Unique And Heartfelt Holiday Gifts

Finally, at the age of 26 I am realizing the value of a dollar. The value of a dollar, is not very much and yet is often hard to earn and hold onto. Now that I am married, have a toddler, car payment, insurance payments, credit card bills, loan payments, I am all of a sudden hit with the fact that DUH, I can't spend on a whim as I did when I lived alone and in my own apartment. I can't even afford to spend as much as I did last year on Christmas when we had a smaller car payment and only one loan and only had to pay insurance every three months instead of every month like we do now.

Last year I was able to spoil my son with gifts, and still be able to afford to give my family members and my husband great gifts. This year I was able to get my son a few great gifts, but I am very limited on funds for buying presents for anyone else. My mom and I talked about it, as well as my husband and I and are at the point where it doesn't overly matter to us to much whether we as adults get presents on Christmas. If we save, we are able to buy ourselves something when our tax refund comes in, or later in the year when we are through the rough patch. The magic of presents and Santa is really more for the kids anyway, and it's always fun for us to just see the kids open their gifts.

I was thinking about gifts, and I have come up with a few gift ideas for older teenagers and adults who may appreciate inexpensive gifts or homemade gifts that come from the heart, rather than the newest expensive high tech gadgets. The following are in my opinion really heartfelt and unique gifts that could become a tradition every Christmas without emptying your pockets too badly.

When I was first dating my husband, I used to write him letters every day. Not e-mails, real letters. Letters he could take with him back to his ship and read every night,which he did, every night. I wrote him letters and poems and sprayed them with my perfume. It sounds a bit cheesy, but he really enjoyed it. I even wrote a short non-fiction story of how we met. To me, a great gift idea for the husband or wife that enjoys that type of thing, would be to collect all of those old letters and poems and to re-write them all out. You could type them if you want, but writing them out may seem like you put more effort and care into them. Spray them with the perfume or cologne that you were wearing when you first started dating on them. Place them in a binder or scrapbook, along with the original copies in a folder or pocket inside of the binder or book. You could also scan and print out pictures you want to add to the binder or book.

Another idea along the same lines, would be to have your poem or letters typed out and framed. It can be a bit pricey to have an online company frame your typed poems, so I would suggest typing it out or writing it out in calligraphy and purchasing an inexpensive frame to place it in.

One of my favorite unique gifts is a digital Italian charm. I came across a nice website called Simply Unique Jewelry that allows you to upload a photograph that they will place for you on an individual Italian charm collectible, ID tag or a digital Italian Photo charm on a pendant necklace. An Italian charm is a great gift, as you can collect more to hook together and eventually make a photo charm bracelet. I have purchased a few charms through this company and the quality is really awesome. You can get a great quality digital charm for about $25 dollars.

My MOST favorite unique gift idea, and one that will easily become an every year tradition, is ornament giving. You can find many cute Hallmark ornaments yearly for about $10 dollars. A friend of mine told me about how every year her family has a tradition of buying ornaments for each other to reflect something important that happened to them during the year. This is a great gift idea, especially for teenagers and single family members who will one day have families of their own. They will have a small ornament collection already to contribute to their first family Christmas Tree.