gifts – Page 3 – Pollywog's Place Blog

Creative Gift Wrap Ideas

Published on December 2, 2023November 28, 2023 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

I don’t know about you but my phone has been going crazy with notifications about packages that will be arriving as we just finished up the majority of our Christmas shopping. I have a huge black tote in my room that I am keeping the gifts in… yes, I believe they will all fit in the one tote this year.

Now, I have to figure out how to wrap them. I have a bunch of leftover paper from years past. There was a time when I liked to have things color coordinated and usually each kiddo had their own paper to keep things a little more organized as the tags seemed to get lost before Christmas morning. I have always seen the towers that people do with different figures and they look so cute but I don’t want to buy special paper for them.

I have an idea of just buying some fabric and making reusable bags but maybe making them so that they could stack and make these adorable gift towers… with our new 3-4 gift rule it might make this a real possibility!

Here are some cute pics of the ideas I have from Pinterest:

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Getting Ready for the Holidays Week 6 (The week of Thanksgiving)

Published on November 20, 2023November 30, 2025 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog6 Comments

Thanksgiving is almost here and I can’t wait! Over the past few weeks, I’ve posted about some of the things we are doing to help prepare our homes for the holidays and hopefully prevent a little of the CHAOS. We will continue to review those things and work on a few more things this week. Our list is as follows:

We will take a little extra time during our weekly ‘Home Blessings’ to make sure that everything is cleaned, windows are shined, and floors are swept, mopped, and vacuumed.
I will be checking my Holiday Planner for the timeline of things I need to do to prepare for Turkey Day. ex: defrost turkey, clean oven, clean kitchen, empty fridges, get out centerpieces, etc.
I will review the menu lists in my Holiday Planner so I can add all of the perishables to my weekly grocery list so I can get them purchased ASAP and not have to make a last-minute grocery run on the day before as things will definitely be CRAZY and many shelves may be EMPTY!
I’ll review my list of ‘make-ahead’ items and try to knock out a few of them so there will be less to do at Thanksgiving.
I will pull out some of those Thanksgiving activities that I found earlier and let the kids work on them while I work on other things. The kids will help with preparations when they can but there are some things that I just want to do myself.
If we have decided to do any Black Friday or Cyber Monday shopping we will review our planned lists and budgets.
I’m also trying to plan to do the 3 gift rule here this year but I’m not sure how it will go yet. I’ve got some links about this idea HERE, HERE, and HERE. This will hopefully encourage the focus to be more on Jesus than Santa and the gifts he will bring.

Most of all we will do our best to be thankful for all the family and friends that we have been blessed with and try to create some special memories with them during the holiday season! We pray that you and your family have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Light of the World Advent Study: A Family Journey Through Scripture, Nature, and Worship

For more great ideas you can check out the FlyLady website HERE.

Getting Ready for the Holidays Week 6 Download

Made From Scratch Gifts

Published on December 15, 2022November 29, 2022 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

Are you tired of wasting your money on gifts that just aren’t appreciated? Or maybe you’ve noticed that your dollar just doesn’t stretch as far as it used to?

Well, here are a few gifts that are sure to be well-loved and appreciated!

These are always a hit around our home and everyone who gets any as gifts always ask for more!

Apple Butter

Apple Pie Filling For Canning

Canned Pumpkin

Crockpot Applesauce

Crockpot Pumpkin Butter

Easy Crockpot Apple Butter

Fudge — Always a Winner!

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It’s Just About Fudgin’ Time!

Published on December 12, 2022November 29, 2022 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place Blog3 Comments

It’s just about that time of year when I need to get started on my Christmas Fudge. I definitely need to get it made before the Polar Express Party so we can share it with our family and friends who may come to visit.

Here are the recipe links for the fudge flavors that we have made in the past:

The Milk Chocolate Fudge has several flavor variations to try.

Butter Pecan Fudge

Easy Peanut Butter Fudge

Milk Chocolate Fudge (Christmas Fudge) — several flavor variations!

Peanut Butter Fudge

Peppermint Bark

Red Velvet Fudge

I am hoping to try a couple of new flavors this year… maybe even an egg nog flavor! It’s always fun trying out new flavors and sometimes we have great success while others are total flops but we have fun trying!

Here are some of the other candies that we make around this time of year as well:

Caramel Pecan Candies

Chocolate Covered Eggs (updated with more flavors!) (shape into balls for Christmas Candy)

Chocolate-Dipped Goodies

Crockpot Chocolate Peanut Clusters aka Reindeer Poop

Haystacks aka Noodle Cookies (2 versions here)

We hope you find these recipes easy to use and we pray that you have a blessed holiday season!

Let us know in the comments what your favorite Christmas Candy is!

Give a Clutter-Free Gift Without Breaking The Bank!

Published on December 10, 2022November 29, 2022 by Susie @ Pollywog's Place BlogLeave a comment

Are you trying to find the perfect gift for someone on your list this year?

With the economy the way it is many of us have drastically cut back on gifting as we just don’t have the money left after paying for the basic necessities. Why not make sure that you give a gift that is sure to be appreciated?

I’m going to let you in on a little secret that many people are afraid to tell anyone… I don’t know why it is so hard to say but we love our friends and our families but CLUTTER is driving us CRAZY and Christmas seems to bring another level of CRAZINESS with it. Some of us, myself included, are drowning in the CHAOS of LIFE right now and the holidays can get very overwhelming!

I’ve seen many posts in many different groups about people asking for these kinds of clutter-free gifts and really these make a lot of sense in a lot of ways. I know many of us have been trying to simplify our lives and our homes so many of these ideas would help to keep the clutter out of our homes but allow us to benefit in so many ways.

Zoo/Museum Memberships

I know our family loves going to the zoo or the museum and these would be awesome gifts… maybe someone you know would like this as well. If we had an aquarium near us that would be amazing as well.

There have been a couple of times that we’ve received tickets to go to local places and we have had an amazing time… without the thoughtfulness or generosity of others, we would not have been able to have those experiences.

Online Subscriptions

Another idea is to gift a subscription or membership for a service that someone may use or need. In our home, we love using various programs but many of them have also had to increase their prices.