It’s gift-giving and gift-receiving season! In this episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah and I reflect on our favorite gifts over the years, and our favorite gifts to give. She shares her strategy for the eight nights of Hanukkah, and I talk about how I keep presents organized for the kids (I’d mastered my strategy with four…just in time to have five! Though seriously the baby will have NO IDEA if he just gets toys from the basement re-wrapped or something…) We discuss several gift hacks and how you, as an adult, can be easy for people to shop for.
In the question section, we tackle a listener’s corporate virtual lunch-and-learns. Is there any reason to go or not go?
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I LOVE Sarah’s idea of picking the big US family trip at 10 and the international family trip at 15 for birthdays. I am 100% suggesting that to my husband for my two boys. They are 3 years apart, so we won’t be totally overrun – it’ll be US in 2026 and 2029 and international in 2031 and 2033. Maybe I’ll even add an ‘anywhere in Maryland’ (or DelMarVA area) for age 5, since that is coming up this spring (though I suppose we will likely still be limited with activities due to the pandemic – but could do something outside or find an air b’n’b for a night ) =) Happy holidays to you both!
OMG. 2034 for my younger one to turn 15. I realize no one will catch this mistake but me but it was killing me to not be able to edit/correct it!
This was a fun episode! I always get my girls something to read, something they need, something they want (from Santa), something to wear and an ornament. Now that we’re easing out of the toy age I was thinking of doing more experience things except it’s 2020 and that’s really hard right now.
My girls also each pick out a present for the other one and I take them shopping and give them a budget. When you were discussing this Laura I thought – why don’t you have the kids draw names? It would be a fun secret thing and reduce the amount of gifts. You could even pose it as a sorta secret santa thing? And for now you could just do it for the four older kids.
I also liked Sara’s suggestion of food gifts – my dad is difficult to purchase for and a surprise food gift would be fun!
Along the lines of food gifts, I bought my parents a subscription to Universal Yums. They love to travel but obviously haven’t due to COVID, so I thought this might be second-best 🙂 We have our own subscription since the pandemic started and it has been really fun!
I do a want, need, wear, and read for my three children as well on Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, they each open one small gift and an ornament. My kids are now 20, 17, and 10- tradition still going strong!
We are major gift minimalists here when it comes to adults. So we donate to a charity that buys Christmas presents for needy families as a gift to my parents (who at over 70 don’t want or need anything) and we got them to stop getting gifts for us 5 kids and our spouses. They have 9 (soon to be 10) grandkids so my mom still has plenty of shopping to do. My husband and I don’t exchange gifts for anything! His wedding gift to me was getting a physical. Ha. He is in good health but never felt like he needed a physical. So he got one as our wedding gift and gets one each year as an anniversary present. Not romantic but it was important to me. He is fit as a fiddle so I wasn’t worried about his health but now we know for sure he is healthy and doesn’t have any concerning blood test results!
Gifts are obviously important to kids, though, so we buy for our son – but didn’t get anything for the baby because he is 3 weeks old and clueless about Christmas. I try to keep the gifts to a minimum because he gets a lot from the grandparents, especially my MIL as he and our son are her only grandchildren. One gift I love for him is magazine subscriptions. He gets ranger rick and will start to get highlights high five in 2021. I look forward to experience gifts but didn’t feel comfortable buying any for 2021 since I wasn’t sure how soon enough would be vaccinated to make experiences safe for us. But next year I want to ask for memberships to the zoo and children’s museum!