Happy Halloween!!  Can you believe Christmas is just 8 Friday’s away?? Last year was our first experiment of doing only 3 gifts for Christmas.  And I have to say it was probably the BEST Christmas ever.  Even the kids said so!  We focused on making as many things homemade as possible, so our tree was all homemade decorations, some of the gifts were homemade, and of course we made goodie plates for neighbors.  It went over so well last year that my husband and I decided we want to do it that way every year!  So here’s our plan for this year….
Last year our 3 gifts were: Clothing, Spiritual, and Toy.
This year I think we’re going to change it up a little bit to Need,Want, and Spiritual. (basically the same thing)

Even though the kids got more than 1 article of clothing, it was all put into one box and wrapped together.  (this also helped me in not doing any last minute impulse shopping)

I have to say last year was the most stress-free Christmas we’ve ever had! It was AWESOME!!  So the kids each get their 3 gifts (2 from us and 1 from Santa)  then they exchange gifts with each other and of course Santa still fills their stocking.

This year their Need gift will include anything they are in need of- so probably mostly clothing

The Spiritual gift will include things they can wear to church (since all my kids are running low on church attire) and if I can find time I’d like to sew the kids some scripture bags.  The hardest ones to figure something out for are my husband and Addie- what’s a good spiritual gift for a 20 month old?  Last year I made her 2 quiet books for church.  I have an idea for 1 more quiet book…. but it still needs some finesse.

The Want gift we haven’t figured out yet for each child.  We have some ideas in mind of things they’ve asked for, but nothing is for sure yet.

With Pinterest available it’s so easy to find some super cute ideas of gifts you can make and have them be actually cute- not the Popsicle/string/glue type of homemade gifts that you throw away when you can.

Bring the holiday back to the true meaning and the focus on giving and service rather than commercial and receiving- That’s our goal!

Meanwhile, I’m on the hunt for some homemade ornament ideas for our tree.  Feel free to share any cute ideas you come across!