Gifts Need Not Be Expensive and Huge; Good Things Come in Small Packages

Many people wreck their brains and spend hundreds, even thousand of dollars on buying gifts for their loved ones and significant others for Christmas. I would like to share some of a boomer's favourite Christmas gifts.

As a school administrator and a volunteer for numerous community events for many years, I used to receive a lot of gifts during Christmas time. Unfortunately, I could not use a lot of them and have to go the re gifting route.  As we try to unclutter our house freeing us from all these gift items we have accumulated, we have told our loved ones not to buy us expensive gifts or big box items.

I got a beautiful big blue star as a Christmas gift from our son!

In the past couple of years, I have received fewer and smaller gifts. Yet, they didn't mean less to us.
Some of my favorite gifts received include:


1.The Christmas just passed. I received a beautiful big blue star from our son along with a gift certificate for a night of hotel in the Lewiston Niagara region!

 Twelve small tins filled with various exotic flavor teas neatly packed inside the Star

 I opened this beautiful blue star box; I discovered twelve cute small tins filled with various kinds of exotic flavoured teas packaged neatly inside the box.The explanation of each tin's content clearly stated on the back of the blue box.

 I loved it and appreciated the thoughtfulness of this gift. Canada is a cold country and it warms my heart and my body to savour a hot cup of tea each morning for the next little while knowing that it was a gift of love from our son!

The hotel gift certificate has helped us to develop a new tradition of going away for a couple of days after the busy Christmas holidays and spend time with family.

2. Two beautiful porcelain coffee mugs from our son a couple of years ago, one for me and one for my husband. These are no ordinary mugs. One mug has all the important kitchen measurement conversion in both the imperial and metric system printed all over it.














 It is so convenient!  For example, whenever I am baking and turning on the oven, I could never remember what 160 degree C is in Fahrenheit.

 I grab my conversion mug from my cupboard. Voila! The answer is right there for me!








Another mug has the colorful and beautiful flowers from which teas are made with healing properties. When our friends come over to visit and sit down for coffee or tea, they would invariably discover which tea they should be drinking to help with whatever problem they have at the time.

These two coffee mugs are great conversational pieces!

3. We have been receiving a plate of delicious home baked cookies for the past three years at Christmas time.
My family fights over these scrumptious goodies at our house.

We enjoy them and appreciate the work and the love that the lady has put into these cookies. Though watching my weight, I would throw my diet plan out of the window and   resume it after the holiday since I have waited a whole year for these holiday treats.






4. This year, together with the home baked cookies, we also got a little plant in a cork with a fridge magnet attached to the back. It is cute and looks great on our fridge!  A small gift but we appreciate the kind thought behind it.

5.  I created my own gift basket - My mother lives in a senior apartment now. She told me not to give her anything big for Christmas as she has no room to store them. I put together a food basket for her and wrap it nicely with these items: two different kinds of low salt crackers, a jar of pickled beets, a package of pistachios nuts, a pack of 6 bottles of nutritious meal supplement, a package of no sugar candies ( my mom has diabetes and can't have any sweet treats). I used a see through gift wrap bag and tied a huge red bow on it. She loved it! She made a point of telling me how much she enjoyed the pickled beets. I must remember to get her a couple of jars on her birthday!

R.T.
Grateful for the Christmas Gifts Received
Toronto, Ontario
Canada