When my oldest boys were young we used to struggle with them buying gifts at Christmas. They had a Secret Santa shop through their school, but it was still several dollars per person for them to pick out something. I think what really bothered me was one year when I worked at the school gift shop. The kids would come in and see all the neat gifts that were anywhere from $.25 to $10.00. They of course would want to pick out the $10 gift for their parent and they had only $1 to be able to spend. There were helpers all over the school gift shop telling each child.."No, that is too expensive, you can't buy them that." There were many looks of disappointment on their faces.
The discovery of the true Dollar Store. How wonderful this has been for our family!! You have to find one were everything really is $1.00. The kids make their list before you go of all the people they need to buy for. Parents, Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, teachers etc. Our kids had 11-13 on their lists.
Note: We do let the kids do the Secret Santa at school so they can participate, but they buy for just Hubby and I there. We just give them $1 for each of us. Then when we go to the Dollar store they don't have to worry about trying to hide their gifts from us.
Ok..they make their lists and then they get their own carts and they go. They can pick out anything!! Did you get that? ANYTHING?? Who cares what they pick out. It is only $1 each. That is the fun of this. They get to think for themselves. Part of the fun of opening the gifts is to see what crazy thing they may have picked out! They will have their reason behind each one. My dad once got a thing of Gold Bond powder from one of my boys. My brother got a kids paint set one year because he is an artist. They feel completely in power. They mark things off their list as they buy and it is even better if they have been able to earn the money through the year and pay for it themselves too.
The older boys get into just as much. They aren't thinking...oh this stuff isn't good enough. Boy 4 will be 16 next week and Boy 5 is 15 this week and they took it just as serious.
It's all good!!
2 comments:
Thank you for following my blog. I tried to follow your blog and your link doesn't work.
I let my daughter do her Christmas shopping at the dollar store, too, I think that's a great idea!
I love your Elfed-out family post below, I never get tired of seeing those. So cute!
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