I got a little addicted to packages arriving frequently the way they did during lockdown. There is a bit of a post-holidays blues feeling to the way we have gone back to a near-normal level of mail.
Speaking of which, I am already mildly fretting about Christmas shopping. After Rob and William left for college, I went into their room to make sure it was ready for cleaning, and found numerous gifts from last Christmas, still in their shrinkwrap. This feels like the wrong kind of gift-buying. (And I wonder if this year, they might like to donate those things to an organization collecting gifts for others.) But I also don’t like the kind of shopping where I try to make them give me precise lists and then I buy the things on that list. (I would ENJOY doing it that way if they were eager list-makers who came up with more ideas than I could use, as Elizabeth is—but they are not.) For William’s birthday, I thought I’d solved the issue: I bought him a selection of gift cards, and paired each one up with some small thing so they’d be more fun to open: a Spotify gift card wrapped with a bag of Kit-Kats; an Old Navy gift card wrapped with an Old Navy t-shirt. But he LOST THE GIFT CARDS. Probably they will turn up, but.
Speaking of Old Navy t-shirts, I am annoyed about a stain. Awhile back, Old Navy had a nice deal on men’s t-shirts, and I was buying some of them for William, and one of them was a nice light purple unusual to find in men’s clothing, so I bought one for each of the other boys as well. I’d thought those shirts might just sit in their drawers except for Spirit Day—but instead they wear them all the time, and it is so refreshing to have a visual break from the usual Boy Standard Colors. But now Edward has managed to get a quarter-sized orange stain on the back bottom hem of his, and it went through the dryer before I saw it. I have tried NUMEROUS treatments and nothing is budging it. It looks tomato-based, but it could be a rust stain: we have an LG washer, and the area around the bleach dispenser almost immediately became thick with rust.
There was a mom at the library with four children; the eldest was about 7 or 8, the youngest was the age to be carried on a hip. Seeing their little group move about the building, I could see why so many people felt moved to say “You’ve got your hands full!!” to me, when I had a similar swarm of small children. It just looks like SO MANY, and it’s so hard to understand what is CONTAINING them. How are they kept in her parental orbit, when she is fresh out of available hands?? Well. I knew not to comment, but I marveled/reminisced silently.
People used to say “you’ve got your hands full” to me ALL THE TIME when Elizabeth was a baby/toddler and no one ever said it to me when I was out with all three kids. So either I became more capable looking or (and I suspect this is the reason) Elizabeth was that type of baby and toddler that was noticeably hands full.
Also, to people who get that said to them: answer with “better full than empty!” and they shut up and feel bad about saying it.
I liked a nice grim smile accompanied by a growl of “I wouldn’t have it any other day.”
Oh, The Husband has this coral t-shirt that I love (it really complements his skin tone) and he got some kind of mysterious stain on it that, eventually I was able to remove. Have you tried spraying it with a stain remover and then giving the stain a good scrub with Fels Naptha soap? That’s my first go to. It didn’t work with this particular stain.
In ended up soaking the shirt in really hot water, with a scoop of powdered Tide, 1/4 cup washing soda and 1/4 cup of Borax for several hours. I did this twice and the stain is gone.
Now that you’ve mentioned it, I need to start thinking about Christmas…
There’s a pile of gift cards on the desk in Noah’s room. I am choosing to believe he transferred the balance of at least some of them to his phone, but I’m not getting rid of them, just in case.
Christmas shopping for the child who truly doesn’t want anything – I feel you! I have a kid just like this. He has literally been gifted Airpods two years in a row bc he didn’t request them but I was desperate to gift him something of equal value to his brother. The first time he returned them and the second time they sat in his room in the shrink wrap for months until I started using them. He just doesn’t care about “stuff”.
So here is my solution that you may not like but I’ll tell you anyway. #1 I have set up Amazon Lists for each kid. They love to browse through Amazon so I have begged him to please put anything he thinks he likes onto the list. Often I think he just can’t think of gift ideas under the time pressure of Christmas. #2: I have let go of the dream of giving my child a gift they are totally surprised by. I get the biggest smile and excited reactions on Christmas and birthdays when he opens the gift of exactly what he has requested. #3 CASH. At the end of the day, he usually just wants cash. I wrap varying dollar amounts in different sized boxes (because I really like everyone to have the same number of gifts under the tree). I even put rocks in some of the cash boxes to make them heavy. It was a real hit! Lots of laughing when he opened a box with $1 and excitement when there were bigger amounts.
I’ve told other people about the cash gifts and they have been horrified. I know it’s not for everyone but it works for us.!
My mom used to buy puzzle boxes or boxes with hidden drawers for cash gifts. Fun to solve and makes cash less crass. Etsy has some that are heirloom quality. Two examples from Amazon below.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L3VW9PB/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_TZNQP8MQ147NCMK6KYGD
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZS14RB6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_RJ0XF4DEMYJMWJRMNMM3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
I can’t imagine anyone being horrified by cash. What’s to be horrified about?
I mean, I was a bit taken aback when my sister gave my three-year-old son a $10 bill for Christmas one year, but that’s partly because he was too young to really understand what money was or how to use it to get toys, and partly because it seemed like my sister couldn’t be bothered to figure out what a 3 yo would like.
I think some people who really enjoy gift giving and receiving just can’t understand the cash gift thing. Around the holidays I was having a conversation with an acquaintance about the challenges of buying gifts for certain people and I proudly told her about my wrapped cash idea. Her reaction was…not positive. Then her reaction caused others in the conversation to have that wrinkled nose, I don’t like that idea face. Ever since then I’ve felt a little embarrassed to tell people, but I knew I could trust Swistle.
I think it’s a great idea and way better than a gift card, because he can use it anywhere. I may have to do this with my “I don’t want anything” kid. Thanks for the idea. And the rocks! I love it. My family of origin is notorious for reusing boxes and my dad is a big one for putting in random canned goods or boxes of cereal. Anything to make the package more interesting and to sound like something else.
Sorry to double post but I just wanted to clarify that this is the first year I’m trying the Amazon list idea. I just went to my sons list and saw he has zero things posted. So what do I know?
There is definitely some pre-Christmas sadness that I don’t have the fun of buying and wrapping actual gift gifts and I fret that he will feel like he had a lame Christmas. However the cash gifts have eliminated my post-Christmas sadness when I realize I wasted money on a bunch of stuff he didn’t like/want. All that to say that I haven’t figured out how to solve this without some Christmas sadness/disappointment on my end. I just choose to have it before Christmas rather than after.
We are trying to do more outing/activity gifts. For example, my daughter is having an animal encounter experience at our local zoo (something we wouldn’t normally pay the extra $$ for) and my son is doing an indoor skydiving experience as birthday gifts this year so maybe there is something like that you could do for Christmas gifts. I too have family that isn’t interested in physical gift items that wind up collecting dust so we are trying this route this year.
Concert tickets? Musical tickets? Sports event (live baseball game)? Art or craft class/workshop?
IAs someone who is not a natural gift giver or receiver, (I was the child with unopened gifts under the bed, and I definitely preferred gifted activities/experiences to physical items,) I am now a mom of a child who loves receiving gifts. Of course all three of my littles (5, 3, and 1) love tearing wrapping paper off something new, but my five year old asks and thinks about gifts so much that I think it must be her love language. I know this is the opposite problem from what you’re talking about, Swistle, but maybe one of you natural gift-givers out there can help me!
We have very little space at home, (to the point that when we get a gift, often something else has to go.) And I don’t mind giving gifts for Christmas and birthdays. But this little gal always has gifts on her mind, and I just don’t know what to do! I have tried doing something fun together… tried finding something interesting in nature like a feather or a colored stone and wrapping it (apparently that’s not a real gift)…and occasionally I am willing to make something for her (but I have three small children and just not that much time!) Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fulfill her desire to receive?
What about some kind of kit? This depends on her abilities, and possibly your willingness to assist, but a kit that produces a consumable or useful item is fun to receive and the result could take up little space. For example a cooking or baking kit, or one of those make your own lip balm/soap kits, or a jewelry kit, or a t shirt decorating kit. Kit kit kit kit. I used to love Klutz books and the accompanying activities but I think those are for slightly older kids.
I just wanted to thank you for mentioning Klutz books. I had never heard of them before, but I went and googled and ended up buying one for my son for Christmas!
My solution to this is consumable gifts. If it is a surprise and especially if you put it in a small gift bag or stick a bow on it, anything becomes a gift for a child. I can surprise my kids just by thinking of them when I go to the grocery store alone (a new luxury) a pack of gum that she didn’t have to ask for, the papaya that only she and I like, a small bag of chips (not something we keep in the house), etc.
I pretty much only give consumable gifts (cash, food, candles, soap, pencils, notebooks) in an effort to go greener. I also am just giving less stuff in general.
With my 5-year-old, I quite often make a big deal out of things I’ve actually done as necessities or educational tools. So for example, she need new winter boots but I’m going to make sure I buy a pair both of us like (Boden for the win) and make it a ‘present’ when she gets to open the package. We’ve also subscribed to a reading book scheme where she gets banded reading books that tally up with her school reading level to supplement the ones she comes home with. We post them back 3 at a time, and 2 days later another 3 turn up and it’s always a *big deal* to her because it’s so rare she gets post in her name, it’s a double whammy of post surprise AND gift AND I get to feel like she’s improving her reading AND they go back again when she’s read them, so no waste.
I cleaned out my middle kid’s room pretty much as soon as he left for college, and yep. He doesn’t want anything except maybe gift cards to his favorite fast-food place, and even that is probably over now that there isn’t one convenient to his college.
I think the idea about wrapping up cash is very clever, but even that won’t work with the kid who wants nothing. I find his preference for simplicity admirable, and I don’t want to make him accept presents just because I am hung up on my own notions of what Christmas and birthdays are supposed to look like, but it is taking me an astonishingly long time to get over myself on this one.
What about a donation to a preferred charity? I would love it if all my family did that for me for Christmas.
Two of my kids are into that. This one says, “It’s fine if you want to donate the money you were going to spend on my presents, but you don’t need to tell me about it.”
And he’s not wrong.
If it’s a tomato stain then sunlight will get it out.
Thanks for linking spirit day. My first thought was that it was a high school homecoming week activity because 2 of 4 local high schools have purple as mascot color!
Second – I think that moms of many littles needs a thumbs up or pleasant look way more random comments about full hands: some kind of solidarity signal would be awesome!
Oldest left for college on Saturday so I took the opportunity to go through his (relatively) clean room and clean out trash/stuff that doesn’t fit/etc and I came across $140 in various LEGO gift cards (I checked the balances after I found them). Oldest hasn’t consistently played with LEGOs in something like 5-6 years so these cards are old and just SAT there for years! I was dispiriting. Am going to ship them to my nephew who is 11 and still likes LEGOs and I guarantee Oldest will never notice they are gone. Shopping for an 18 YO boy is often so challenging that I wish we could just skip gifts at Christmas, but he’d feel left out if he got nothing but why buy gifts just to have them sit around?? UGH!
Don’t feel too bad about the currently unused gifts. They may want those things when they are more on their own in a couple of years.
There’s a rust stain remover called whink that works pretty well on clothing.
Two suggestions: my mom used to buy box puzzles for cash – you have to solve the puzzle to get the cash inside. They are available on Amazon and Etsy has some that are heirloom quality.
If the teen/adult has earned income why not start a Roth IRA as a gift? There is no minimum investment (at least not at Vanguard), and the money can be used for down payment on a first home and retirement. Small amounts invested while they are young can be worth big dollars later thanks to the magic of compound interest. Plus I think there is a huge value to setting up a kid to save for retirement early. Life skills. They will appreciate this, if not now, then in the future.
Yes, this is a great gift idea. In fact, the best gift might be the graph on this web page: https://windgatewealth.com/the-power-of-compound-interest-and-why-it-pays-to-start-saving-now/
The difference between Alice and Barney was astounding to me. But maybe I was weird in caring about retirement at a young age? It’s fun to watch my Roth IRA balance grow over time too. Way better than an ant farm.
I like both of these suggestions. I invested a few thousand in mutual funds as a teenager, and took out what I’d originally invested to put towards a house renovation in my late 20s and today still have more in that mutual fund than what I put into it when I was a teen. It’s like a gift to myself that keeps on giving.
And my son is 13 and hard to buy for: really he just wants money for computer and video game stuff PLUS he likes puzzles, so the puzzle box idea seems kind of perfect.
My son turned 18 this month. He also really, really doesn’t like gifts. I managed to find a band t-shirt (from the band’s website) that I knew he’d like and wear, then I ordered a pack of fake $10 bills from Amazon. We wrapped 18 clues of varying degrees of difficulty, and each one led to one of the fake $10 bills. After he found all $180, I transferred that money directly to his checking account. He was THRILLED! He said he felt very nervous when he saw that pile of 18 gifts on the kitchen table, and then was so happy and relieved when he realized what was happening. Clues ranged from a line to a favorite picture book that’s still in our bookcase ($10 bill inside the pages) to a reference to a particular family member ($10 bill taped to their framed photo). And yes, one $10 bill was under the microwave rotating tray for a few days before he finally figured it out! It went over better than I imagined.
That’s genius! Copying for my son who turns 18 next summer!
Yay! It really was fun to do and he enjoyed it more than I expected (although I’ve learned to keep my expectations low regarding him and gifts). I also now have a large stack of fairly realistic counterfeit $10 bills!
If it’s a rust stain you might try “Iron out” Spray. We moved to a house with well water last year, and I’ve had to do some interesting laundry experiments. I have not had to try that one yet, but have it on hand.