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Christmas

From present ideas to party food, find all your Christmas inspiration here.

Any ideas for fun way to give presents?

8 replies

Kelbowl · 29/11/2025 18:09

Money this year is exceptionally tight so although I have a couple of things for each of my children, there isn’t the usual lots of things to open. Has anyone got any ideas of a fun way to gift them to still keep it special? They are older (17,21) and know the situation but it’s still depressing to not have much to open on Christmas Day.

OP posts:
Roostie · 29/11/2025 18:22

You could do a trail of paper clues to find to lead them to the presents

user1471548941 · 29/11/2025 18:34

We do silly things in our family like put a gift inside a box inside a box inside a box! The real gift might be something like a voucher or small gift but it keeps everyone laughing as the recipient gets more and more confused as they go through layers of wrapping.

My Dad has also done things like take a gift apart and wrap up an obscure part of it and let the recipient guess the rest of the gift, which then appears from another room. E.g. the gift for my brother was a tool kit, he wrapped up a single spanner.

Gifts in our house are often tickets to something, so I’ve had the picture of an event poster cut up in various different envelopes to piece together. The envelopes appeared over the course of Xmas morning so it was lunch time before I pieced it together.

This year I’m also doing items to represent experience gifts. I’ve bought my Dad entry to a race and there will be some small items (very low cost) wrapped to represent the name of the race, which he’ll have to guess.

We also wrap up silly, joke things- my Dad runs a small trade business and after his apprentice left behind three separate dustpans on jobs, received a wrapped dustpan and brush for Xmas. Following year, same apprentice wrapped up a single Penguin bar for my Dad as part of a long running joke. I’ve wrapped a single bar of soap for my brother that was also an in joke.

Me and DH usually cook lunch at my DPs house as they have the most space but are both terrible cooks. They also have a hilariously inequipped kitchen and every year we end up packing half our kitchen utensils and even simple items such as heat mats. It’s a long running joke so this year we’ve bought some cheap Ikea utensils and cookware (for my parents house!) that we will split between my DPs to open- everyone will get a good laugh and we will use it to cook lunch 😂

JDM625 · 29/11/2025 18:39

Prank gift boxes? You can get all different types- not just the ones in the pic. Depends on your family, but the year I used a few, it was very funny. You put the real gift inside, but they do spent ages reading the box trying to work out what on earth you've bought them.

A family I knew used to wrap things in a massive box, and include a brick, then a another box, then a smaller box etc

Wrap smaller gifts individually? A chocolate orange, biltong, flavoured jelly beans and other smaller gifts?

Any ideas for fun way to give presents?
Any ideas for fun way to give presents?
Mandarinaduck · 29/11/2025 19:35

Lucky dip style in a big box with polystyrene chips or shredded paper?

Dinkydash · 29/11/2025 19:49

It depends on what your Christmas usually looks like and what your budget actually is this year. Will there still be Christmas dinner as usual or is that being sacrificed too? Depending on budget I'd be inclined to change the whole tradition for the year. If usually you go out, I'd stay in and cook. If usually you stay in, I'd be looking for an affordable buffet lunch or similar. If that's not an option I'd swap out a Christmas lunch for a Christmas breakfast with sparkiling wine and strawberries and tell my kids how proud I am of them for making it through the year before setting positive intentions for next year. We'd be visualizing as a group what we want Christmas next year to look like and then taking time to express gratitude for one thing we have right now. Set the tone and make the gift exchange symbolic rather than purposive of the day.

Kelbowl · 29/11/2025 20:20

@Mandarinaduck i love that idea. I just picked up some big boxes from Poundland today that would work beautifully for that

OP posts:
Kelbowl · 29/11/2025 20:28

@Dinkydash we are going to family for late lunch so no problem with that part but I like the idea of a fancy breakfast, that’s very doable and has always been my twos favourite meal anyway.

OP posts:
stample · 29/11/2025 21:04

A gift to display at their home/room
funny/ fluffy socks
consumables (whether it be their fav drink, a Christmas choc, space food etc)
something related to their childhood (eg my mum once got me a moomin book as I used to watch it a lot 25+ years ago, she also would get my brother a particular mr man as she made him dress up as this particular one for world book day many years ago)

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