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Christmas Gifts Among Siblings
By Kendra | November 11, 2009
Our kiddos draw names for Christmas giving. They love being able to focus all their available resources on one person, and I love listening to their ideas as they plan and plot each year.
Last year we required them to make a gift for their recipient, and it was really neat to see what each child came up with. The littlest ones had a bit of help 
Nine-year-old sister made a fancy mirror from a kit for seven-year-old sister
Five-year-old sister made a cookie mix with cute label for 13-year-old brother
One-year-old brother made a necklace with a photo of himself for nine-year-old sister (he had a little help 
)
13-year-old brother made a t-shirt for 11-year-old brother’s in-house backrub business
We don’t have photos of the last two, but seven-year-old sister made a whole gallon-sized Ziploc bag of chocolate chip cookie dough balls for 15-year-old brother. She fetched them from the freezer for him on Christmas morning. 15-year-old brother made a cute little monkey shirt for one-year-old brother. We giggled every time he wore it.
This year the kids have to buy or make a t-shirt for their chosen sibling. So far the choices have been really fun, and I like that the gifts are practical and personally chosen with the recipient in mind. Budget accommodating, too!
Topics: Life with Preschoolers, Musings and Miscellany | 9 Comments »
November 11th, 2009 at 4:53 am
I love this idea! Sounds a lot simpler than what we do… We do a little “store” up in our bedroom. Over the course of the year I gather up enough goodies (between $1 and $2) like books, fun pens, t-shirts, toys, etc. for each child to “buy” one for each sibling. We have a child come in our room and “shop”. We charge the littles 50 cents per item since they aren’t made of money. : ) We charge the older ones pretty much the cost of each item. I like it but…we have to make sure we have 42 items (7 children each need to give 6 gifts)! It can be mind numbing to make sure I have enough boy or girl gifts but it sure beats taking each child shopping because they would want to buy something huge for each sibling and they wouldn’t have enough money for it. Now…all that said that I can’t keep them quiet for the few days between their “shopping” and Christmas and someone spills the beans and then someone else is in tears because they didn’t want to know what they were getting. So how do you keep them from telling each other what they are giving?
November 11th, 2009 at 5:59 am
How do you do gift giving with your children? Do you set a budget per child? Or do you do same number of gifts? What about giving to extended family? In other words, how do we keep in mind (and hearts) that Christmas is a season of giving & do all of this WITHOUT going into debt?
November 11th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Diana-
I have a post about that coming up
I don’t have a budget per child because so much of what I give them is acquired for free or very inexpensively through my couponing or MyPoints gift cards, etc. I watch number of items as I list what each one is getting on my spreadsheet, but it’s rarely even. They don’t count number of gifts- they’re too busy looking at what they got 
We aren’t extravagant gift givers. Many folks on our list are getting homemade granola or vanilla this year. We give family gifts to each of my and my husband’s siblings, and even those are either homemade or garnered very inexpensively.
The one thing that helps me immensely is that I start thinking about Christmas the day after Christmas. I take advantage of clearance sales all year long and stash things away. Just yesterday I happened into an educational supply store while I was waiting for a child’s orhto appt- they had Thomas/Brio trains and track on clearance for 50% off. That’s an amazing price if you know what those go for, and since our set is 16 years old we need to replenish a few things for the little guys. I bought a substantial amount with the intent of putting most of it away to dole out over the next few years or to offer to Grandparents to buy from me and give to them.
I’m sure you’ve heard that it’s important to set a budget on Christmas. If that were new to me, I think I’d make a list of recipients, decide how much I could spend overall, then assign a dollar amount to each name. Then stick to it! Think about how inexpensive the gifts our kids made last year were. Cookie dough balls were the hit of the day and I think the ingredients added up to two or three bucks
November 11th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Ooooh, Carmen, I don’t know! So far so good. The biggest issue we have is little ones telling which name they drew. Everyone groans because some years they’ve been able to completely deduce who has whom.
November 11th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Such great ideas. The girls save their allowance and have a $5.00 budget for their sisters. There is only three so that is just $10.00 for them to save. I take them out individually to pick out their gifts and they wrap them. That isn’t to say that they add in a whole bunch of homemade gifts too. I love that.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Hello,
Do you have any ideas for filling your own Advent calendar?
I bought a beautiful wreath with red silk bags hanging off it, and would like to fill them not only with gifts but things for our children to do for others.
Just not sure how to work it or what kind of service to others to include etc… Hope this makes sense! Our 8 children are 4- 15 yrs old.
Thanks Kendra or followers for any ideas!
November 11th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Sandra-
I like things that are consumable- gum, candy, crayons, pencils, stickers, etc. Maybe put a slip of paper in some of them that have an idea of serving someone else that day- taking a meal to someone, picking up someone’s children for a few hours to bless the mom, etc. My son just suggested putting writing paper and envelopes in one of the bags to write letters to missionaries, grandparents, etc.
November 12th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I love this idea! One of so many great idea from you – thank you for sharing.
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:33 am
I’m having regrets (already) about this year, but here’s what we did. We went to the store and each of us (2 adults, 3 children aged 7, 5, and 2 years) had a budget of $25 to purchase gifts for each family member (4 gifts, since they don’t buy one for themselves.
) Daddy took each child to get a present for Mama and the kids, and Mama took each child to get a present for Daddy.
I figured that doing the shopping in November gets us ahead of the game. We don’t blow our December budget quite so badly, and we were able to take advantage of the grocery store’s “spend $ and get a free turkey” promotion.
I was afraid that buying the things so far in advance would mean the beans would be spilled as far as “I got this for you!” but so far it seems they have forgotten what they bought.
I’m regretting it because it was a LOT of money (for us), and I’m afraid it’s feeding into the whole “Christmas is my favorite holiday because you GET STUFF” mentality. (but you already talked about that Kendra!) That and the potential for spilling the beans. We’ll see how it works. I’d also like to see us do something like the Advent Conspiracy, instead of getting presents we give to someone in need. But that wouldn’t go over well around here.