Every year my family does a gift exchange where all the adults buy a gift that can be for a man or a woman that is under $25 instead of having to go out and buy every single adult a present. It actually saves us all money and is a lot more fun. Everyone who participates buys a gift, wraps it however they want to and then the gifts are put either on to a table or in the middle of the floor. (its usually the middle of the floor.)
We then all draw a number from a bowl and the number that you draw is the order of how you get to pick a gift out of the pile. But you can also take a gift from someone else, so say you were the second person to go, you can either take the first persons gift or open up a gift. and it moves on down the line until everyone has a gift. There is tons of trading that goes on throughout this whole ordeal. and you don't even have to trade if you really don't want to. However some of my family members are pretty progressive about getting you to trade gifts with them sometimes. Its a whole lot of fun and laughs and no one ever leaves empty handed or upset with there gifts.
So this year, my little sister Megan gets to participate even though she is only 17 and not legally an adult yet, but we decided to include her in the festivities this year, as well as my cousin who is only 10. He really really wanted to be involved this year. Which is totally fine, since technically he is the last little kid (until next year when Silas will be about 11 months old) and he didn't want to be left out of the fun. Who could blame him though when we have a ton of fun right?
Anyways so since Megan and I are big fans of pinterest, we came across Gift basket ideas one night during one of our pinning sprees. Our favorites were, a movie basket, a wine basket, a baking basket and a sundae basket. So I let Meg choose which basket she wanted to do for her gift exchange and she decided to do a baking one.
She then proceeded to wrap every individual item because that's the type of evil genius she is.
Clever little monster isnt she? Whoever gets this present is going to have fun opening up all of those items. I ended up going with a Wine basket as my gift exchange gift. (My cousin will end up trading it for someone else's for sure.)
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| excuse the mess on the table behind it. |
I haven't decided how I am going to wrap it yet though, but I'm thinking about just getting a giant gift bag and slipping it in there. I dont want to wrap every single item like Megan did. and last but not least we have Ken's gift : a Sundae Basket. All you have to do is get some ice cream and you are all set for the perfect sundae. (my cousin is going to want this one for sure.)
Technically speaking we arent supposed to know what anybody else is buying/doing as there gift. But significant others always end up knowing and finding out. And since its Megan's first year participating, I had to help her out, it was my duty as favorite older sister. And as for me knowing Ken's gift, well that boy needed some of my creative energy.
I cant wait to see everyone fight over the gifts this year. Its going to be fun. and I'll be sure to have the camera with me this year to snap some of the moments.
Do you have any fun traditions you do during the Holidays? Let me know in the comments below.
See ya later,
xoxo
-Tiffany
