How many days till Christmas???

This year I am going to try a new approach to the kids Christmas wish lists. Each year I usually get the "I don't knows" to a long list of "I wants", which usually results in a long list of high priced items. Since we will have two boys going to college in the fall and our little turkey is due in just a few weeks, Eric and I have playing around with the idea of just doing one large family gift, instead of devoting our entire Christmas budget to individual gifts for each kid. The large family gift would be a needed household item. I know for most this doesn't sound like a fun gift, but it would be something our family needs, such as a new dining room table that has seating for all of us (our current table only seats 6, so we get pretty creative on eating together), a new surround sound (our last one died during a move) since we enjoy having family movie nights, or...who knows.

We have also considered, especially since we expecting several visitors to visit us throughout the entire month of December, that we would get each child and our visiting guests, a small gift. This gift would probably be something that could be shared or enjoyed with each member of our family and our guests, such as games (video or board), additional items to possessions we currently have (extra controllers or games for our gaming systems, extra pool sticks or ping pong paddles (for the game tables the kids received 2 years ago from my parents), or maybe an activity outing (movie tickets, bowling, laser tag...you get the idea).

In years past, we have had difficulty getting some of our kids lists, so besides our new approach to the kids list, they will also have a deadline to get these lists back to us. Because of technology, I haven't decided if it would be more beneficial to just text or email the kids a list to complete, or if I should make this a little more personal and get some fun Christmas paper, print out a fun form, mail each kid individually their form and include an envelope for them to mail them back to us. Until I figure that part out, I'd thought I'd at least share with you what we will have each child complete.

For Christmas this year…

I want:

I need:

I will wear:

I will read:

 
Each child will be instructed that they can only have one item listed per line and they must have their list back to us by a specific date (still to be determined). I am hoping that this list will really make the kids think of the item they really want, need, and will read instead of just listing everything they 'see and want', which based on years past, just sit in our house and collect dust.