Making gifts for Christmas

[TonyaW]

My son is about to turn 3 this week. I was thinking about what he and I could do together to make gifts for Christmas and wrap them up. I figure this will also be a great educational opportunity for him. I thought about baking cookies, but no body in my family really needs to eat the sugar.

Any ideas?

[BedHead]

My kids liked to paint pictures at that age, so I got some painting paper and acrylic paint at the craft store, let them do their thing, and framed the results for grandparents. It was a big hit.

Other things I've seen are their handprints on an ornament or a T shirt or a wall hanging (or anything really - aprons, pillows, whatever), home made snowglobes, and stringing beads for a necklace.

[cappuccinosmom]

Actually Christmas "spice" type cookies do really well with honey instead of sugar. I bet you could find some good recipes. That was our "homemade" gift that the kids could participate in. THey helped me roll and cut gingerbread cookies, decorate them (but they'd be fine plain), and then I wrapped a pretty ribbon around a grapevine wreath, and tied the cookies to the wreath. It turned out super.

If you have gifts for family members from yourself, your sons contribution could be the wrapping paper. You can use plain newsprint, and make stamps for him out of potatos. We use acrylic paint for that and it's pretty neat.

There are now wax decorating pens that you can use to decorate candles, he could do something like that.

ETA, the other thing I want to try with my kids is cinnamon ornaments. Non-edible, but they involve the same rolling and cutting as cookies. You could even put them on a wreath like I did with the cookies.

[lach]

I made some ornaments by using cookie cutters on modeling clay and cut out gingerbread men. Then I used a toothpick and made a hole at the top, and let them dry.

This evening I gave them to my 2 year old to paint. She had lots of fun, and they're actually really cute. I'll write her name and the year on the back, and we'll give them to her extended family members as heirloom ornaments.

I also saw some "paint your own picture frames" at Jo-Ann's that I thought would be cute for her to decorate, and then put a photo of her and the recipient in them. I didn't get around to buying them, but that's a cute idea, too.

[elizawill]

we made salt dough ornaments this year & also used cookie cutters. it 's very cheap & very easy. we painted them, covered them in glitter, then we modge podged them & finished it off with a pretty ribbon to hang them. hth,