Comments on: Holiday gift hacks

By: CNM

CNM — Tue, 24 Dec 2019 16:59:03 +0000

My tip is to wrap as you go. It is easier for me to wrap here and there than have a monster, hours long wrapping session. I can also keep an eye on wrapping paper supplies – woe to the one who runs out of paper on xmas eve! Wrapped presents go right under the tree, which adds to the holiday decor and makes snooping harder!

By: Lindsey S

Lindsey S — Mon, 23 Dec 2019 18:06:24 +0000

Love the kids shopping for each other. Our church does an annual Christmas Shoppe of donated goods the kids secretly shop through during a spaghetti dinner. So cash gets donated to the high school summer trip at church and little kids get help picking secret family gifts. It is so heart warming to see the thought that even a four year old can put into choosing gifts for parents and siblings. My new favorite part of Christmas gift opening!

By: Eli Richardson

Eli Richardson — Mon, 23 Dec 2019 16:22:58 +0000

It’s awesome how involved your kids into getting each other a gift. I did like how you said that kids will learn the difficulty of wrapping gifts. I will use your idea and take the boys to a gift shop so they can get entangled in the gift grasping and participate in the gift exchange too.

By: Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam — Mon, 23 Dec 2019 13:00:53 +0000

In reply to Erin. @Erin - love the dollar store idea!

By: Erin

Erin — Sun, 22 Dec 2019 21:46:10 +0000

We took quarters from the kids piggy bank and had each boy shop for his brothers in the Dollar store. It worked beautifully! Each was so happy to find a little toy they’d like. They didn’t mind that the money came out, to my surprise.

I also start Christmas gift list as soon as the new year begins. I write everyone’s name in my electronic notes and then whenever an idea pops in my mind I record it there. I try to reconcile lists in the October timeframe.

By: Gwyneth

Gwyneth — Sat, 21 Dec 2019 15:43:46 +0000

When I was a kid I loved wrapping presents, so my mom used to pay me to wrap all of hers that weren’t for me or my brother by buying me a copy of my school yearbook every year in return. But I hated how she color-coded the kids’ presents by wrapping all of each kid’s presents in the same paper, because I missed the aesthetic pleasure of looking at many different pretty papers as I opened my identically wrapped presents (I’ve never been a ripper), especially if I disliked the pattern she happened to pick for me. As an adult who now hates wrapping presents, I understand the appeal of any strategy that makes it faster and/or easier, so would like to suggest the alternative approach of putting all the gifts for each person in separate, labeled shopping bags both before and after they’re wrapped, to simplify keeping track of them both in terms of numbers and not losing any, especially if you have family members who enjoy the whole process of opening prettily wrapped presents, not just what’s inside.

By: Sarah K not SHU

Sarah K not SHU — Sat, 21 Dec 2019 09:53:29 +0000

In reply to Laura Vanderkam. Genius!!

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 23:30:11 +0000

In reply to Laura Vanderkam. Our boys are fairly close in age and have similar interests, so I always have a few gifts that can be for either or both. That allows us to do any necessary last-minute rebalancing, if we realize one accidentally has more than another.

By: Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 21:09:40 +0000

In reply to Sarah K not SHU.

@Sarah K – nope, our family usually consists of the same people year to year. So a tag that reads “To [Kid] from Mommy and Daddy” can be given to the same kid the next year!

By: Sarah K not SHU

Sarah K not SHU — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 21:04:53 +0000

This is maybe a stupid question, but how do you re-use your gift tags? Do you write the names in pencil?
Loved this post too and especially the idea of different wrapping paper.