Alternative Gifting: Self Elf

Running after the most popular toy on your child's behalf is one way of demonstrating your love. To teach about a less consumerist approach to the holidays, you might in addition or instead make the toys and other goodies that you give to your kids. A hand made gift can make a deep impression on a young, impressionable mind. It sends a message of engagement, creativity, self-reliance, freedom and the pleasure of trying something new.

If this sort of option appeals to you but you feel your skills or ideas may be deficient, several websites offer suggestions and instructions. Knitting-and.com gives directions on how to make knit and stuffed teddy bears, Sewing.org offers free patterns and instructions on how to sew adorable washcloth puppets, and SouthernMomsOnline.com teaches you how to transform a cardboard box into a dollhouse. These are just a few of many, many options. Chances are, if you want to make it, you will find instructions for doing so online.

A fantastic holiday activity for families is to deputize children as junior elves themselves. They and you can work together making the gifts your family will give. An excellent book, Gifts Kids Can Make, can help you find gift-making projects for kids.

Not so sure your kids will welcome your handicrafts? Prime them for your hand made presents by reading aloud to them from the Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, beginning with Little House in the Big Woods. This justly popular series depicts Wilder's now famous frontier family in which carpentry and sewing, for instance, weren't hobbies but necessary skills and handmade gifts a way of life. Along with a cup of hot cocoa, a nightly chapter read together will create a warm holiday feeling and may well make a warm pair of mittens knitted by Ma or Pa more appealing to even the most digitally savvy 21st century tot.