Our DIY Christmas Gift Tradition
Every year we deliver gifts to our friends and neighbors and as the season gets closer I’m getting more and more excited planning out our gifts. I cannot share this year’s gifts because I know a few of my readers are also on my gift list, so I will share last years. We create the gifts as a family, and deliver them as a family because we believe it builds character by learning to really think of others. At the same time, it builds our family unit by working together as a team to create the gifts.
Side note, I officially started this blog in January this year so it didn’t occur to me to photograph the gifts we put together, 🙁 I will include all the links that I found and used though!
Every year we give a family gift. A gift for Mom, one for Dad, and one for the kids. Then, package it all up in gift baskets.
DIY Gifts for Kids
For little kids, we made DIY Playdoh (see our recipe here) with essential oil and gave each child 3 types. Spearmint to lift spirits, lavender to calm down, and lemon to help focus. I packaged it in small Tupperware and printed a label for the top.
For big kids we made DIY marshmallow shooter kits. Basically we cut PVC into correct sizes and threw it in a box with the directions and a bag of marshmallows. Printed a fancy label that said DIY Marshmallow Shooter, taped it to the box, and done. This was the easiest DIY we have ever done!
DIY Gifts for the Family
We made “just add snow” snowman kits. I found this great tutorial and followed that and sewed a little top hat, made a scarf and painted rocks. Picking and painting rocks was something the entire family enjoyed! I packaged it all in a plastic tote from the dollar store that they could use to build an igloo.
DIY Gifts for Dad
We made Dads compound butters which were a huge hit! We came up with our own recipes but included 2 sweet butters (cinnamon raisin was my fav), 2 spices, and 2 savory. We sliced each “log” into 1-inch pieces then added all the different flavor slices together to form a new log. I wrapped that up for each person and included a card sharing what each butter was and different things to pair each butter with, on fish, in pasta, or on toast — that kind of thing.
DIY Gifts for Mom
We made our Mom friends: coffee body scrub, vanilla bath salts & homemade chapstick. I packaged the salts and coffee scrub in decorative glass bottles from the thrift store. I also included cards that share why coffee is good for your skin and directions on how to remake it, as well as the benefits of vanilla to help relax.
The Delivery
We always go as a family and drink hot cocoa in the car as we drive singing Christmas songs.
We pick a day, usually a week or two before Christmas, and deliver the gifts. Because we had the butter this particular year (and I put a few cookies in each basket) I took a picture of each persons’ door and tagged them on Instagram with the caption “Recognize your door? You may have a handmade gift from us! Everyone got something different and some gifts need to be refrigerated, so open and enjoy them!” We like to pick a time of day that we think people aren’t home, and we don’t ring the door bell. We just drop it off… though, a few people did catch us. 😉
What Christmas traditions do you have?
