I will confess: we've been listening to Christmas music since the beginning of November and I've began putting up a few Christmas decorations here and there. I know - some people get Scroogey about that sort of thing, and I used to be one of them ;) But we aren't skipping over Thanksgiving or glorifying the commercialization of Christmas. We are just gently, slowly, easing into a very special season - one that is filled with gratitude, not just for what God has given us materially, but what He has given us spiritually, beginning with the birth of a baby, the God-man so many years ago.
With all these warm, happy Christmas thoughts swirling through my head, I thought it would be fun to share some ideas I have for gifts for the special little ladies in our house.
There are SO many thoughts floating around out there about what is the "right" way to do gifts for your kids. Personally, I love that we have an opportunity to give lavishly to our children the way our Heavenly Father does to us. Not because they deserve it or because they've "been good all year", but because we love them. You can give your kids presents without spoiling them. And you can give them presents while still emphasizing the goodness of God and His first and best Christmas gift to us. So, all that to say, do what works best for your family! Whether you give gifts, or "experiences", or nothing at all, I hope these next couple of months will be time for joy in Jesus for you and your family!
So here are a few ideas I've had for our girls!
1) Little Girl's Chunky Beaded Necklaces
My girls LOVE to wear jewelry and we've got lots of costumey, gaudy jewelry that they use to play dress up with. About 90% of them are the Mardi Gras beads that we get every year at our town's parade...and no, we don't have to do anything raunchy to get them ;) These necklaces come in all different colors but I love this because they could wear it with almost any dress on Sunday to church. We would keep these in a special place, separate from the Mardi Gras beads :)
The other day Lily asked me for knitting needles for Christmas. No joke. And on several occasions since then she has sat down with two pencils and a baby doll dress that my Grandma crocheted for me and pretended she was knitting it. I just don't even know.
The thing is, I can't knit and I could have someone give her lessons but I'm not sure her coordination is there yet. But I think this sewing kit would be PERFECT!
And while browsing through the other Alex Toys on Amazon (which are SUPER cool btw) I saw this Busy Box that I thought would be fun for Soph:
And, yes, I'm SURE I could just browse through Pinterest and find crafts on my own and put together something like this myself but that would require figuring out supplies and driving to buy them and quite frankly, sometimes it's nice to just have a ready made craft to sit down with. Please tell me I'm not the only mom who feels this way?!? I thought this would be fun for Sophia to do while Lily is doing her worksheets for school.
Growing up, I loved listening to Adventures in Odyssey and I've passed that on to my girls! We got a CD from the library this summer that we practically wore out listening to in the car. And one episode prompted a conversation later on between Lily and I about heaven, hell, and Jesus' death and resurrection!
Both girls LOVE to draw and create. We go through tons of paper and crayons every week. I love that they are expressing their creativity! Of course, these cute little long sleeved aprons would be great, too.
And I love that all of this stuff is so cheap! Only problem, of course, is that it's only available in the store and we don't have one near us.
Dear IKEA,
please build a store in our town.
Sincerely,
All the women in a 100 mile radius (and probably some men, too)
These are CD's with Scripture set to music to help families memorize verses together. We have the Steve Green Hide 'Em In Your Heart CD, which is a similar concept and the girls love it, but I'll be honest - listening to those 80's style CCM tunes over and over kinda makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Repeatedly.
The Seeds CD's are much more enjoyable...and were created in the last decade ;) Timeless truths + updated music = good stuff
When Lily was two we got her a Jesus Storybook Bible for Christmas that we have practically worn out reading. I would love for Sophia to have her own Bible, and was so excited recently to run across this one. I haven't looked through it yet myself, but the description sounds awesome!
6) Spot It, Jr.
We played the "grown up" version of this game at a family get together last year and loved it! It's a simple concept, and one that I think Lily would really love. She is all about playing games and this is one that she and I could play together, or one we could play as a family!
7) Science Center Membership
We've only been to ours once, with a Groupon and didn't get to spend nearly as much time as we would like. This would be a nice indoor winter activity for the girls - and educational, too!
So those are just a few ideas for Christmas gifts for the girls. We definitely won't do all of these, but I love thinking about their individual personalities and interests and finding gifts to match!
What Christmas gift ideas do you have? I'd love to hear more!!
P.S. Please ignore the fact that the numbering in my list is off. I just realized it but I'm too lazy to change it. I'm just going to blame it on the snow. Or something :)
2 comments:
Oh, I'm glad to hear about updated versions of the Bible songs in the "Seeds" series. I was thinking about getting the Steve Green ones for baby, but knew they were just sooooo old. I mean, I liked them growing up, but now, probably not so much. Plus, my husband would probably die of terror. ;)
Haha, oh, I know Rachel! Dave always turned them off when he was in the car with us! He just couldn't handle the cheese ;)
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