Could we rethink gift giving?

10 ideas to shake up your family’s holiday traditions.

The holiday gift guides feel like a lot this year. There are so many guides and they’ve arrived earlier than ever. These annual gift lists can be fun to read, but I rarely actually shop from them. Nor do I purchase gifts this early. Nonetheless, holiday gift giving is nipping at the back of my mind.

Holiday gift giving often exhausts me (even though my family is relatively minimalist with gifts!). Every Christmas, I vow that next year will be different. My family has experimented with several different rules or guidelines to minimize the excess, some which I’ll share below, but I still haven’t found the ideal solution that brings me nothing but joy (and is less of a strain on my bank account).

I’m sharing ten ideas for how you can rethink the traditions surrounding holiday gift giving, but I'd love to hear your thoughts too. How have you brought a living small ethos to holiday gifts? Please tell us in the comments. 

1 The Four Gift Rule

Many parents love the “four gift rule,”, but it’s not just for kids. In this system, each person receives four presents that fall into the categories of one they want, one they need, one to wear, and one to read (catch that cute little rhyme?). These four categories are broad, so there’s room for creativity, but specific enough to help the giver make decisions. Plus, the buyer can be as frugal (or as extravagant) as they choose.

2. Make, Bake, Thrift, Regift

I recently heard another rhyming gifting blueprint: “Make, bake, thrift, regift,” which is essentially a mandate not to buy anything new. I’m stealing it as my 2024 gift giving mantra. My friend Elizabeth’s family has done a version of this where they only give secondhand or handmade gifts, and she says that it’s been a great way to make gift giving less of an add-to-cart free for all. My own mom has been “regifting” things from her home for years and they are always among my favorite gifts.

3 A Just-For-The-Kids Holiday

Last year my husband and I did not get each other gifts and we agreed not to exchange gifts with the adults in our generation (we did still get the grandparents a few gifts). With the extra costs and coordination of traveling over the holidays, this saved us money and the stress of more gifts to ship or pack. There was still plenty of gift exchanging cheer with the kids and I personally felt relieved to give up most grown-up gifts. 

4 A Secret Santa

A good solution for large families, a Secret Santa exchange reduces the number of gifts that you need to purchase each year. When you exchange the gifts, have the recipient try to guess the giver to add to the fun. The site Elfster digitizes the drawing names out of a hat process, but I think drawing names would be a fun Thanksgiving activity, if you are all in one place.

5 Set a Theme

In this style of gift exchange, everyone gives items in an agreed-upon genre, like books, clothes, food gifts—whatever suits your family. I find that if you set limitations it actually makes it easier to think of the perfect gift for each person. Pssst… You can also decide to give within a theme without having to convince your family members to participate. Instead, you can simply say something like, “I wanted to give you something delicious this year,” and show up with a sack full of gourmet treats.

6 Give Experiences

We’ve all likely heard the research that suggests that buying experiences bring people more happiness than possessions do, so why not give experiences as gifts? Experience gifts are the ultimate living small gifts, as they don’t take up space in small homes and won’t eventually end up in a landfill. Consider gifting your loved ones museum memberships, theater tickets, a fabulous lunch, a class, or a walking tour.

7 Organize a Yankee Swap

The rules of engagement for a Yankee gift swap are similar to a white elephant, but the gift is desirable instead of oddball. Each guest brings one gift to the game (usually with a price cap set in advance), then after drawing numbers everyone swaps and opens gifts until they’re all opened. I am dying to get my family to do this!

8 Stocking Stuffers Only

I like the idea of a “stocking stuffers”-only Christmas because the little, low-cost gifts are often the most fun to shop for—and to receive. But you need to know your audience on this one: My husband and I could do this for each other brilliantly, but I could see how it could land you with a pile of polyester holiday socks and flavored chapsticks.

9 Give With Purpose

Articles often suggest making a donation to a charity as a “gift,” but I’ve never managed to make a donation feel like an exciting gift. Has anyone else? Instead, you can shop to make a positive impact. For example, you might purchase only earth-friendly and/or independently-made goods, or you could buy everything in your hometown to support local small businesses. Or seek out places to donate that offer a tangible gift, like these fun lawn signs from the Xerces Society or a symbolic species adoption stuffed animal from the World Wildlife Fund.

10 The Extreme Option: No Gifts

Feeling radical? Consider giving up the whole tradition. A no-gift holiday could feel too Grinch-like, but maybe a gift-free holiday could work well if you decided to go on a trip together or share a meaningful experience instead? I’d love to hear about any families who have done this.

Read last year’s gift guide:

By popular demand

TIP: If all the gift guides make you likely to spend more (or just simply distract you!), I recommend making liberal use of your email provider’s filters to tune out the noise. I have set up filters that send any emails with the phrases “Black Friday” “Cyber Monday” straight to my trash—and I might add “gift guide” to that list!

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📌 3 More Things

The best small space I saw last week was this 530-square-foot house designed for weekend getaways in Dwell (possible paywall). I loved the connection to the garden and the recessed kitchen design.

Writing: I had the chance to interview two authors of new garden books for Gardenista this month: Warren Leach the author of Plants for the Winter Garden and Teri Speight, the author of Black Flora.

Reading: I discovered the newsletter Chop Wood, Carry Water in the lead up to the election. I have found a lot of comfort in Jessica Craven’s almost daily list of easy things each of us can do to make a difference. Highly recommend.

One last thing: Scheming.

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Thank you for reading ❤️ Know someone who might enjoy LIVING SMALL?