Is your holiday season looking (and feeling) overwhelming, exhausting, or just dreadfully busy? Do you have parties to attend, gifts to buy, gifts to wrap, people to make happy (umm, that doesn’t really work)?
Would you like 2019 to be a little simpler? To get you started I’m sharing some of the top simplicity gifts for 2019!
7 Simplicity Gifts for Your Holiday Season
Simple Living e-Courses
Gift the gift of growing an intentional and simpler season with an e-course.
Uncluttered Course Got too much stuff? Joshua Becker’s Uncluttered e-Course runs for 12 weeks. It’ll bring you helpful live webinars, videos, articles, weekly challenges, and the most active and encouraging Facebook community I have yet experienced. This course is sure to provide encouragement, motivation and direction to help you unclutter your home! The transformations are amazing! You can read 25 ways it’s changed lives. Sign up!
A Simple Year Course This course is 12 months of guided simplicity, “designed to help you simplify your life gently and with purpose. You’ll learn something new each month and focus on what matters most with a simplicity advocate that specializes in topics like clutter, food, money, relationships, and busyness.” A Simple Year will provide live monthly webinars, private Facebook Group to ask questions and connect, optional homework assignments and a cup full of supportive connection and encouragement to make the change! I’m looking forward to guiding participants through their wardrobe for the month of March. I’d love to see you there!
Experiences
Give the gift of an experience they’ll always remember and never have to take care of. We give our children one experience git each Christmas. This year we’ve decided to give our kids a hot chocolate bar party with their neighborhood friends as their experience gift.
Cloud9 Living. This has been my personal favorite to book experiences for adults and is especially helpful when you don’t know what activities are in the area.A few of the experiences you can gift are:
- Flying Lessons
- Food Tours
- Wine & Beer Tour
- Guided City Tour
- Dinner Cruise
- Spa Package
For the adventurous:
- Tandem Hang Gliding Flight
- Nascar Ride Along
- Zipline Canopy Tour
And if you just can’t decide what activity they’ll love, you can get the gift card.
Courses & Classes
This is one of my favorites! Last year for Christmas my mom gifted our daughter a 7-week international cooking class and our son a 7-week pottery class. They loved the experience!
Find out an interest or hobby they enjoy and purchase a class for them.
Maybe they’d like an art class, writing class, photography class, cooking class, knitting class, business building class, public speaking class, or printmaking course.
Charity
Tis better to give than receive holds true. If we have in abundance maybe its purpose is to give in abundance. Consider donating to a charity on behalf of your loved one and invite your family members to do the same.
Samaritans Purse. A non-denominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world.
The Hope Effect. I have just started my own fundraising campaign o raise 20k for this organization! I would be so grateful for any amount you donated! The Hope Effect is a dedicated team of passionate individuals motivated by a single desire to find and implement new family-based solutions for orphan care around the world.
World Vision. A global Christian humanitarian organization partnering with children, families, and their communities to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.
Heifer International. An organization dedicated to building and reviving local food systems to end hunger.
Your local food bank. Most local food banks especially need donations this time of year.
Gratitude Gifts
Cultivate thankfulness with gifts of gratitude. It’s the simple gift that keeps on giving.
Handwritten note. Write a simple note of appreciation for the receiver. Include some things you love about them. This is also a great gift for children to give to their teachers, friends, and family—no money required.
Gratitude project. Christine Carter, author of Raising Happiness, suggests turning your child’s interests into a gratitude project. Have a jar of legos on hand, and every time your child expresses gratitude for something, have her add a lego to the project. It’s motivating to see it grow!
Journal. A gratitude journal doesn’t have to be fancy, especially for young children. You can even put together a journal with scrap paper from around the house.
A Picture. Draw a picture of something they love or of you together. My kids especially love this.
Volunteer. Volunteer together as a family. Nursing homes, shelters, and soup kitchens are a few places to start.
A Gratitude list. Make your loved one a mini gratitude list of all the ways you’re grateful for them. You can even include a photo or drawing. Purpose over perfect friends, It doesn’t have to be fancy!
Books
Gift a book that promotes simpler living. Here are a few of my favorites though there are many good books out there! These are affiliate links my friends, at no extra cost to you! Practical Minimalist Living Strategies to Simplify Your Home and Life
Minimalism for Families: Practical Minimalist Living Strategies to Simplify Your Home and Life
The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify.
Minimalist Baker’s Everyday Cooking: 101 Entirely Plant-Based, Mostly Gluten-Free, Easy and Delicious Recipes
The More of Less: Finding the Life You Want Under Everything You Own.
Gift Yourself
I think we can’t live more simply than giving of ourselves. Connecting with one another is what it’s really about. Is there something you know how to do — sew, paint, cook, garden, build a website, knit or declutter? Are you a hair stylist or cake baking expert? Maybe your an excellent listener, we all want to feel connected. Consider gifting a voucher for your services.
I hope this season is filled with fun, purpose, and meaning for you!
Adding the ingredient simpler will make your holiday season so much sweeter.
* Please note: Though no payment has been received for any item on this list, some links are Amazon affiliate which means The Minimalist Plate will receive a small commission on anything you purchase at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!