My parents and in-laws do not need more junk. The don’t need more clothes, nor sweets, nor the latest gadget (although they have fallen in love with their iPad). What they need this holiday season is more quality time with my children. So for Christmas one year, I made them a holiday coupon book.
Fortunately, they are close enough for us to be together on a monthly basis. So I made a coupon book with twelve coupons, one for each month of the upcoming year. Each coupon was decorated with the foods we planned on eating and pictures of us enjoying our time together. This was pretty simple and nice for me, the non-scrapbook type of mom.
January: Eat beef stew and watch the Patriots in the playoffs.
February: Spaghetti and meatballs and Valentine’s celebration
March: Homemade pizza and board game time
April: Pack a picnic lunch and go to Drumlin Farm to see the baby animals
May: Pack a picnic and walk through Arnold Arboretum
June: Grammy’s birthday celebration!
July: A cookout and a trip to the zoo
August: Beach day picnic!
...You get the idea...
This was a huge hit. We made an extra effort to schedule the events, but we also walked in grace, so when Grampy was sick, we just picked it up the following month.
This was fun to make, fun to plan and fun to enjoy all year long. And we took lots of photos to make it even more special.
what a thoughtful idea...our g'parents would love this! (makes me wish they lived closer.) we need a skype version! ;)
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