home made gifting.

Are you enjoying the Christmas craziness yet?
I'm 99% certain that we finished out Christmas shopping this week. I had to wait until this week because we wanted to get Joshua a movie that wasn't out until this past Tuesday. We got each of the other kids movies and we didn't want to leave Josh out.

So that should be it for the shopping. BUT I'm not done yet. A large part of out gifting is also home made stuff. This past weekend we made cookies lots and lots of cookies. This year we got a new cook book to help us expand our selection. All together we made 18 batches of cookies (I have no idea how many dozen that calculates to). Here's a list of cookies we made:

• Chocolate chip
• oatmeal
• oatmeal peanut butter chocolate chip
• cookie press (green trees, yellow flowers, red stars)
• cookie cutters
• chocolate shortbread
• ricotta
• holly wreaths

Paul spent a week mixing batters and storing them in our fridge, and this past weekend we spent two days baking non-stop. We filled two 34qt storage bins, and one paper box with cookies. Homemade cookies are a fantastic gift (at least I think so). We can't buy something for every body. It's just too much. Cookies are a great way to show people you are thinking of them, you appreciate them and you care enough to do something for them at Christmas. Paul took a bunch of boxes with him to work for his employees. Then I gave a box to Josh's speech therapist, and two more boxes to my Moms group babysitters.

The second homemade gift that we give out are cookie mixes. I buy recipe books to help me with this project. When we moved I lost about 4 different books which really bummed me out. This year I have about 16 jars to fill. I buy mason jars and the baking ingredients and I layer each one according to the directions. When all is said and done I am handing someone a jar filled with everything they need to make cookies, brownies, muffins etc. Again, it's an inexpensive way to show people how much we care and appreciate them. I give these to teachers, parents, grandparents, and family friends. My guess is that each jar costs me less than $3 to make, and it looks like so much more than that. It's the time and effort that I put into it that people can really see.

And finally this year my kids are doing a lot of crafts for their aunts and uncles. Each child is putting together a gift bag filled with homemade crafts for their godparents. The each have three different things to make and put in the bag and then I will add something small to each one. My brothers and sisters ought to see it for what it is. Something that my kids are taking a great deal of time and effort to do. It takes a lot of energy to sit down and carefully work on each project. Catherine, for example, knows that she is making her things for Uncle Dom, and she is working very intently on her projects for him. My intention is that my brother will see this effort and really appreciate his gift. It's more fun and less stressful than wondering the stores trying to figure out what to get for him.

I think homemade gifts are the best.