Christmas on a budget this year

[playfelt]

I make a lot of the resources we use in the daycare and often I make things we use such as at Halloween I had finger puppets I used for poems and songs and they got turns to use them. I then let each one take one home and gave them a page with a couple of the things on it we had done. It is a way to let parents know what we are doing, gives them something I know they don't have and costs very little especially when they are now "used". Problem I run into of course is I always have to remember to make more each year.

[AmandaKDT]

I won't be giving presents either, but we will be doing fun activities and I will probably do something like make and decorate cookies with them and then we will eat them together - perhaps they can decorate some extras to take home and share. I would rather spend my time, effort and money on doing things with the kids than sending home stuff that I don't even know will be used or enjoyed. I don't give birthday presents either, though we do have a small celebration on the day. The only parent gifts I do are for Mother's day and Father's day.

The daycare provider I used for my first daughter actually had parents buy birthday presents for the other daycare kids, so we had to buy presents for kids we didn't even know. And my daughter was only a year old so she didn't know what was going on. My daughter got presents as well from the other dc parents, but I really didn't find it necessary. It was optional, but we felt obligated to participate. Does anyone else think that is a strange thing to do?