It may be a little early to think about Christmas, but…

No one has as many grandchildren as Mormons.  Grandchildren are precious and wonderful, but can be expensive when it comes to the holidays.  When it comes to Christmas, we want to smother the little darlings with expensive love.

Here are a few ideas you may have considered or would like to try:

• One meaningful (boring) gift and One toy.
• Be the “Book Giving Grandparents”.
• Have a traditional summer weekend with the grandkids to make presents for the parents.  Hold some items in reserve as presents for the kids as well.
• Make special stockings for each grandchild, according to their personalities.  Spend the entire year collecting small toys, gifties, and candy; wrap them individually and fill each of their stockings.
• Have a Christmas party; no presents required.  Invite just the grandchildren to play games, read stories, or serve dinner.  Or you could invite everyone and enjoy a visit from Santa.

In this world of mega materialism, status, and one-upmanship, Mormons have the ability to look at things with a different eye; an eternal perspective.  Gifts with an eternal value are greater than anything Walmart can provide, even on sale.  Making Christmas fun for little kids is easy.  It gets harder when they are teenagers.  They are the ones who need the most grounding of a respected figure.  Be that grandparent to look up to and connect with.

With this eternal perspective in mind, try these gift ideas:

1. All year long enjoy outings, gatherings, and celebrations and record them with photos.  At Christmas, gift the grandkids with personal scrapbooks of these memories.  On-line you can even create a book for each family, if you don’t mind the cost.
2. Promote talent-give something that will help them discover their talent: a journal to record their interests, a box of possibilities, coupons for the coming year to share talents together, etc.
3. Sponsor a Sub for Santa or Humanitarian project of some kind where everyone can help.
4. Who says Christmas is for giving huge fat rewards to the children?  Give them a card with a dollar in it.  Express your love and admiration for them.
5. Be the grandparents that use Christmas as a time to teach eternal concepts.  Spend a day (on or near Christmas day) with scripture teaching, activity, study, discussion.  Who knows, if you are creative enough, kids of all ages can be trained to appreciate this more than anything else.
6. Write a poem, song, or talk and recite or perform it for your grandchildren.
7. Give a loving talk of hope and optimism.
8. Give a gift using your talents.  Encourage the children to creatively develop, use, and share their talents.
9. Share ancestor stories with grandchildren, give a pile of Family file names to each family, and schedule, for the coming year, times to take the grandkids to the temple to perform the ordinances.
10. Give gifts of your time.
11. Pick an attribute, for the coming year.  Do things all year long to learn, incorporate, and exemplify this attribute.  Challenge the grandchildren to practice this attribute.  Record everything.  Have an achievement celebration at Christmas.
12. Come up with gifts that go along with the YW values or Merit Badges.
13. Pick a theme and follow it throughout the year:  Family History, Humanitarian, Scriptures, Work, Service, Preparedness, Missionary Enthusiasm, Temples, etc.  Evaluate how you did at Christmas time.
14. Take the family down to the Homeless Shelter to feed the poor for the holidays.
15. If you do family history all year long—make Christmas a reckoning of stories discovered, ordinances completed, spiritual experiences witnessed, pedigree charts filled, etc.
16. Supply all the costumes necessary for grandchildren to dress up and act out the Christmas story (in Jerusalem or in the Americas), Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, or a special family story.  Make it a big production, rehearsed, with details to make it truly memorable.
17. Write a letter to your grandchildren of your hopes and love for them.
18. Do the 12-days of Christmas using praise, encouragement, and love for each grandchild.
19. You perform the Nativity or A Christmas Carol for your grandchildren.
20. Give the kids a handful of quarters for Christmas and challenge them to make them grow in some way by their birthday in the coming year.  Hold them accountable.  A talk or story may be needed to set the stage.  They might use it to earn interest, buy something to sell, or give to the poor (which hopefully makes their heart grow).
21. Organize and put on a show for a children’s hospital ward or rest home.  Involve the children, the parents, costumes, music, etc.
22. Look for free Christmas programs or activities to take the kids to:  Decorated farms or historic places, Christmas lights, school plays, or community programs, sleigh/sled riding, Christmas caroling, etc.
23. Make an advent calendar to be opened between Christmas and the New Year to set goals for the coming year, activities to share, and gatherings to schedule, all throughout the coming year.
24. Make an ancestral recipe together.  Make something an ancestor or relative traditionally made or find a good recipe from the country your family came from.  Discuss the person who originally made the recipe, the country the food represents, or any stories that may be attached to it.
25. Take the Conference talks, pull out all the things we should be working on—set up a plan to do them with the grandkids, or challenge the kids to do them and report to you.  Have a discussion, reporting, and question and answer time every Christmas.