Christmas Presents for Family

If someone made me a pound cake, I would kiss their feet! That said, a variety of delicious cookies in a dollar store tin, can be made ahead and frozen. Other containers can be, plastic, with tight lids, stick a christmas sticker on. If you want to give more, mix up a meatloaf, put in a new plastic container, and they can freeze till ready to bake. Anything you can think of is great. Last year, i STARTED BAKING IN Nov. I did 3 KINDS. I froze them in plastic cont, and when I was ready to give, layered them in containers. I tried to make the cookies small, so if I wanted to give a small cont, they would fit nicely.

Hi there!
I have been making the gifts I give family for several years. I have made freezer jam, but I made it in the summer when there was fresh fruit in abundance. I have also made candies like fudge, tree bark (saltine toffee, super easy, cheap and yummy), layered hot chocolate mix in a jar and baked cookies too. Then just get little cute containers or festive paper plates, name tags, and bows or ribbon. If you are crafty, there are loads of ornament ideas too. I just do one plate-full, or ornament per family. I also used to make my own Christmas cards with my own scenery photography and then stamp the inside of the card. Most folks are very appreciative of something homemade or handmade.

We now have two girls (26 months old and 11 months old) and a baby boy on the way in March. I am super busy but will most likely do one of these ideas myself again this year. If you set aside a day to bake or do the craft, then it can be done pretty quickly. Have fun and if you would like some recipes, let me know! I love to share!

A. F. ____@____.com

Christmas candles

White candles, fat pillar type
Christmas stamps
stamp ink in red and green
white tissue paper
Embosser or hot blowdryer

Print a stamp on the white tissue paper
Cut out stamped tissue around the area stamped
Place on candle and heat with embosser or hot dryer continuously moving the hot air around the stamped area. This will melt the tissue paper into the wax and if you use white candles and white tissue you won't see the paper, just the stamp.

Pillows

Large fleece pieces, 2 colors same size/shape
I cut both pieces into hearts and used Cristmas fleece.
While holding the pieces together cut about an inch into the pieces. Then tie the two pieces together and stuff with polyfill.

candy, cookies, chocolate covered pretzels

Cookie, muffin mixes in jars. Layer the mix dry ingredients in a Ball canning jar and then put a tag with the rest of the ingredients and directions. Cover the top with Christmas material and a pretty bow.

Flower pens

Bic pens
florists tape
artificial flowers

Cut the stems of the flowers so they are roughly 1/2 the length of the pen. Wrap pen and flower with florist tape to nearly the end go over a couple times to get a secure hold. Put in a flower pot.

Next year take one picture from every month and make a calendar for the grandparents.

Find a good recipe for Banana Bread. Hope that the person
who gives it to you can guarantee it will be moist.

Buy small aluminum loaf pans at the grocery store while you
are buying ingredients for Banana Bread.

I am not sure if Banana Bread freezes well. Ask person who
gave you recipe. I believe it freezes nicely.

Think up a good way to decorate the loaves...perhaps some way you can go on and add the decoration before you put the
loaf in the freezer.

Good luck, have a happy delivery - I do "pray" you are planning on having an epidural = and I hope your precious
boy comes 12/31/09 or a few days earlier !!!!

My sister has 3 little girls. I pay for a family membership to the local zoo every year for their Xmas.

For the rest of the family I make cookies and candy. I have a few recipes that are just my special favorites.

Jen

The year our daughter was born (Dec 3rd) we had pictures made ASAP at the local studio and bought frames and gave everyone nice photos of our daughter "Princess M" they ohhh and awe'd that year... that only happens of course if your little one arrives early as I see your edd is 1/1/10

Another idea is to think of gifts under $10 that everyone needs or needs another of.

umbrella's
jumper cables
You could get someone to embroider all the grandchildren's name on a sweatshirt and have your child's name added, we done this as well.
Do you knit or crochet, you could knit them all a scarf they are all the rage...
There are thicker yarns for the men

For the golfers if any, you could go and see if you could buy a GC for a bucket of balls they could hit as practice before golfing...

Congrats on your newest blessing!

We usually decide to do baking and wrapping them in homemade containers. We use the containers from cottage cheese, sour cream, margarine tubs,etc.. The ones that have print on them or the lids we cover with wrapping paper and glue it on. The clear ones we usually just put a ribbon and bow around. We make someones favorite cookies, fudge, trail mix, mini muffins or small loaves of bread.

We have also taken family pics and made collages out of them. One year a friend got a wooden tray at the craft store and put a collage of pictures on it. Sealed it with something and gave to her mother who used a tray to eat her meals after a stroke. You could check with the staff @ the craft store and they should know what products are good for sealing something like that.

Good Will or local thrift stores...find items that you can bling up for a personal touch. Good luck, God Bless your upcoming birth, and Merry Christmas!

Every year for Christmas I bake 2 dozen different kinds of cookies. I start baking them Thanksgiving weekend and finish baking them before the last day of school before the holiday break. I bake 1 batch of cookies every evening and 2 or 3 batches of cookies on Saturday and Sunday until I have 2 dozen different kinds in my freezer. Then on the last day of school I put one of each of the 24 kinds of cookies on a plastic plate and put a gallon size zip lock bag over the plate and put a bow and gift tag on top. My children each make a list of the teachers and coaches they want to give them to and we deliver them on the last day of school before the holiday break. We do the same thing on the Sunday before Christmas. We make plates of cookies for the pastor, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, nursery teachers, and choir director. On Christmas eve and Christmas Day we make plates of cookies for our family and give our parents and each of my siblings and my hubby's siblings a plate of cookies. Cookies are expensive to bake, but they are a lot cheaper than GIFTS for all of those people. Everyone looks forward to their plate of cookies every year. They can share them with their family or use them when they entertain through the holidays. My mom was a home ec teacher. Send me your email address if you want recipes.

Take the sonogram picture and put it in frames that say "I love my Grandma/ Grandpa" on it. They can continue to update it through the years. I'm sure you could find something that says aunt/ uncle if you wanted to continue with it, but it may take away some of the "specialness" to it. Maybe a mug with the sonogram picture on it that says "world's coolest aunt"...I dunno, but you get the idea of where I'm going with this..very special and very inexpensive!

I am making gingerbread men and putting them in tins for my family.

I know what you mean. Giving gifts got so out of control in our family that we decided a few years back that we weren't exchange gifts between adults and that we would only get gifts for the young children (13 years and younger). At Thanksgiving my grandmother announced this and it was like everyone was totally relieved to know that they didn't have to go out and buy gifts for everyone in the family. In it's place we have a dessert swap. Every family has to bring some type of dessert and we play the Dirty Santa game with desserts. It's a great way to take the focus off of buying and put it back on what really matters and that is giving a gift that comes from the heart. You wouldn't believe the types of desserts we have come in. It actually becomes a competition to see who's dessert is exchanged most before it's retired. For the kids, we did put a cap on the amount spent at Christmas to $5-$10 but no more than $10. That way the kids still have their gifts to open and we aren't trying to spend an arm and a leg on gifts. I make all of my friends a cheeseball platter for Christmas. I go to the general dollar store or dollar tree and buy Christmas platters and place the cheeseball in the center with crackers going all the way around it. I wrap it in red or green plastic wrap and hand deliver it to them with a Christmas Card. I usually do this the weekend before Christmas. I know that is a lot of food ideas but I'm not a very crafty person so I can't help in that department. Good luck and congrats on the baby.

You can get a container of plain red Christmas ball ornaments and some cute ribbon (all Christmas is on sale right now at Hobby Lobby if you have one). Grab a purple, green, gold, or silver paint pen while you are there. Write each person's initial on the front in a fat letter and glue a bow to the top. You can even get the HUGE ornaments and do one familie's last initial, or do the smaller one and give each person their own with first initial. Write the year and "Love the ___ Family" on the back. You can always give that WITH some baked goods. Look up a recipe for freezer strawberry bread. People love it, it's red for Christmas, and they can either enjoy it right away or you can give them freezer instructions. Good luck. Looks like you've gotten a lot of good ideas.

You should ave pitures taken before the baby comes and give that as your gifts, just put them in cheap frames and JCP always has coupons so all you's have to spend on them would like $20! That's what we did one year and everyone loved it!

I have some handmade christmas stockings that my mother has made to sale she is only wanting $8.00 for them. If you are interested in them my email is ____@____.com I can send you a picture of some of them. These would be great for stuffing with small in expensive gifts. These stockings are bigger than some of the ones you see in the stores, also probably a little cheaper. Thanks

ive seen this done before but i have never personally done it. you get mason jars and fill them with the dry ingredients used to make cookies. put a tag on the outside with the recipe. you can decorate the jars and its pretty cheap. last year i found some Chinese style gift boxes and made chocolate covered pretzels and put them in there they were a hit!

Shutterfly and Kodak have some neat gifts you can make with photos like calendars, ornaments etc.

You can get mini bread/loaf containers at craft stores. I got some at Michael's crafts for $1 and gave one to each teacher. You can get trays or big plates w/ Christmas decoration at the Dollar Store and make cookies/fudge/candy, etc. You can make a scrapbook with decorated pages but that have no pics yet b/c....you will give them pics once the baby is here! Go walk up and down the aisles of a craft store and you will get ideas.

I don't know if you are familiar with the book The Christmas Box. It was a big hit a few years ago, and still is popular. My sister gave it to me for Christmas one year, and since then I have given a few copies as gifts. I just looked on amazon and they have a boxed set of three of his paperbacks including that one (it's sort of a series) for 7.99. If you spend 25, shipping is free, and apparently that one is a buy 3 get one free deal, so even better. http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Box-Collection-Timepiece-...

I don't know if you've done candy making or Christmas baking before, but if you haven't it might just be a disaster, and buying all the ingredients and then nice tins or whatever to put them in can add up, especially if it's all a failure (not to mention a blow to your hormonal self esteem right now :). I've heard horror stories of people wanting to do that for the first time, and it ending badly. Just a thought - especially when you're so pregnant. I've personally never had a batch of candy turn out right - but I do love to eat it when other people make it!

Good luck!

Check out tipnet.com

It is full of homemade ideas