GRANDMA AND MIMI, DON'T LOOK! THIS IS A SURPRISE!!!
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I never know what to do for "grandparent" gifts at Christmas time. I love being able to get gifts for our parents that they would really enjoy, but it's also fun to do a gift for them from the girls. I run out of ideas quickly, and feel like I wait too long to do something fun.
I saw an idea online for the "12 Days of Christmas" theme and thought it sounded really fun! I'm not gonna lie; this project took a ton of time! It was pretty easy, it wasn't expensive, but it was very time-consuming. Even planning ahead for about a month, I still found it a little stressful at the end to wrap and sort and get it all together in one box! Once it was all done, though, it was so worth it!
Here's the breakdown of the gifts. I combined ideas from a few different websites and our own brainstorming. Some of the gifts followed the theme of the "Twelve Days" poem, and some of them just followed the number of gifts that correlated with the day.
Each tag says, "On The _______ Day Of Christmas our 'grand-girls' sent to us..." and then followed with a description of that day's gift. Day One was a single "kiss" on the cheek; I put lipstick on Bella and had her kiss a piece of paper, and we also included a few Hershey kisses.
Day Two followed the original poem with two "turtle doves" - a bar of Dove chocolate and a couple of turtle candies.
We brainstormed Day Three on our own and decided to include three of Bella's drawings. We tried to do a mix of personal things from the girls that the grandparents would really enjoy and fill in the other days with little gifts. Ideally, the pictures would have been Christmas-themed, but we had to have them done by the time Steve's parents get here on Friday, and Bella hasn't done any Christmas projects at school yet.
Day Four followed the theme of four calling birds, but with a twist. We turned calling birds into calling cards, and that became notecards. The gift was four Christmas-themed post-it note packs.
Day Five was a small can of pineapple rings. So many of these gifts are really cheesy, but we just rolled with it!
For Day Six, I wrapped a package of six votive candles that were balsam and cinnamon scented.
I haven't made these yet, but instead of swans a'swimming, Day Seven will be seven sugar cookies that Bella and I are going to decorate together. I found a swan-shaped cookie cutter online for only a few dollars. I had great plans to make these from scratch today, but saw the recipe included almond extract and cream of tartar. Who knew sugar cookies were so complicated! I'm going to have to run to the store before I finish these!
My very favorite gift!!! (And totally Mel's idea!) In the poem, the eighth day of Christmas is eight maids a'milking, so Mel came up with the idea to take pictures of Bella with a milk mustache. Bella doesn't exactly pose patiently for pictures, so I was really nervous about tackling this project. We had yogurt for breakfast this morning, and she had a great little "mustache", so I decided to just go for it! Bella was already wearing red lipstick for the Day One lip mark, and I think she was feeling very "diva-ish". I told her we had to take pictures for a gift for Grandma and Mimi, and she did great!
I arranged the pictures like a film strip, so it would be a higher impact of seeing her little faces right next to each other. How adorable is this!?! I can't believe how well she did and how great she mimicked the ideas I gave her!
By Day Nine, I was starting to run out of clever ideas of how to stay true to the poem, but that could apply to Bella and Evelyn. This gift is really just something that I thought Steve's mom and my mom would enjoy: lavender sachets.
I had just bought lavender in bulk at the farmer's market, so I cut fabric squares, put in a few tablespoons of lavender, and tied each one with a ribbon. They came out really pretty, even if they have nothing to do with Christmas or the original poem!
For Day Ten, we strayed from the poem, but stuck to the number
ten..."ten precious fingers" and an ornament of each of the girl's
handprint. I used a salt dough recipe that I found on a few
different blogs, and then baked it once the girls had done their prints.
It was a very simple idea, but I ended up having to do about 5 different batches- for the first one, I made the ornaments way too big and they turned out like paperweights! Two batches puffed up like toaster strudels instead of baking hard. I finally got six circles made - each girl made three for each set of grandparents and one for us. Whew!
Day Eleven was my "weakest" gift...one of the blogs I read said something about "eleven bees a'buzzing", so I did that and included some honey. I wanted to find a pretty little jar of local honey, but I was buying my supplies from Wal-Mart, and they're not exactly the ideal location for local or organic food. Lesson learned.
Of course, my Type-A personality sealed this envelope before I had the idea to take pictures of everything. Steve and I sat down and really thought of things that each set of grandparents did specifically for Bella and Evelyn. We wanted the lists to be unique to each side, and include the special little things that they do so wonderfully for the girls. We have truly been blessed with incredible grandparents for our girls!
All of the gifts laid out and ready for packaging. I wrapped each one with it's tag and then they went into a brown paper bag with a note of when to open it.
Steve's parents will be here on Friday, so they'll be able to take the box home with them and start on the 13th of December. My parents will get here on Christmas Eve, so I think I'll mail theirs in time to start opening gifts on the 11th and be done by the 23rd, when they leave to come up here.
All done! I'm so excited for each of our families to open these gifts! Next year, we may just save up to buy plane tickets for Bella and Evelyn to visit!
