i get the holiday bug e.a.r.l.y. and this year it's actually a bit late coming on, but it's hit full force in my noggin. so i've been thinking a lot about things like stuff and accumulation and memories and lasting gifts.
in attempts to pare down the craziness of the holiday season, i've asked (or "proposed") some new traditions (instead of gifts for my kids) for this upcoming holday season:
::for my group of high school peeps, who are overly generous and amazing when it comes to gift giving- i've asked them to let me take a portrait of them holding my kids, so i can print it out and include it in a book that i'm going to compile for the kids for the holidays (or after). the book is going to be called something like "why we're so lucky" or "the people we love and the people who love us". and they'll have it forever. i told them to take the money they would spend on the gifts and take themselves out to dinner. my kids won't know the difference (although i made the mistake of trying to talk through it with gray and she was all "what?!? christmas is cancelled?" and i had to do a bit of backpedaling.
::for one of my most favorite mama friends, instead of buying gifts for our ever-expanding number of kiddies, i proposed that we do a photo swap of the "five best" moments from the past year- we each give each other copies of our five favorite moments. the best part of the whole deal is that it will actually be really hard to only come up with five, since each week is filled with insanely crazy beautiful moments. it's all about paring down. and we're going to get together for cupcakes or cookie baking with some good old fashioned face painting instead of ripping through gifties.
::as usual, my tribe can expect homemade goodies, simple gifts, little tokens of our love. lots of pictures, lots of lasting memories. i really don't want to buy too much shizz this year, not because i'm cheap but more because "why?" i tried to sit down and really think about what's important to me and what's lasting and none of the things i could come up with came from a store. so funk the holiday shopping sprees! if you are one of my peeps and would like to propose some alternative version of the holidays with the gilberts, please do! all the more better if it involves food :)
anyone else out there have any new holiday routines/traditions they are going to rawk out with this year? i'd love to hear about them. xx
14 comments:
Nina, these are such beautiful ideas!
We have been doing a "homemade christmas" with my husband's family for the past several years. YOu have to make your gift for the other 5 people in the family. It is really fun because we spend the entire year thinking and plotting and giving each other a bad time that we are in "conceptual stage", "85% finished stage" or "100% completed stage" it is good old fashion competition and it gets the craft brain going. This year I am making a tribute book using Blurb for the family of photos I have taken of them all year long... I am so excited to share it I can hardly wait!
I have been wrestling with the gift giving problem so a while. I've never wanted to sound cheap because I'm but as people get older it gets harder and harder to shop for them. I'd like to simplify the whole season and make it more about family and less about the presents and the hype. How do I get my family to realize that and not come across as cheap??
We have talked about this so many times and I wish the answer was simple. But the weird thing is, everyone that I talk to feels the same way...so why aren't we all changing???
my husbands family is so overly generous that I don't even think it matters WHAT they give the kids anymore... just that they give a LOT of whatever it is... *sigh*
Last year we started a tradition of buying animals from The Heifer Project. The animals are sent to whatever region of the world you choose to help the village u se them to make a living (milk to sell from cows, eggs to sell from chickens, etc...). We bought a flock of chicken for each of his family members and gave them a printout of how we honored them by giving to others.
I LOVE the idea of a photo book of special people for your children... just a bit ago I actually blogged about some special friends of ours who mean the world to my children.
I love your ideas! Homemade stuff is the best!
Love you a bunch,
Tabatha
xoxo
PS: Thank you for attending another booksigning. You're one of my BIGGEST supporters!
I'm totally on board with all of this. I wish more people thought the way you do!!!
I think your ideas are beautiful. I love the idea of a book of people you love and people who love you. Fabulous! And the five favorite picture idea is fantabulous too!! You rock.
xoxo,
Steph
One of my favorite holiday traditions was the inevitable fight my family would get into on Christmas Day which would ultimately descend to the point where my father would tell me that he wished I was never born and throw me out of the house.
God I miss it.
quite astonishing to come via Wendy and find your trove of paredness.
i just love this post and all the beautiful ideas in it!!!
i decided this year i was going to knit up a whole big basket full of scarves and socks in all sizes and colours and let my lovelies pick something that spoke to them ;-)
that was the plan, anyhow...
and i'm not ready to give up on it just yet!
i have this idea of making a recipe book... at first it started out with just family recipes, but then i thought i have a few friends who love cooking just as much as i so why not include them? you could mix up the contributors anyway you'd like, but it might be nice to have a compilation of recipes of all your loved ones, and then make copies for everyone.
i love your photo book ideas, by the way!
this year will be about giving the photos, i am spying blurb also.
i want a membership to the children's museum for my two. we love us some museum time. if my peeps ask i've got a growing list of activity/community stuff for their ears.
The best gifts from my childhood involved everyone spending time together, so there was the annual everyone-pile-in-the-van-together-and-go-look-at-the-lights. That of course entailed a family dinner together first with friends and relatives invited. In fact, there were several years there where the holidays were sort of an expanded progressive dinner party conducted at different people's houses over each of the major days. Also, we're religious so attending church together is important, but you could come up with a ritual of your own to celebrate what's important to you. We haven't done gifts for several years. That is, the adults don't. Now that the first grandchild in over a decade has been born, who knows! :-)
we're going to do something homemade, that can be baked later, I think. I am going to buy some gifts, though, but they will not be toys, but education materials for future crafts and activities.
Great ideas.
I couldn't respond to a post earlier in the month, but I just loved your mantra about celebrating the day.
you consistently amaze me. i'm just now catching up in blog world and i've missed your amazing goodness.
soooo, the tradition that we started last year was to take the money my gpa gives us and donate it to sendacow.org last year we bought fruit trees for families in africa. the kids were so excited! i'm hoping to give a sheep this year. ;-D
my family growing up was dirt poor so i have a REALLY hard time buying toys and gifts for my kids.
i love the idea of a picture swap! and i love erina's idea of a recipe book too. wouldn't that be delish?
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