Keeping family gift-giving fun and affordable

Gift-giving stress - the cost, the time it takes to search for perfect gifts, the pressures of having to buy more and more gifts as families expand. We asked you how you keep family gift-giving fun and affordable. Here are the best of your replies.

• I make up professional-looking gift certificates for meals or evenings at my place. Not only is this a gift of a meal but also a gift of my time and company, which makes the gift one-of-a-kind. I've given out the following gift certificates:

--Watch a movie and eat munchies at my apartment (cheaper than going to the movie theatre).
--Have coffee and homemade dessert (cheaper than going to a café).
--Have a home-cooked meal (can't be purchased at a restaurant).
-Susan Chung, Toronto

• One thing we do that's a lot of fun is play a little game. Everyone has to buy a small gift (under $10), wrap it up and bring it along. Then everyone gets three name tags (we usually use words like tree, christmas, etc.) Matching tags go into a bowl. As your first tag is pulled, you have the option of taking a gift from those not selected or taking one away from someone (if you already have a gift you exchange yours with them). This goes on, around and around, until there are no tags left and everyone ends up with a gift.

As you can imagine, half the fun is decorating your gift up to look like it's something really fantastic! Last year my father wrapped up a BIG empty box (he had slipped some lottery tickets into the cardboard top). Well, everyone wanted it. My daughter finally ended up with it. You can imagine her face when she opened it and couldn't find anything.

He insisted there was a present - she just had to look! After virtually taking the box apart, she found the lottery tickets, scratched them and ended up winning $25! So it really did end up being the best gift after all!!
-Lori Pennell, via Internet

• Our family has implemented Kris Kringle for our gift exchange. Adults are the only ones included, and everybody buys for the children in the family.

We limit the amount of each gift to $50 and encourage creativity. This year my father is taking my grandad, who is now in a home, to the tavern for the afternoon. An inexpensive yet priceless gift for a nearly blind, aged man. We also exchange special pictures in nice frames, a special book or scent. You can also offer to clean the house for aging parents, take someone to a movie of their choice, or give a gift certificate for a manicure or a couple of 15-minute massages. For shut-ins, take them to their favourite restaurant, café, or watering hole. Time together is the greatest gift of all, especially to our parents and grandparents.
-Diana Hyman Tottenham, Ontario

• My husband's family gift giving had gotten completely out of hand. The shoppers (myself included) were beginning to hate Christmas and we were completely out of ideas and money! We tried to reduce but found even gag gifts were costly, and someone still had to do the shopping.

So last year we called a halt to all gift buying and did a trivia contest. My sister-in-law acted as the statistic taker and compiled all the questions via e-mail. We separated into groups (young and old in one group) and set a time limit. There were many memories renewed about certain questions, and we are repeating the process this year and are busily coming up with new questions. We find it a lot less stressful for the women in the family, as we do most of the preparing and shopping. It's fun!
-Correspondent from Paisley Branch Library, via Internet

• In order to make Christmas gift giving fun and affordable, I begin in January. Whenever I see a sale or reduced item that I feel would be appreciated by a loved one, I buy it. I also make Christmas gifts - whether it be crafts, a basket of goodies I put together myself or a tin of my delicious Christmas baking. These sorts of gifts are especially meaningful, both for myself as the giver and for the recipient.
-Kathryn Dykstra, Lindsay, Ont.

• I have given family gifts such as a basket containing a jar of layered M & M cookie mix along with some cookie cutters, napkins and a Christmas CD. Other years I've given a gingerbread-house kit, which contains a prebaked house and the trimmings along with a Christmas CD to play while decorating. And I've given 22 copies of the hilarious Christmas book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.
-Virginia Brucker, via Internet

• I find gift giving fun and affordable by buying or making Christmas tree ornaments for my friends and family. Each year they get a special ornament from me to hang on their tree. When the children are old enough to leave the house, they will have 20 ornaments for their tree from me with love. They always seem to look forward each year to seeing what ornament I got for them this year. And I have no stress this way because I don't have to wonder what on earth I can get them this year.
-Alisa Petrisch, St. Albert, Alta.