Themed Gifts

Consider having themes for your gift giving to help streamline gifts and help your budget.  Create a theme around a central gift or idea for each person and ask others to help also.  This could be going in on one large gift or adding to a gift.  The goal is to make gifts work together and create an experience. 

During the holiday season, it seems that children and adults get many gifts from different people and often one person (parents, wife, etc.) has tried to give “all the extras” for a larger gift, stretching their budget.  One solution I came up with when my children were small was to create a theme for the main gift.  When people would ask (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.) what they could get the children, I would tell them what the theme was and explain we were purchasing the large main item and would love them to help with the “extras” that completed the gift.  One example of this is when my daughter received a kitchen play set.  While we acquired the playset, we asked everyone else to buy things like play food, pots, pans, grocery cart, dishes, etc. and the result was a complete kitchen set!  This also made it fun for the child because all their gifts related to each other.  This plan will also work for adults – just select an interest they like as a theme!