The meaningful gift idea exchange is hosted by My Friend Amy. This is very simple, it’s basically just a chance for us to share ideas that are more personal and relational in nature than the usual gift ideas we get!
The holiday gift season is approaching, like it or not! There are no really young children involved in our extended family celebrations. The “children” are all teenagers, or older, or close enough to 13 that they might as well be teenagers, and there are no grandchildren. So for the last few years, we’ve been going the grab-gift or gift-swap route, with mixed success. It’s less traumatic than trying to pick out a good gift for everyone, but it’s hard with mixed ages and interests to pick a gift that appeals to a majority of the people involved in the swap.
The most fun swap we’ve done is the $1 swap. To be part of the swap, you bring a wrapped gift with no identifying tags or gift wrap and sneak it into the pile. The only rule is that the item must cost no more than one dollar. The first year we did this, we were surprised at how much fun to see what people came up with for ideas and what the most coveted items turned out to be. People actually did put a fair amount of thought into choosing something that would either be a funny item or potentially desirable, in order to have bragging rights over getting the most bang out of their buck. But since the only money you’ve invested is a dollar, if someone ends up with a swap item that’s not something he or she has always wanted, no one is really disappointed, even the younger ones in the crowd. Plus, it’s a swap that everyone can participate in – even the broke, strapped, overextended, in-school, out-of-work, or short on cash for whatever reason.
This swap idea isn’t especially meaningful, as requested by Amy at the My Friend Amy blog, but it is inexpensive and it fits in with the idea of celebrating the holidays by spending time with family instead of focusing so much on exchanging gifts.
Click on the Meaningful Holiday Gift Idea Exchange button at the top of the post to see other ideas on other blogs, and feel free to share your own ideas in the comments!
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