Minimalist Christmas gift ideas when its maximum gifts the kids want. How do we change that ? Well since I have only one child we have been for the last 2 years toning it down. My daughter will of course wish for a maximum of Christmas gifts for herself. I personally like to give homemade Christmas gifts to my friends and a little cash for their kids. Its difficult to get gifts for our friends teenage sons, so cash is the best.
Baking Christmas gifts
For the past decade or more, we here at the Swiss home have a tradition of baking Christmas biscuits and cakes as gifts. Food is an easy present and always welcome. By the first week of Advent my Christmas Cake is ready and will be soaking with all the fruits. Once the cake is baked, I start on baking Christmas cookies which I will give away as presents. You can get the recipe for the cake in my earlier blog post at Christmas cake
Last minute Christmas gift ideas
I was pressed for time to go shopping with all my video editing, blogs and daily routines. To shop during this time of the year is something I hate. Crowded and lack of parking space is something no one enjoys as we get older. I used to enjoy shopping after Christmas when everything is marked down in January. But that too, I have toned it down.
Unlike the previous years I used to look for bargains when my baby was a toddler to buy clothes a season ahead. Now there is no need. It was also a good time to get those special kitchen tools, baking dishes of very good quality and brands all marked down of course. Now my kitchen is full and I have no real need to go out shopping other than food. As a result I just went to one small shop close by to get some small gifts for my daughter’s friends. And to a toy shop for my daughter for something small.
Gift Ideas
Because we live here in Switzerland and its the custom and pressure of these presents, we give in to it only for my daughter. In the previous years she got bigger toys and clothes for Christmas. My husband and I rarely exchanged gifts, if at all we just went shopping for it and gift wrapped the presents and opened them on that day. No surprises there. That way we both were happy with what we got.
For friends I usually got small kitchen tools or Tupperware filled with cakes, cookies or chocolates. Additionally I gave organic and vegan cosmetics.
This year’s minimalist Christmas gift ideas video
If you want to skip the blog and get straightaway to the video you can by clicking on it.
From the beginning, I was very clear with my daughter that this year there would be very little gifts for her. I was sick of cleaning up her Legos and Playmobils. Christmas has become a very consumer oriented festival with globalization. Too many cheap toys and goods imported from faraway are flooding the stores. We only started this tradition since the past 7 years. Before my daughter was born, we had a nice Christmas lunch, watched a movie, visited family and that was it.
My minimalist Christmas gift idea for this year was to make a homemade gift basket for friends. I filled the basket up with Buttery shortbread biscuits in nice little Christmas collection tins which I got from Ikea .
The baking spatula also from Ikea, and added to that homemade apple sauce. I dressed up the up-cycled jars with a beautiful label and a nice cloth tied to the lid. To that basket a nice thick organic kitchen towel. I felt this was all useful. I wrapped the carton basket with a cellophane sheet and a pretty ribbon. And voila my minimalist Christmas gift ideas were complete.
Kid’s gift ideas
Children like to have a nice memory of this festival. I got my daughter a slime DIY set, Russian fairy tales book and small nick knacks like coloring pencils for school etc.
She enjoyed opening all those gifts and it was a success. Just what she wanted and has been playing with it ever since.
To conclude, I filmed us packing the presents for all her friends. We enjoyed packing all the little gifts ( nothing expensive) for all her friends.
