If you are still looking for that perfect gift for someone on your list, consider giving a gift that money can’t buy – your time, energy, or talents. Great ways to offer your time include visiting a shut-in, senior citizen or someone who lives alone. Offer to babysit for a busy family. Provide transportation for errands and shopping.
Giving the gift of your energy can really help out an aging friend or relative who is on your gift list. Offer to clean or vacuum floors. Refinish an old chair. Clean cupboards or winterize doors and windows. Do yard work or shovel snow.
Perhaps it is your talents and skills you can share with someone this year. Be creative: make a dried flower arrangement, sketch, paint, quilt or design a picture; prepare and share baked goods; photograph a friend’s child or pet. Share your favorite music with a music lover. Give a new recipe idea to an avid food enthusiast. Share your gardening know-how. Offer to take a child on an outing.
It would be easy to make gift coupons highlighting these acts of kindness either on the computer or from repurposed Christmas cards from last year. Ask a young family member to help you.
The secret of joyful and memorable celebrations is often simplicity. Our family Christmas will be celebrated a few days early since our Florida travelers need to return for a family wedding. More important than the gift giving, or the traditional spread of food will be the time spent together. We’ll be helping our son’s family move into a new home over the weekend and taking in the grandkids Christmas program at church.
Instead of our usual name drawing I have created a ball from winding plastic wrap around special trinkets and treasures. The rules are simple. The youngest person in the group puts on a pair of gloves and starts to unwrap the ball while the person to the left rolls a pair of dice until doubles are rolled. Then the ball and gloves are passed to the next person as are the dice. The process continues until all the fun items are exposed and claimed.
Whatever your gift giving tradition is, I hope you will be able to stay focused on the real reason we celebrate at this time of year. Cherish your family time and make some fun memories! Happy Holidays!
Donna Krug is the District Director and Family & Consumer Science Agent in the Cottonwood Extension District – Great Bend office. You may reach her at: (620)793-1910 or dkrug@ksu.edu K-State Research and Extension is an equal opportunity employer and provider.