I know it’s only October, but this is the time to think about what you want to give this holiday season. Whether you need to bring a hostess gift for Thanksgiving or looking to get your Christmas presents purchased early, here are some wonderful gift for the holidays. Some of these require planning and others are quick last minute gift ideas.
Create a gift that recipients can eat. (require planning) I have several nieces and nephews and over the years, created several theme gifts for them. Here are some of the theme gift ideas I did.
- Cooking tools: Purchase herb mixes, tools, and make a small basket.
- Homemade rub mixes: Get the ingredients for your favorite made from scratch rub mixes and include a gift card from a grocery store or butcher.
- Mason jar cooking gifts: Mason jar cookie mixes can be made or you can by them already made. I like to make them myself to customize it to each person.
- Homemade pasta: We have made pasta from scratch and gave it out as favors with tomato sauce.
- Homemade cakes: We made small panettone cake recipe (an Italian fruit cake) and gave them as gifts. I added a link from a Food Network recipe.
- Wine and Beer: Customized for each person or make your own wine and beer and give it as a gift.
Give gift of the month clubs memberships. (last minute gift idea) This is fun for anyone who wants to give a gift all year around. I wrote a post solely about this, click on this link.
Give Donations to Nonprofits. (last minute gift idea) This is great for people who don’t like gifts and don’t want them. It shows you care but they don’t need to receive anything but a piece of paper that says what you have done. Here are some great places to donate do this: Heifer International: dedicated to fighting world hunger and Habitat for Humanity: dedicated to helping the homeless.
Give Experience gifts. (last minute gift idea and require planning) These are gifts that the recipients can go and do something instead of adding clutter to their home. Here are some suggestions for this type of gift:
- Movie tickets
- Restaurant tickets
- A Hotel stay
- A Moms night out
- A Girls night out
- A Boys night out
I hope this gives you some ideas on what you want to give for the holidays. Now you need to organize your holiday gifts, here is a post I wrote about just that. It includes a free checklist to help you manage your gifts.
Now it’s your turn. What do you like to give that doesn’t create clutter in the recipient’s home? Please leave a thoughts below.
My favorite is experience gifts if you know the person well. Don’t give something if you don’t know them. They could be offended at worst and just not use it as the least. Know the person so you can pick something for them to do they would enjoy.
A great post Sabrina, I remember one year we gave my husband’s grandparents the gift of our time. We gave them a coupon of a few hours of our time to do any tasks that they would like us to do for them.
Great suggestions, Sabrina! The last couple of years I’ve been hosting a cookie swap with friends and I use the cookies as gifts. I know my favorite kind of gift is an edible one!
Brilliant post Sabrina! Is there any way you could make a printable of this? I would love to have one on my fridge to remind me and to even take with me while I shop! 🙂
These are great ideas, Sabrina! In addition, I’m still a fan of gift cards, but the more specific to the recipient’s tastes, preferences, and habits the better.
Yes to this! As Christmas approaches I advise family and friends to buy small gifts. We simply do not have the room. I go through my children’s toys periodically and store or discard of those they no longer play with.
It’s not very imaginative, but I tend to give gift cards or cash so the person can choose what they like. I love to make my own gifts too, but don’t usually plan far enough ahead of time to make it happen.
I love the idea of Experience gifts. My favorite quote is “The most important things in life aren’t things”. Stuff is just stuff, but experiences create memories and bond relationships!
Love giving something that the recipient doesn’t immediately need to figure out how to store!