Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Christmas names 2009
So.. the suggestion has been made to create a rotation for presents instead of drawing names. That way we know for an entire year who we have and we don't get the same people every year. I think almost everyone was okay with this. Then, tonight at dinner the question came up about the little kiddos. Who do we want to do the grandkids/cousins? Mom suggested doing family gifts. We can start that now, with doing Rigby family, Peterson, Duffy, Chapman, then grouping Erik and JT together. Or we can continue doing individuals for the siblings and switching to family gifts for later. Also...if we do family gifts we need to figure out a price limit. We were at $25 an individual, so is $50 a family about right. (Keep in mind this is for the parents and kiddos.) I was checking out games, movies, etc online and they are SUPER expensive these days. Is that too high, too low, just right? Please respond soon so we can make assignments! :-)
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4 comments:
I think the family gift idea is fine. Here's just another suggestion for the mix. What if we just did a rotation without the 3rd generation (Logan, Christian, ?). In other words, just keep the rotation within the children-of-Patti-and-Richard level. Outside of that level gifts can be given at will. Just thinking ahead, trying to include all the grandkids (again, future) might get pretty complicated.
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2. www.spoofee.com, similar to previous
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4. www.retailmenot.com, great site to find coupons for a specific store (although you can also find many coupons on dealnews.com)
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Family idea sounds great. Yet another suggestion for the grandkids could be to start a rotation/drawing with the grandkids when they reach a certain age...say 3 or even older when they actually start catching onto the whole thing. That way the kids can participate in 'giving'. Then keep that limit say at $15 so gifts don't get out of hand. It could be a fun way for the cousins to start participating once they understand. Brent & I are definitely trying to limit the gift giving & more importanting the "getting" at the holidays so that does not become the focus (or obsession)! But I also think it's important for the kids to experience giving & how that makes you feel! Just a thought.
okay...so i'm still unsure of what the majority is wanting. it seems like there are three options:
1. rotate families
2. rotate siblings (nieces/nephews/cousins are optional)
3. rotate siblings and rotate between cousins
I think its nice to include the 3rd generation somehow, especially because we will all be living far away and wont have everyday connections with cousins.
Pros to having cousins pick for each other: it's more personal
Con: it can get pricey as the numbers increase.
Pro to doing family gift: can get one big thing for the family/ a little less stressful
con: not as personal and involved
My personal opinion (which I'm never lacking) is doing a rotation with the siblings and then the cousins draw between them. I like the $15 price limit because even if one of us had 6 kids, it's still under $100. It might even be fun, while the kids are still little, to do small homemade crafts/cards. Maybe they do that until whatever age they enter the rotation.
Ok my opinion is that us siblings should do a rotation but maybe include both spouses instead of just the individual sibling (ie: Meredith and Josh can give a gift to Kristen and brent insead of meredith gave a present to kat, who then gave a present to dan... does that make sense??) and then the next generation (logan, christian etc...) can have their own rotation. I like what Kristen said about kids knowing how good it feels to give and not have the focus be on receiving. As far as prices, $15 for the new generation works (not that I really know I'm sure I might be singin a different tune once dan and I have kids) and $50 for our generation (assuming we stick to the couples... JT and Erik would be half) sound good to me too.
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