A New Plan in Gift Giving

It's a new year so I am now looking forward to a fresh new start. But before I do, I have to post my present theory from this year, just so I remember NEXT Christmas.

I decided to make a conscious effort to only give gifts that the kids actually wanted this year, not just random stuff just so there were a bunch of presents under the tree.  I also know that as the boys get older, their desires will become even more expensive and I want them to start getting used to having fewer things wrapped on Christmas morning.

So the plan this year was something I found on a website about a month ago. It goes like this:
Something you want
Something you need
Something to wear
Something to read

I loved this idea but I had also picked up a couple of things that I wanted the boys to have for outside since it is hard to make them go outside when there's not much to do around here. So I added:

Something for inside
Something for out
Something you will laugh about

Here is what we ended up with this year:

SOMETHING YOU WANT

This was hard to narrow down but we did it. Noah finally got a a game for his 3DS and Aaron got the drum set that I kicked through aisle after aisle on Black Friday (no carts available), only to discover 12 of them still on the shelf the following morning when there was NOBODY in the store.  I think I may be done with Black Friday shopping for good.

Aaron has gotten quite talented at turning music on his keyboard and then creating percussion with it on the drum. I had many people tell me I was crazy for getting an eight year old drums but I truly love listening to him play them.

SOMETHING YOU NEED

These were not met with joyous excitement when they opened the huge boxes, but when we used them two days later on our trip and they realized they could put two people's worth of clothes, PLUS their blankets, pillows, buddies, etc. in them with room to spare, they realized how awesome these duffles were. I was excited to get such a deal.  Kohl's Black Friday was good to me for these...$100 adult sized duffels for $20 apiece and they will probably take them to college someday, as well as make packing for our road trip to Florida this Spring much easier.

Aaron even climbed inside his to check out the space:)


SOMETHING TO WEAR

I originally intended this to be clothes but as I started thinking about things that would be more useful, we ended up with headphones for Aaron's keyboard and snowboarding goggles for Noah. Both were a huge hit so it was a good decision to stray from original intention.







SOMETHING TO READ

There ended up being several "somethings to read" thanks to the Scholastic Warehouse sale a couple of weeks before Christmas but you can never have too many books, right?









SOMETHING FOR INSIDE

Science kits and legos











SOMETHING FOR OUT

Soccer ball with net that was NOT fun to assemble and football with lasers to play with in the dark










SOMETHING YOU WILL LAUGH ABOUT


These are HILARIOUS!!!!!!!!











I'd say we did pretty well this year. Noah has said that he noticed fewer things under the tree this year but he also said that it was cool because he liked EVERYTHING  he got this year for the first time.

That's a home run if you ask me.