Christmas Gifts

This year we handled Christmas differently. We decided not to buy gifts for my husbands family. It is big and it keeps growing and we just can't afford to do an individual gift for everybody anymore. We considered starting a Secret Santa, but we weren't sure how everybody else would feel about that. We considered just purchasing gifts for each family, but we weren't sure how to please everybody, to make it fair, and to keep it affordable. So we opted to make our Christmas gifts this year!

The project I chose is from the Not So Idle Hands blog and of course I discovered in back in July when she posted it and have been trying to pull it together since. But when you are relying on others for materials (my dad's friend cut our blocks for us, to help us save a little more money, and I asked each family for a family picture of them, because oddly enough we don't have any) things can take longer. So finally the second week of December I got to start working on them. And it was so easy and fun and they came together really fast!

They worked out perfectly for my husband's family. There are 5 children, so each family got their own side, and then his parents the final side. I made a set for my parents as well that just have photos of my daughter on it (though I left 3 sides blank for this baby that is still in the oven, and in a while I'll add pictures of her as well).

I bought Martha Stewart treat boxes from Michael's, they were a little roomy so we just padded them with tissue paper and stuffed the blocks in. I can't wait to hand them out and see the reactions on Christmas. And I am really looking forward to coming up with a new project to make for next year's Christmas gifts.