This year we encourage our children to make gifts for friends and family. Our oldest son took the challenge to heart and made gifts for everyone from the neighbors to teachers and every family member that he came in contact with during the holidays. My biggest fear was that people would not appreciate what he did, but most of them were truly grateful for his thoughtfulness and his effort.
1. For his cousin that hunts he used paper plates that he cut out to form a box and added lint, pine pieces and some other items to create a tinder box.
2. For his best friend’s brother (who is really into girls) he created a list of pick up lines (that only a 12 year old boy could come up with).
3. For the cats in the house he used lint from the dryer to create a mouse – seriously it looks exactly like a mouse when it is viewed from across the room!
4. For his grandmother he made a necklace and for his grandfather he made a miniature American flag paper weight.
The list goes on and on. He started in September and spent a great deal of time thinking about many of the gifts. Most of them he created from trash or items sitting around the house (although he did spend a little money along the way). Most of the gifts that he made were from nothing – which goes to show that you really can get something for nothing if you use your imagination.