With Thanksgiving behind us and the Christmas decorations up, it’s time to start thinking about my favorite holiday of the year! One of my favorite traditions is selecting Christmas gifts for my family. I love picking out items I know they’ll love!
Unfortunately, Christmas can quickly get out of control! It’s easy to blow the budget, all in the name of giving to others.
We’ve experimented with a giftless Christmas, and continue to focus on experiences instead of gifts for much of the extended family. But, we still struggled with managing gifts for our own growing family.
Then, several years ago, I read a blog post that inspired us to change the way we handled this aspect of the holiday. After talking to my husband, we decided to try a three gift Christmas of our own.
And we liked it so much, we’ve been doing it ever since!
Except we changed up the themes of the three gifts just a wee bit from the themes shared in the blog post I linked to above. We adapted it to better fit our family.
Here’s a peek at the three Christmas gifts we give each of our kiddos.
The Gold Present
Gold is valuable. It’s something truly desired.
Each Christmas, we have fun selecting something each of the kids really wants. We think about their interests, personalities, and desires, and select one special item.
Then we wrap it up in wrapping paper with gold on it to make it extra special!
Over the years, gold presents in our family have included:
- A desiredLEGO set
LEGO sets
- A baby doll stroller with a new dolly
- Toy mermaids that could go in the water and spin their tails
- Books by a favorite author
- Nerf guns
- Hatchimals
LEGO sets
This present, though valuable to the receiver, does not have to be expensive. In fact, we try to find great deals and buy throughout the year to cut costs.
The Together Gift
We want to encourage our kids to spend time together. To really enjoy each other’s company.
So each year, we give a gift meant to be enjoyed with others. For this gift, we focus on items that’ll build relationships as they play together.
We’ve done this one different ways over the years. Since we love playing games so much, each child often gets to unwrap a game.
But, we’ve also gone with themes. One year, they each got a couple of costumes to unwrap. They still enjoy playing dress up with these! (And by buying them after Halloween, I got great prices! 😀 )
Another year we did a set of See The Light art lesson dvd set
We’ve also envisioned getting a large gift for them to enjoy and share, but we haven’t actually gone with this route yet. We’re talking about springing for a trampoline one of these years, or a climbing dome for the backyard park. I know the kids would enjoy those!
The togetherness gift is wrapped in a fun color. The kids picked out a sparkly silver paper this year. It really compliments the gold nicely, so we may stick with silver in the future! 
A Gift to Help Them Learn More About God
There’s a reason we celebrate Christmas. And it’s not to get lots of presents!
So each year, we give our kids something to help them draw closer to God, or learn more about Him. This one varies quite a bit by the age and ability of the receiver. Here are some favorites:
- A kids’ study Bible
- Nativity toys
- Other Bible play sets (Noah’s ark, Daniel and the Lion’s Den, etc.
- Animated Bible stories on DVD
- Bible song CDs
- Bible journaling supplies
- Devotionals
- Hymn song books
This gift is the first one we open each Christmas morning, after reading the Christmas story from the Bible.
We wrap this one in red colored paper, to help remind us that baby Jesus grew up and shed His precious blood so that we could have eternal life. That is the best gift anyone could ever receive!
The Kids Love This Gift Giving Method
When we first switched to this style of gifting, I was a bit worried the kids would be mad. After all, prior to this, we spent much more money and gave them more items.
But, they all love it. They love the three different colors of wrapping paper we use, and sorting them by color on Christmas morning. They love knowing that they are going to get something they truly desire.
The three gift Christmas has helped us to enjoy Christmas morning and the tradition of gift giving, without making this the focus of the day. It’s been amazing!
Do You Have a Three Gift Christmas?
Does your family have a three gift Christmas tradition too? Or another special gift giving tradition? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
