A Plan For Gifts

I have a confession to make: I like to scrapbook. I also like to read the "industry" magazines on scrapbooking although I must say that their ideas of a good scrapbook often don't match mine. The magazines are full of layouts with one or two pictures. Given the fact that I took almost 400 pictures in November (and that's a below-average month), I can usually come up with more than a couple photos a month to scrapbook.

My favorite magazine is Creating Keepsakes as they actually tend to have useful layout ideas. In the latest issue (January 2006) they had lots of good ideas for "new year" scrapbooks. One of the ideas was to create a book to answer a list of questions about the past year. They pointed to a list of sample questions at this site - MissToniGifts.com. I thought it was a good idea and am looking forward to making a little book to answer them. If nothing else it will get me thinking. Plus I think it will be a fun thing to look back on years from now.

While looking around the above mentioned website, I found a good article on gift-giving and kids. I have good memories of gift-giving at Christmas time as a child. I didn't get a ton of stuff but I remember getting one "big" present and some smaller presents. This article (A Plan For Gifts) I thought was a really good way to shop for the kids. Basically the author suggests giving:

• something to read
  
• something to cuddle
  
• something to play with
  
• something to make
  
• something as a keepsake
  
• something hand-made
  
• a video,board,card,or electronic game
  

I wanted to pass along the link because I think this is a great idea. Even if you modify it for your own situation, just the idea of having a plan behind your gift-giving is great. So many kids get so much stuff these days and I think so much of it goes unappreciated. Keeping it simple while still allowing for a splurge is the way I plan to go as the Little Miss gets older.