Gift Guide #9: No-Spend or Low-Spend Gifts

My father is notoriously hard to shop for- he’s very picky about clothes, hates people spending money on stuff he doesn’t need, buys himself everything he needs anyway, etc. This endlessly frustrates my mother, who LOVES gifting and all things Christmas. One year, out of ideas, she decided she’d just wrap up his favorite trashy junk food and call it a day. I’ve never seen him more delighted than on that morning when he unwrapped a bag of Cheetos!

One year I threw my husband a surprise birthday party and asked everyone to bring a bag of chips because chips are his absolute favorite food. Nobody minded spending a few bucks on a bag of chips and people really went out of their way to find interesting flavours. A single bag of chips isn’t necessarily a great gift, but 20+ bags of really interesting chips when chips are your favourite food? Amazing. He loved it.

I’m gifting a couple neighbors a dried citrus garland. Put thin slices of grapefruit / oranges / any citrus in the oven at 200 for several hours. Check every 20 mins or so to flip or take out when they’re dry. Your house will smell amazing and stringing them with yarn and a tapestry needle doesn’t take long. :)

For my husband, when we had just started dating, I made a custom board game and I recently did it for a good friend too. I bought an old Careers game on eBay; then repapered it and customized each section with personalized things — it would work for lots of games even simpler ones like Candyland! (Call it “Jamesland” if it was for a friend named James etc). It was so fun to make and research little details about their lives and think of things we shared to include. For another friend who likes books and poetry, we often text poems we notice and love, so I gathered maybe 70 of my favorite poems and printed/hand wrote them and put them in a pretty binder so she could read them whenever she wanted. I like framing old photos of friends — if they’ve ever sent you off the cuff a childhood photo or a photo of something they love (old home, place that matters to them), frame it! Frame unexpected things! Hand write a recipe and frame it! For another friend, I reached out to her old friends and to family and asked for as many photos of her from babyhood til now as I could get. Got lots of fun old ones from college and her early days of dating her husband and having her babies. I included a lot of ordinary ones (nursing her baby on the couch, etc) to preserve the feeling of just…her life and its fullness and joy, and made a calendar out of them. On the front I put the amazing Annie Dillard quote “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” These are my favorite kinds of gifts!!!!!! I try not to gift stuff anymore — even if I give, say, a cookbook, I try to curate it somehow: include a special ingredient, hand write my own recipe I love, etc.

We love to ask our teachers what their favorite picture book is. We pick a picture from the book, scan and frame it for them.

Tardy bc I mostly read COJ in an RSS reader but – LOVE L.O.V.E that there’s a low/no spend guide this year! Last year I got my stepsister a meal together a month. It hasn’t been low spend for me for a couple of reasons – one being I’m a bad cook, haha, and she’s a wayyyy better cook than me – but it was great to have a reason to get together every month. We had to enjoy the gift!! I’m doing something easier this year but maybe next year, a (homecooked) dinner a month.

For my husband’s birthday during peak-covid times, I sent an email out to a TON of friends and family with this directive: “In the next few days, can you email me *one sentence* stating something that you love about Joe. It can be something like “You are masterful at identifying songs from the first chord.” or “You never make people feel as though the questions they ask you are silly.” It could be something big, or something small, personal or general.” I got almost a 100% response rate, because it took everyone less than a minute to complete! I hand wrote each of the quotes on an index card (with who said it on the back! A fun little guessing game!) and put them in a mini binder. It was so easy to do, and everyone’s responses FILLED my heart!

It’s post like these that make me love Cup of Jo. So many good humans out there. Ugh Jackie’s husband! Kelsey’s boyfriend! Such thoughtful people.

Similar to the picture idea in the post- last year I printed off the family photo we took on family vacation and framed for my sisters :)

Oh god, the library fine expungement is so sweet. I slunk away from my library habit years ago because of accumulated fines I couldn’t pay, and have been instead buying used books and either selling them on Marketplace or just keeping the ones I actually enjoy, lol.

Many years ago, my friend had a toddler and a husband who was an emergency room doctor resident that was crazy busy so she had very little help. My friend very much disliked bath time with the babe because the little girl was not a fan, so one afternoon, I watched her daughter and gave the little girl a good, long bath so she was squeaky clean for her mom. I honestly feel like this was the most appreciated gift I have ever given; my time and taking care of a task with which my friend was having difficulty. It made me realize that sometimes just showing up for people is the best gift we can give.

I got one of those miniature voice recorders—the ones they put in build-a-bears—and recorded my kids (and I!) saying “I love you, Noni” and stuffed it in a miniature pillow and stitched the same phrase onto the pillow. Now she can hear how much we love her in between FaceTimes and visits.

A few years ago for Christmas I asked for my windshield wiper blades to be replaced on my car. Not just new windshield wiper blades: I wanted to have nothing to do with the hassle of installing those darn things during a cold prairie winter. My father in law obliged and even put a spare pair in my trunk for the next time they need replacing. I think of him nearly every time I get in my car. Definitely the best gift I got that Christmas.

Last year I wrote each member of my immediate family a funny little limerick and left them on the table before Christmas Eve dinner. It was so special to see their faces as they read them to themselves…and then to laugh together as we read them aloud!

This is so lovely, by far my favorite gift guide :) I have a question brought up by the adorable dog gift to Anton, and knowing that your boyfriend Freddy has a dog! I have a dog for the first time in my life, I adopted her about a year ago. I am newly in my first relationship since having a dog. I’m wondering, have any challenges come up for you with Freddy having a dog? I just wish he were more of an enthusiastic dog lover, and it turns out he is very anti dog sleeping in the bed, which is not how I roll! Also always needing to figure out what to do with my dog if we want to go for a weekend, I want to sleep at his place. Would love any and all advice regarding Dating with a Dog. <3

Another reason to shop wisely-unexpected tariff charges after purchase. I just read a NYT article that provided several examples. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/01/business/tariffs-customs-retail-shopping.html?unlocked_article_code=1.608.CgIE.Um405pkAPXEG&smid=url-share

I made a little winter doodle for my boyfriend on some nice paper and rolled it up and tied a ribbon on it! I know he’ll appreciate the effort even if I’m not the most advanced drawer :)

thankyou for recognising many who don’t have $ at this time and the fact that we can give in a non material way. there are very few influencers who have done this, so kudos to cup of jo.

This coupon idea form another Cup of Jo post is one of my daughter’s favorites! https://cupofjo.com/2023/11/14/what-holiday-coupons-would-your-kids-love/

I had many years of no money for Christmas but lots of time, I’ve always started crafting and collecting in August or earlier. My dad always played the Kenny Rogers Christmas album and this song made me cry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axTbf1bntbw Secondhand gifts are underrated! I gave my toddler daughter a bunch of small books I’d got on Vinted, and she loves them. I think I paid a euro per book. My kids wanted an expensive piano toy, and I found one on Vinted with a broken foot and chipped paint. Wood glued it, painted it, decoupaged on Italian wrapping paper. It’s by no means professional but very charming and I spent 15 euro including buying a bottle of mod podge. I’ve mod podged a lot of picture frames (nearly every one in my house). I can often find brands my husband wears with the tags on for a fraction of the cost. My MIL is getting a set of embroidered pillow cases and matching duvet this year I found for 30€. I’m going to iron them and put them in a nice box. Best food gifts: homemade mustard (truly costs pennies), Smitten Kitchen apple cider caramels, licorice caramels, chocolate nonpareils ( easy enough for kids to make). When my nana was first widowed I would freeze her individual portions of Martha Stewart’s Mac n cheese. As a kid my mom had us make something called candy play dough out of powdered sugar, butter, and mint extract or vanilla, and we’d make tiny snowmen.

This really depends on what kind of relationship you have with your friend/spouse/whatever but one year my friends requested a doll made out of my hair, had to save up my hair for months to do this. Other gift ideas -Portrait of Kurt Rusell (insert other beloved celeb or person your recipient loves) -Haikus (these are really fun to do and can be sweet and sincere or goofy) -A box of small things the person loves (favorite candy, pore strips, chapstick, their favorite snack, a nail polish, a sticker, etc,

After our first big trip together (3 weeks in Italy!!) I gifted my boyfriend a photo book from Artifact Uprising with photos of our trip in chronological order. The first page and the last page are a long list of our inside jokes and funny moments throughout the trip. That boyfriend is now my husband and the book is still prominently displayed on our coffee table.

Love the nonprofit, Undue Medical Debt! (Also it used to be called RIP Medical Debt.) Upon my uncle’s passing, I made a donation in his name and I know he would’ve been thrilled to know how it helped recipients who were weighed down by debt accumulated through no fault of their own.

I’m editing a compilation of our babe gradually learning to talk and all the funny ways she used to say things (bee-ya for Bluey, yay-o for yellow, etc.) from all the videos on my phone, to gift her grandparents who have everything, need nothing, and are obsessed with her!

What happened to the hard to buy for gift guide? Is it still coming? Just curious as I think the post on Monday said “coming tomorrow”.

I love this post so, so much! Am knitting a triangle scarf in lilac for my college-aged niece (her fave color!). And I really enjoy free-hand embroidery/”thread painting” a small animal of their choosing for friends who are expecting new babies. Please continue this as a wonderful tradition each holiday. Amazing ideas in the post and comments.

in this year of horrors i decided i needed beauty, desperately. once a month, i buy 3-5 bunches of flowers from trader joe’s (yes, this is usually about $35). i then make bouquets in mason jars – one for myself, and at least 2 for friends/neighbors/someone who needs cheering. a pre-made bouquet is something i’d never splurge on for myself, but i love making them, and people seem delighted when they receive them.

I love giving facial massages to people very dear and close to me. It’s a gift of loving attention, calming energy and time. During this session, everything falls away and it’s just me and the person, our breathing eventually sync in a slow relaxed rhythm. I love it when this happens.

I love a “favourite things” party where each guest brings multiples of a favourite small item to share or swap with the group, but it gets pricey when you have to buy so many multiples. I look back at the items I received at these parties and would love to receive them in a regular gifting context… it’s just the idea of someone sharing a small personal favourite every day item that is somehow really special… I have received a jar of a friend’s favourite garlic powder spice mix (I’m obsessed now), a mini bottle of a favourite hand cream, a favourite cheese (lol literally a small chunk of cheese), an amazing beeswax food wrap… I think of my friends every time I use them and it feels so thoughtful and personal despite each item costing about $10 or less.

One year I had my preschooler doodle pictures of her grandparents. Then, I traced then onto tea towels with a fabric marker and did SUPER basic embroidery of the drawings. They were unbelievably cute and hilariously. She’s 13 now, but all four grandparents still have the tea towels hanging in their kitchens!

I’m a big fan of a surprise Venmo. If a friend accomplishes something (finished a marathon, got a promotion), or does me a favor (brought my packages inside when I was out of town), or is having a bad day, I will Venmo that person $10 for a ‘celebratory beer’, or ‘thank you coffee’.

Why is lunch debt at public schools a thing? Shouldn’t that be subsidized or tax deductible for the school or something? It is a basic requirement for education. I find it outrageous and it prevents me from donating to groups like this because I feel like they should not exist, (even as I know the need exists ‘right now’). I’d rather lobby for proper legislation. My school districts superintendent’s salary was recently published in the news: $425k annual salary. I was surprised and while I realize it’s a difficult job it seemed like a high salary if they are requiring the poor to incur debt just so their kids get a proper meal while at school all day. Education is an investment in the nation – nourishing meals (not pizza and fries) should be fully covered. I know I am preaching to the converted here, but please write in to your senators about this so we can end this senseless struggle to feed children. That seems the least a 1rst (?) world country should be able to provide. The hypocracy! Same thing with life services for war veterans – those should ALL be %1000 provided by our government as part of their benefits for having served the country. If you lose a leg in Afganistan or wherever, the frikken government needs to cover all your related needs. There should be no struggling vets. Duh..?

My husband and I went on a trip to Mexico with some friends years ago and it was a really wonderful and memorable time. When we got back, I laid some of the prettiest shells we had collected there out on a white poster board and photographed them from straight overhead. Then I got the photo printed, matted and framed and gave it to our friends. They LOVED it!

My beloved grandmother passed away a few years ago. She was the pillar of our family—always so thoughtful, always making our favorite dishes when we visited. Last year, I decided to create a cookbook of all her recipes for my mother and her two sisters. It took me a month to cook everything and photograph each dish, but it was worth every minute just to see the look on their faces when they opened it.

For my husband’s birthday last year I texted his group of guy friends and told them to come kidnap him that weekend to take him to go do something. I told them I’d do the part of making sure he’d be home, but gave them “full creative license” on the rest. They showed up in an unmarked van, every one of them dressed in adult-sized onesie animal suits, honking the horn like crazy as they zoomed up our driveway! My husband rushed out of the house assuming it was someone needing help, only to be quickly surrounded by 6-foot-tall animals who picked him up (also 6 feet), and threw him in the van. Apparently they went mountain biking and then out for beers and had a great time. He still talks about it being the best birthday ever.

I love to take candid photos of my friends, especially my friends that are mothers. So often, mothers are absent from the family photos because we are the ones taking them. I have gifted my friends with a framed candid photo of them with their kids and a nice card about what a great mother they are.

jackie’s gift is so sweet & i would also love to hear more from women who’ve made big career/educational changes!!

I love this. Please do this every year! This year I: – made a scrapbook as a special gift for a friend – knit a triangle scarf – hand painted taper candles I bought from a monastery by the pound – made chili crisp and granola – bought a book and wrote a note about why for each adult

My kids have developed a deep love for many classic and new card games (with a regular deck of cards). So we are thrifting card decks and creating little booklets of instructions of all their favorite games to give to their cousins.

Oh I loved this. It gave me so many ideas for this Christmas. Some things I am doing: – hand painting taper candles I got for $3/taper from a monastery. Highly recommend. – choosing a book and writing a note about why for all the adults – thrift store frames + photo for all the adults – homemade chili crisp and homemade granola

I see a few comments with similar/same suggestions, but wanted to include anyway – for my then boyfriend, now husband’s 45th birthday, the card had “my 45 favorite things about him” and he said it was the nicest thing anyone had ever given him. This year, he turned 50. He has a winter birthday and didn’t want to plan a party in case the weather wasn’t great. I reached out to all of his family & friends about 10 days before his birthday and asked them to send me a video wishing him a happy 50th. I had to send a handful of reminders a day or two before his birthday but everyone responded. I compiled them into a video (using the standard iMovie app on iPhones) and played it for him after dinner on his birthday. He was completely shocked and talked about it for days.

I love the handwritten parent note. My mom’s handwriting has always been special but I was so thrown by a loop the first time I saw my MIL’s writing – so similar! One East Coast, one Midwest, but both went to strict Catholic schools and had the same penmanship instruction, apparently. Now my Dad’s lefty chicken scratches… Those are a treat.

I don’t have a big gift budget and my oldest friends are constant gift givers. My solution is looking at the books I’ve read recently, having a think over who would like what, and buying it used and putting a note inside. It’s personal, it’s thoughtful, and can be accomplished for under 20 and often under 12 usd

Okay, this one’s not cheap, but I’m super excited about it. I converted my mom’s old blog into a coffee-table book! There are a few sites that do this sort of thing, but I went with Into Real Pages (intorealpages.com). I haven’t seen it in person, so I can’t vouch for the quality, but my heart was in it! It was so fun to pore over her posts as I tidied them up for the printed page.

My husband once sent a blank birthday card and SASE to my favorite minor celebrity, with a note asking him if he would sign it and return it to me. He sent me a headshot with a personal birthday wish! I’ve still got it framed.

In 9th grade my friend loved the mail and wanted to be a mail delivery person when we grew up. I left a note in my mailbox for my mailman asking him for his autograph as a gift for her, and he wrote a little note and signed it. I framed it for her that Christmas, and it was so ridiculous and silly but also so much fun!

So. This is the blue ribbon winner of gift guides. Thank you. And I may have read this idea here, because it’s where I get most of my good ideas but my mom sent my daughter and her two cousins to Iceland this fall. She promised them that when the last one graduated from college, she’d send them anywhere they wanted to go. Did she do that for me? No she did not, but grandchildren, they get extra. Anyway, my daughter was searching for a thank you gift and apparently Iceland is not a shopping mecca so I told her I had read somewhere (again, here? 🤷‍♀️) that someone pressed flowers from a trip into a book and brought them home and framed them. So that’s what she did. She hiked a lot and found a surprising number of flowers in Iceland in late October and then she pressed and framed them and wrote my mom the most lovely card explaining what the flowers where and where she found them and what she was doing. And don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of her. My mom is going t sob. So if I read the idea here. Thank you a million times.

Last year for Christmas I gave my 85 year old mom a subscription to story worth, which is an off shoot of storycorps, a favorite thing. She got a question about herself every week for a year and this year everyone in my family. My kids, sister, my sisters kids and my mom and her brother all get a bound copy of a book with her answers. It came out to a little less than $30 a book all together. I am SO excited for everyone to get them. I don’t know much about my grandparents, which was the inspiration. I want my kids to know. And honestly, after 60 years of having her as my mom, there are so many things she wrote that I didn’t know.

One year when I was in high school my dad secretly taped Mr Ed on Nick at Night and gave me the collection for Christmas. What a treat to watch one of my favorite shows over and over. Times have sure changed, LOL.

If I’m ever in a used bookstore and see a good copy of a book I love, I buy it to keep in a “gift stash.” I like giving someone I love something I love, and maybe they’ll love it too and we can talk about it! Also is perfect with our favorite children’s books…I don’t want to give away my copy but it helps us share the love.

Ah, Alex, you have written some of my favorite posts! Thank you so much, Alex & COJ for this *inspired* gift guide.

LOVE this gift guide! One of my fav gifts to give coworkers/yoga teachers/friends is a homemade coffee cake loaf. Here’s the recipe :) https://www.merricksart.com/christmas-bread/

I have been buying gifts for kids on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota long enough that the social worker reaches out to me personally now. They are accepting pledges until December 13th. Check it out! https://www.onespiritlakota.org/holidayokini

Two ideas along these lines for kids: 1. Somewhere (probably here) I got the idea to ask for a self-portrait from each of them for my birthday. I have quite a collection now. Some are hideous in a lovely way. I love them. 2. Out of the blue last year–not a holiday or anything–my 3 kids (13, 10, and 5) started putting together a magic show. They had whole acts that involved them disappearing behind a blanket, or… I can’t even remember. The older ones fully included the youngest, which is unusual. They practiced and planned for days and then finally performed it for my husband and me. This was so totally out of character for all of them (they’ve never put on a show, they don’t participate in school shows, etc.), but it was AMAZING. We laughed and clapped, and by the end I was crying b/c it was just so sweet and creative, and just for us. Purely for our entertainment. I’m not a crier, but I still cry thinking about it. It moved me as a mom.

We have a 1 and 4 year old. I told my parents all I want for the holidays is childcare while my husband and I go out to dinner or a show. Or childcare so I can go to a massage or yoga. We went to a show in October (Margo Cilker in Portland, was excellent) and holy shit I felt so refreshed and alive. I think childcare is the most amazing gift someone can give to parents.

Growing up my dad made my siblings and me movies to celebrate our high school graduations. But these weren’t just photo slideshows set to music. They were full cinematic masterpieces with a theme tying back to inside joke from our childhood, Oscar-level acting done by the entire family and clips from famous movies interwoven to tell a 30-minute long story. (These were done pre-internet and I honestly have no idea how he made this movie magic happen.) So this year, for my husband’s 40th, I spent a month making him a movie so he could get in on the fun. It was a spoof on those old beer commercials, “the most interesting man in the world.” I interviewed his friends and family from all stages of his life where they exaggerated all the incredible things he’s done in 40 years, then surprised him on his bday with it. (“Oh my god, is that my old college roommate? Is that my old boss?”) Still my most joyful accomplishment to date. For my witchy best friend’s wedding in March I made her what I called an “Oracle of Little Truths.” Inside was a list of her best qualities, submitted by all her friends. Each one was rolled up in a little scroll and inserted into a potion jar. On the front of the jar I wrote a “spell” that basically instructed her to pull a scroll anytime she feels sad or bad about herself, ending on the line, “The words inside are yours to claim, a love that echoes back your name.” And this year for Christmas I’m gifting my new baby nephew a Yoto Radio (sort of like a screen free mp3 player – HIGHLY RECOMMEND, my 8-year-old still uses hers every night to fall asleep). But the real gift is a playlist of stories read by his aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. We live across the country and this way he can grow up hearing our voices reading to him whenever he wants.

For my baby shower, my sister (based off a similar idea for a friend) collected songs and stories recorded by my loved ones for the baby. My mother singing the same lullaby she sang to me. Friends and aunts and cousins reading children’s books in their own voices we could play over and over. And some of those people have since gone, and it remains a treasure to hear them.

My two dear friends were having their first baby and living in a different country than the majority of their loved ones. They are scholastic and community oriented so in lieu of a baby shower I organized a book gift giving scheme. Dozens of friends chose from a list of children’s books (or added to it) and everyone had their books delivered on the same day so our dear friends were inundated with love for them and their little one.

This year I am giving my teenager a jar of positive affirmation like “Never forget how wildly capable you are” and “It’s okay to not know the answers” and “You are enough”. How many will there be? 67, course.

My grandmother was a jealous person and a horrible gift giver, despite having tremendous taste and wealth– for one birthday, she gave me a pair of fish flops (flip flops shaped like a fish from the dollar store) and a used copy paperback book. She often tried to use gifts as a bribe, like when she decided I was too old for a blankie and she offered me, roughly 6 years old, silk pajamas in exchange for giving up my blanket. She also gave me very expensive but meaningless gifts. I loved her very much. One year, a huge box arrived in the mail for me. It was a blanket from her home that she had noticed me admire and wrap myself in whenever I spent time with her. It meant so much to me– that she had noticed that I loved something and made the decision to give it up for herself so that I could have it. I look at it every day and think of her. It is a prized possession.

Ohhh I loved reading this post and almost teared up (the dad’s handwriting!) I compliled a list of ways to gift that don’t break the bank, from giving your time (babysitting, anyone?!) to cooking someone a meal at their house (dishwashing included). Here’s a link, if you feel like reading: https://consciousbychloe.com/2025/11/26/black-friday-reminder-other-ways-to-give/

I make homemade cranberry bread and fudge. I have an easy fudge recipe that is so good. Years ago, when our family was larger, I gave homemade tarragon vinegar with tarragon from my herb garden and I gave herbs from my herb garden that I dried and packaged. I made American Girl doll clothes from my fabric remnants.

Love this gift guide! Best one of the year :)

this is it COJ! more posts in this direction, pls! last year i used free websites to make custom crosswords and word searches for my hubby and each of my kids and printed them out (free printing at the library if you don’t have a printer at home) – they were such fun little surprises in their stockings, and a nice sweet slower activity to do later in the day. it was fun to think of cute jokey little references for each of them!

I gave my husband an Emergency Brownie Coupon in his stocking last year. I stashed away supplies for a pan of fancy homemade brownies that would I bake at any time or day of his choosing. Cheap, silly, and a nice coupon to have in your wallet on a bad day.

I love this post SO much, it feels so timely and heartwarming and sensitive. Thank you so much!!!

The year my dad died, my husband had a photo framed of the view from my parents Montana ranch where we scattered his ashes. It’s blue sky and rolling golden grasses. The only thing missing is my dad on horseback. It was a thoughtful way to show me that he understood my grief. I often give homemade granola in jars and plates of soft ginger cookies. I’ve given custom watercolors of beloved pets or homes (there’s lots of artists on Etsy for this), and they are surprisingly inexpensive. I hand sew little felt animal ornaments, custom, of people’s pets. They seem to bring folks a lot of joy. They are small, can be used as tree ornaments or hung on the wall as part of a little shrine. I’ve gotten sweet pictures from the person who ordered, of a big burly guy, overcome with emotion, or a child sleeping with their feltie clutched in their hands. Makers really do love sharing handmade joy. Here’s my ginger cookie recipe: Soft ginger cookies 1 cup butter 1 1/2 cups sugar 1/2 cup molasses 2 eggs 4 cups Flour 1/2 tsp salt 2 1/2 tsp baking soda 2 1/2 tsp ginger 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1 1/2 tsp cloves Bake at 350 Can be rolled into balls and sugar, or rolled out and cut. Extra good with Cookie Butter sandwiched in between.

Kelsey, I am appalled that your library banned you and the rest of the libraries in your state upheld the ban! Here was a chance to show kindness and get a library loving volunteer and they said no. So shocking to me that they thought that was appropriate. I am outraged for you. What a great friend you have to fix this issue for you.

Love this post! I am in general “Anti-stuff” and want to live a minimalist life . I hate the concept of return gifts and a zillion bowls accumulated this way. I really hope people dont feel the pressure to gift and then return giftI generally gift food that I have made or help folks with my time or gift edibles.

With my toddler, we made an Advent-calendar-style paper village, with each little house representing a day until Christmas. On the first night, I filled some of the houses with candies and others with messages from Santa suggesting fun activities—like having his favorite cousin over for a sleepover or having Mom and Dad kiss his cheeks at the same time. When he opened the first house and found only a message inside, he hated it so much that I ended up reopening all the houses to add candies to the messages, worried he might start seeing Santa as the enemy if I didn’t.