A Simple and Secondhand Christmas

We had a fantastic Christmas. We didn't get any huge gifts. We didn't do anything unique or extravagant. We didn't get our hearts most fondest and expensive wish. We had a wonderfully simple and secondhand gift, and it made Christmas all the more meaningful. Cameron and I set a $20 limit on gifts and stipulated that at least part of it had to be homemade. It was so much fun to find ideas and work on secretly making each other's gifts. By accidents, we each had small clues as to what the other one was doing, but we didn't know the end result. We spent Christmas with my family. I still have siblings at home, so we knew that compared to everyone else, we wouldn't really have many gifts under that tree, but we did have much under the tree. The gifts themselves were simple, and while they were very fun what made them special is all the thought and time that went into them. I can't think of anything store bought, be it worth $5 or $5,000, that I would have rather had under that tree.

Cameron made me an assortment of bath salts and found a beautiful ceramic container at Bookmans (a used book/game/jewelry/movie/etc store-you bring in your stuff, they evaluate it, give you store credit or money. They're pretty picky about what they take though). He also carved me a cute little wooden spoon to scoop the salts out with.

(pictures will come soon)

I made him a "manly apron" for when he cooks and found a cookbook written just for men (also found at Bookmans). I did buy him a few kitchen utensils he'd been wanting (he doesn't like mine), but those were the only new items.

To wrap our gifts we got just plain brown craft paper and then used ribbon, colored pencils, markers, etc to make our own gift wrapping. Not only were the gifts homemade, but the wrapping was done with thought and love too.

On the 23rd I spent all day making goodies. We had cinnamon pecans, rootbeer float cookies, eggnog cookies, and oreo candies. It made the house warm, gave it a great homey smell, and gave us some wonderful unique goodies to snack on, to take as goodie plates, and to take to my family for Christmas Eve.

Doing everything homemade really made things special this Christmas. Store bought gifts and goodies are great and enjoyable, and I have no problem with them, but making everything this year really put our focus on everyone else and not on ourselves. It made family time more fun. It made opening gifts more exciting. It made Christmas more like I think it should be...less on the getting, less on the spending, less on the "look what we bought", and more on the family, more on Christlike feelings, and more on love.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas wherever and however you spent it. Happy New Year!