We enjoy the whole Christmas season, especially attending events and parties with family and friends.  While those activities are the highlight of the holidays for me, we also exchange gifts as a family on Christmas morning.  The older your kids get (and the older you get) the bigger challenge it becomes to find meaningful presents for each person. 

Since we are already into the first week of December, I was searching Pinterest for some ideas on gift-giving.  I found a number of gift-giving lists and ‘frameworks’ that would seem to make gift-giving easier and more fun for the gift receiver.  I combined the best of the ideas on a variety of posts into the colorful Christmas Gift framework above.

I like this approach for a couple of reasons.  First, regardless of your budget, with nine different gifts to open, each person has a wide variety of things to open.  Second, the different types of gift range from the lasting and special (LOVE + KEEP) to everyday and useful (NEED + WEAR + USE).  Experiences – which more and more people are focusing on – are also represented (GO + WATCH) and there are several things help the receiver learn (BUILD + READ).  On top of it all, one can fill a stocking with fun, but inexpensive TREATS.

While I just put this together, the framework does represent a lot of the ideas that my wife and I have used over the years.  We don’t spend nearly as much as some people do on Christmas gifts (the US average is said to be $800-$900 per household), but do enjoy shopping for things that each other would enjoy.

How do you plan out your Christmas gift-giving?

Image Credit: Copyright MrFireStation.com