Wow, jubileej, that sounds fabulous!! I am a sucker for a Christmas program. I so enjoy the children's performances. Your program sounds beautiful. I am not a religious person but I like the programs anyway :) Thanks for sharing.

They should be here within the hour :) akk, I am so excited!! I'm staying home today, I'm too excited to go to work (luckily my boss is super understanding and he's also doing his kitchen right now too, so he gets it :). My brother is living with us right now so it's not like they'd be alone anyway. But there's no way I'd get any work done, haha!

Many of my ideas were hit by frugalwallflower and katlan. Personally, I don't like giving books unless the person is an avid reader who reads books many times over or are a book collector and you know what they want. Except of course something like coloring books or if they like the crossword puzzle books, word search* or something. Otherwise, books are the poster child for one-use clutter if they get used once. Why teach kids that? Cash is still a great gift. Gift cards are a distant second or third since so many gift cards just don't get used. Do you bake? With your handle, I assume you do. That age group loves cookies, bars, Krispie bars, brownies and much more. Nothing to be ashamed of giving a gift of food. Or mix it in with some of the other ideas. The real young with a coloring book, crayons or colored pencils and a plateful of goodies? Few wouldn't be in hog heaven. Younger would probably like Old Maid cards, and I don't know what classic board games go for these days but there might be an option too. The youngest ones should be very easy to stay under the $10 mark, even under $5 if you want to go the purchased present way. Older ones? Well, keep in mind they might be approaching driving age. Something for the car if they have one. A key fob, first aid kit or even tools. If they have a car, floor mats are usually needed. It's late to start now but if you're near Menards or Ace Hardware you can buy a lot of stuff free after rebate or super cheap after rebate. Examples, 25' tape measure, wrench sets, screwdriver sets, hats, t-shirts, etc. Flashlights are a great gift too. The little LED ones that go on a keyring are handy and useful. A decent flashlight is usable by most anyone. Other ideas for the older, near driving age, is an ice scraper for northern climate or sunshade for southern. Both can be had for a couple dollars. I'd say fire up the stove and oven. And look for some things they might need or find useful. I might sound like a broken record at times but I really believe in avoiding the trash presents, meaning the ones that are a waste of money since they won't be used, or won't be used more than once and will just wind up in the dumpster. Food and cash, most always get used and are still appreciated far more than the stores and "shopping addicted" want people to believe. *One year as part of the gift I made up some word search puzzles and gave to the kids and had a little contest. I made the younger ones easier puzzles than the older ones. WordPerfect had a feature in it that let you set up the puzzle and it would fill in random letters in the blank spaces so it was easy. I had a 1st, 2nd & 3rd place prize of $3, $2 an $1. (there were 3 kids so each got a token cash prize and I planned a small gift for each so each actually got the intended prize, but it was down as a prize for winning. They loved it.

I got a cassette player just prior to heading off to college, from my parents. My parents didn't even own a stereo - they simply weren't much interested in music at all. But I think they wanted me to fit in. So they told my grandmother that I'd be getting one, and so please give our daughter some cassettes because she might like that... Apparently, my grandmother went to the music shop and bought me 3 cassettes based on what the guy helping her out figured might be nice for a grand daughter of my age... and amazingly, all THREE selections are ones I loved, and still love. (They eventually got replaced with CD's way down the road...) Cat Stevens, Tea for the Tillerman Carole King, Tapestry Gordon Lightfoot - not sure which album but one of his late 60's one. I am quite certain that Grandmother said, yeah, she loves cats, let's get the Cat Stevens one, and there's a cat on the cover of Tapestry, so yes, let's get that! Not sure how Gordon Lightfoot ended up in there, too, but hey, I ended up loving ALL THREE albums!