve to death if I didn't do all the cooking on my own). For my date, I chose a manicure and a yoga class to take Alexa to. Then, I stuffed the stockings with "clues" for the dates. Oven mitts and a scarf and gloves for Daddy's date, and nail polish and workout clothes in the stocking for my date. It was really fun to watch her try to guess what we were going to do, and I was so happy we doled out money for a fun day with Alexa instead of for more junk.  It was especially rewarding to watch Alexa cook with her dad--hilarious!

ice skating...

and making dinner with dad

So...that's what I can come up with off the top of my head. I'd love to hear any fun or creative gifts anyone else has done either...always on the prowl for new ideas!

Happy gift-giving!