What I got my kids for Christmas (as a minimalist)

In this video, I’m sharing how we do gifts with our kids while keeping toys minimal, focusing on four categories that fit our values: Head, Heart, Hands, and Home. I'll walk you through creative, non-toy gift ideas that make the holiday season meaningful and memorable!

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📢 MENTIONED
- Bulga Baskets
- Water color set and pad
- Water color making kit
- Paint brushes
- Play dough
- Kaleidoscopes

Suitcase: No longer available

🍪 STEVE'S FAVORITE COOKIES RECIPE
This recipe was adapted from a recipe given to me by Steve's mom ;)
Ingredients:
1 C. butter (2 sticks at room temp)
3/4 C. packed brown sugar
3/4 C. granulated sugar
2 eggs (room temp)
1 1/2 C. flour
2 C. rolled oats
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. vanilla
1 C. dark chocolate chips
1 C. dried cranberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F degrees
2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugars
4. Add eggs and mix well
5. Stir in rolled oats and mix well
6. Add vanilla and mix well
7. Add chocolate chips and dried cranberries and mix well
8. Spoon 1-2 tablespoons of batter onto parchment paper/greased cookie sheet
9. Bake for 13–15 minutes
10. Enjoy!

👉 DISCLAIMERS
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This means I earn a small commission at no additional charge to you. ;) Thanks for your support!

Music licensed by Epidemic Sound.

⏱️ TIME STAMPS
00:00 Intro
00:27 Our minimalist approach to gift giving
00:56 The four categories of gifts
01:19 Gifts to stimulate the intellect
02:15 Gifts to encourage interests
04:33 Gifts to engage exploration
06:34 Gifts to elevate family togetherness
07:42 Stocking gifts
10:19 Making our own toys

[bekahhaught]

I’m 30 and I would definitely still use the mermaid suitcase!!

I’m not a minimalist but I really want my home to be clean so I’m binge watching all your videos. Loving it! Hopefully I can take your advice to heart!!

[migdalahb]

Love the ideas! I would love to see a video about minimal homeschooling, I’m still trying to figure how to keep things low key but sufficient.

[BayRaeDay]

The MakeDo tools are awesome! I gave them to my kids one year with a bundle of Craftzilla tape from Amazon in different colors. It’s the only thing I can remember them truly playing with so now I always give that tape bundle each year!

[leanneg]

Very interesting to hear your categories. Ours are:
Something you want
Something you need
Something you wear
Something you read

🇬🇧❤

[danielleS]

Love, love the intention behind your gift giving. I think I’m going to go this route next year.

[Poohtle]

I just watched your 2023 video on this and I loved it. Our daughter got a fair few presents when she was younger as an only child but there was no internet and no real pressure to get a specific amount of gifts. Your 2023 gifts were so lovely and most I thought could be heirloom toys too. We do things differently to you but I still enjoyed your way and may introduce it as a birthday tradition now my daughter is grown. 😊

[happyholymotherhood]

I watched the video you made last year on what you got your kids for Christmas not too long ago and that's where I first heard about the Head, Heart & Hands category and was inspired! As some one who loves giving gifts, I find it really hard not to go overboard 😂 I've adapted the categories to include something to wear which will be a new swim suit every year - we're in Australia so the holiday season in hot!

[lauriewromar]

I have noticed that the more gifts there are, the less special each one becomes. My almost 4 year old has recently fallen in love with The Mr Men book series. (And Little Miss) They came out in the 70s and are the leftover books from my childhood. Mr Bump is her fav
We made a set to play with. Out of old pastry boxes. Painted them, cut them out. Now she’s got her own Mr Men. She doesn’t play with them very often. But she’s very proud of them and they don’t take up any more space than a small sheet of paper. They’re also extremely easy for littles to draw because essentially they’re just a circle with arms and legs 😂
I love making things with my kid.
We will be giving only a couple gifts this year. The really special things. The ones she wishes on her star for each night. ❤

[victoria]

I just added the saw to my son's gift list!! What a fantastic idea!!

[freetobe]

Wow! This is amazing! All the thought and intentionality! ❤ Thanks for sharing!

[sarahwarner]

Yes, we got our two boys the MakeDo cardboard tools last year for Christmas, and they get nearly daily use! I highly recommend them.

[melaniechadwick]

I recently discovered your channel and love the calm, slow pace. I also love seeing how happy your kids are--I can tell by their body language! Happy children are a joy to behold. My two sons are now 29 and 33; I wish I'd had channels like yours to guide me when they were young. For one thing, we had an insane number of toys! // I want to recommend a book I think you'd like: The Attachment Connection by Ruth P. Newton. She talks about how "attunement" parenting actually helps with optimal brain development. I wish I'd read it when I was pregnant with my first son...would have made a difference in the way I did things. And yes, you are absolutely right: Becoming a mother invites us to surrender to that new role. I never completely surrendered; I kept trying to take care of inconsequential things--what my younger son called "Mama's busy stuff." So I appreciate the simplicity and focus of your life with your family. (And not to worry, I do have loving relationships with both my sons, thank you God!) Blessings, Melanie

[mjrye]

Can you share how you organize/store craft supplies/coloring items? Our coloring books, paper, crayons, markers and the like, get wayyy out of hand.

[MariyaPrytula]

If you want high quality watercolor, as a professional artist, I recommend ordering from art stores - Windsor and Newton, Lukas, Turner, Sennelier, Holbein, so many other brands also. Price is similar but quality will be better. I just had a heart attack when I saw Bella Luna was selling Strathmore 300 paper for 3x as much (This is not good paper btw). Art stores have very slim margins, so it’s important to support them as well.
Paper matters more in watercolor than the pigment. Strathmore 400 series is good, Fluid is great, Fluid 100 cotton is lovely. Everything else is much higher end and I wouldn’t recommend spending money on it for kiddos who are not suuuuper into art and younger than 12ish.
For the brush, a large round is better - size 6 and up. Personally Beste brand from Jerry’s Artarama is lovely, very versatile, and the point lasts well. With flats artsy kids will be frustrated that they can’t draw details, vs a round can do flat strokes and also teach them greater precision. (Sorry Bella Luna, y’all could do better here). Don’t expect a brush to last a long time as kids drag it in different directions and fibers get both water and acrylic based binders on them.

[angelapotts-mangandah]

Holy helpful! I was seriously feeling lost and without a compass approaching christmas. You saved me! Thank you infinitely!

[catharinabra]

Maybe you can bake bread together if you feel like it becomes too much sugar? Thanks for sharing how you think about christmas gifts. I wish I had something like this when my kids were little.

[DukeChubbyDun]

Question for anyone who can answer: I LOVE the idea of going toy free. I actually can probably count on one hand how many toys I bought my boys (4.5 and 3 years old). I prioritize puzzles, books (they LOVE reading), things like that. But my challenge is with everyone else in my life. My husband and I are on the same page with 90% of things, which is great, but there's no way I will ever be able to convince him to change our approach with our boys receiving toys. And over the years, they primarily receive toys from their aunts and uncles, grand parents, as a reward from the dentist, in party favors from friends and classmates birthday parties (those tend to be the gifts I loathe the most- cheap and flimsy, random, and does nothing for development). I try to be grateful that anyone has the happiness of my children in mind and are generous enough to give, but it's typically given from a consumerist/marketing perspective, and not as thoughtful as I would like for the boys.
How do I find a happy medium? I've tried outright discouraging my family from gift giving a few Christmases ago, and that blew up in my face (my husband and I even argued about it). I don't know how to change my family's approach to gifts when I'm the ONLY one with a differing philosophy on it.

Any suggestions? Or do I have to just bear it until my kids are out of the toy phase of life?

[cosmic_chaos-x]

7:59 We love this brand of dough! I think it’s much nicer than play dough even though it’s a bit more money. They stock them in the UK now which is awesome :)

[QunH]

We have 4 kids and usually do something to wear, something to read, something you want, something you need. We don't do Santa and stockings are pretty simple. For stockings we usually do a goodie bag of their favorite homemade treats, socks, a couple of useable items like chapstick or lotion, and a small fine motor skills toy.
We would never be able to get extended family on board with not doing gifts like that. Our families are HUGE. Our kids still have 4 great grandparents, 6 grandparents, 24 great aunts and uncles, 4 aunts and uncles, 2 god parents, and over 150 cousins. All of the great grand parents, grand parents, aunts and uncles, and several of the great aunts and uncles give gifts. 2 sets grand parents and one set of great grand parents give a LOT of gifts. We let the kids go crazy the first week and after that a lot of the plastic toys are broken and we can get rid of them. Our kids prefer wooden toys anyways. By the end of January not many toys are left.

[cynthiacrumlish]

I have ditched all wrapping paper and use fabrics instead. The wrapping then becomes part of the gift: a. Linen napkin, a tea towel, a scarf, etc. Thanks to the Japanese for this!