A Fun Twist On Holiday Gift Exchanges

Christmas is quite easily the most tradition-filled time of the year for me and my family. Growing up with a mother who was highly sentimental (who then had babies who were also sentimental), traditions were easily created. Just enjoying a thing enough one time was enough for all of us to dub it a "tradition" and insist that it happen every year after. One thing my family used to enjoy doing when we were all together was a $5 gift night.

When we were little mom and dad would provide the $5, but as we got older we would use our own money. The names of everyone in our family would be written on pieces of paper and blindly drawn out of a cap. Once we all had our name and $5, we would head out to the store to go find a fun present that would be meaningful to the person whose name we had drawn.

Usually the places we chose to shop were places known for having plenty of items around the $5 mark - Big Lots, Save A Lot, World Market, etc. We would take 30 minutes to an hour, split up, and search the store for the perfect gift for our person. Once we'd all purchased our items, we'd head home and do our little gift exchange.

It was always fun to see what little thing we could find to gift our family member. Sometimes you could find an object that met a need and other times it was something simply meant to bring a smile to their face. My family has done this activity just within our small ranks, we've gone with a group from church, and Michael and I have even gone out just the two of us and surprised each other. Each time it's been a fun challenge.

(Suggestion: For larger groups, or groups where you want to use this as a get to know each other activity, once everyone has their name, go around the group and have each person say 3 things that they like and 3 things that they don't. This can help everyone in the group get to know each other better, but it also helps provide some ideas regarding what types of things to search for.)

What is a favorite tradition in your family?

xoxo,
Stacia