Gifts for Child Care Families

So the holidays are sneaking up on us, as they seem to every year.  One of the things I dislike about this season is having to come up with gift ideas.  You thought it was hard coming up with a gift to give your Grandma, well that is nothing compared to coming up with a gift for a child care family.  Do you give the whole family a gift, the child a gift or just stay out of it entirely - I mean you do enough by taking care of them day in and day out right.  This was not always a hard decision.  At the beginning I only watched one little boy, so I got him a gift and sent his parents along their merry way with a plate full of cookies.  Then all the other kids came along.  Here is the thing, I don't have that much time on my hands - so making cookies for that many people is out of the realm of possibilities.  So a whole new idea was needed.  Plus in this economy, I don't know about you, but I don't have money to spend on 6 - 8 kids individually.

I decided the best way to deal with this situation was to assess the situation properly.  I take a crap load of pictures of the kids.  I figure parents want to know what their little buggers are up to when they are not with them daily.  Here is the thing, I never did anything with these pictures.  They just sat on my computer taking up precious memory.  So I decided to use this as my focal point.  I could frame a picture, but what about the 300+ other pictures?  I could make a scrapbook, but I don't have time to make cookies, so that seriously isn't going to work, right?  Well, then I got thinking about a photo book.  I could make it online during nap times, a ton of the pictures could be used and the gift would benefit the kids and their parents.  The prices of the photobooks range from $10 -$50.  The best part is around the holidays photo websites have amazing deals.  I always deal with Snapfish, (www.snapfish.com) they have 40%, buy 2 get 1free, all kinds of deals.  I am sure that Shutterfly and other companies have amazing holiday deals as well.  It takes a little time to get a photo book together, but it is fun to go back through the pictures of the kids, not to mention amazing to see how much they have grown! (If you do go this route, make sure that you have gotten a letter signed stating that you were allowed to take the pictures).

When I first started my gift giving tradition, I was not a mother.  When you are without children of your own you have a lot of great ideas, then you have kids and you realized they sucked (the ideas, not the kids - to be clear).  I think that my gift giving tradition was the only exception to that rule.  As a mother I can't imagine a gift that I could receive that would top that.  As an added bonus, I have yet to meet a child that does not love looking at pictures of themselves.  Seriously, kids love looking at themselves.  Together parents and kids can look at pictures and kids can tell about what was happening that day or tell about the friends they have made.

The only other suggestion I would give is try to plan ahead.  For black friday Snapfish had 55% off the entire website.  I could have saved a ton had I been ready on time - which of course I wasn't.  (You can be sure I will be trying to follow my own advice next year.)  The deals after black friday get a little weak, but then get better the closer you get to Christmas.

So have fun and create some memories.  I have yet to hear a complaint!  It is a gift that will be enjoyed for years to come.  I always make sure there is one picture of me in their albums - then hopefully I will never be forgotten.

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