Hello again,
I am in full Christmas gift "buying" mode. Years ago when we lived in the smallest house in the world (650 square feet) with 2 kids Christmas was a little tricky. Our family was always so generous to the kids but with a small house and no toy room we had to think about everything that came into our house. so I came up with the idea, with the Internets help. To go for a clutter free Christmas. The first year my parent's got red dance lessons, she was only 3 at the time. For my husband and I they got us last year  Costco subscription, hoping to get that again this year.
Now that we have teachers in the last few years its been tricky to stay with that theme. I don't know about anyone else but the poor teachers probably have a storage locker full of the worlds best teacher mugs. With this in mind I have made a small list of clutter free teacher gifts ideas.

1. Movie night. 2 ways you can do this. Gift card for a theatre or the kids favourite is a movie night at home. so we fill up one of those popcorn in a bowl thing but I cant find them in a few years so last year we went and got a  box of popcorn for I think under $5.00, a cheap plastic bowl from the dollar store. the kids picked out goodies and I put two bottles 500ml pops in and a gifts card to Wal-Mart. $10-$15 is good I think. Some people have put in a cheap movie they got in the 5.00 bin.  The kids LOVE making them for the teachers.
2. A gift card to a restaurant in town. get the kid to make a cute card for the gift card to go into.
3. Really I love just a box of chocolates the only problem is if the teacher in allergic. We have had that one year.
4. Red this year really want to do a manicure set. anyone who know red totally can see her wanting to get this. I have to say I like it to I have old Jam jars kicking around and really the only thing is the jar that may become Clutter.  

manicure in a jar

 



some more GREAT ideas

 

 

 

 

 Well for the kids its harder at least my kids want toys. So Santa is only asked for one gift. My husband and I don't give a lot, just clothes and maybe a toy but really they don't get a lot. I think this year with red being almost 8 I think a spa date might be so fun. Get our hair done and our toes or something like that.

Last year My brother and his husband got the kids both bedding sets. The Kids LOVED them and still a year later they still use them.  

When we were kids we got the BEST Christmas gift EVER!!! we lived just outside of Calgary and our great aunt and uncle got our family year passes to the Zoo. To this day my brother and I have so many great memories of just hanging out at the zoo for an hour or all day. We got that gift for over 10 yrs and it was our highlight of our Christmas morning.

 

Last year a family friend gave the kids a gift card to our local theatre they thought that was so cool.

The key I feel is to keep Christmas simple and to make memories not messes and stress over a house full of toys they don't play with. 

Last Year we went tobogganing well the turkey cooked and Red asked me a few days ago can we just go tobogganing Christmas day again. Made my heart so happy that it was not the " lack" of gifts  she remembers its the family fun time.

 

So lets all keep in mind not to clutter up other peoples house with stuff that will just add gilt and stress. 

Please comment and let me know what you have done to give more with less?