10 Affordable Christmas Gifts That Encourage Family Time

There are special families in our lives that we all love…like family. At Christmas time those families are often on our hearts and we want to give them a gift as an expression of our love, but budgets are tight and we can’t think of a thing that would be inexpensive and loved by their whole family. In this post I did the brainstorming for you and came up with 10 family gifts that I think any family would love to receive.

10 Affordable Gifts That Encourage Family Time

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1. A Family Movie Night Kit

On the Redbox website under the “gift cards” tab, you can buy various Redbox codes starting with a set of 5. Email these Redbox codes to yourself and then create gift cards containing a code using your word processor and printer. Or go old school and write the code inside a Christmas card.

Place your homemade gift card or Christmas card inside a basket filled with a 2 liter of pop, a bag of flavored popcorn, and a few theater-sized candy boxes from your local dollar store.

Thrifty Tip: Swagbucks offers e-gift cards for Redbox starting at 500 points for a $5 card. It doesn’t take long to earn that many points; here are ten simple ways to earn gift cards with Swagbucks.

2. Family Board Game Night

Use my tips to save money purchasing a board game, add in a 2 liter of pop and a box of popcorn, then the family has the makings of an evening filled with family time thanks to you.

Thrifty Tip: If you plan to shop online for your gifts this year, sign up for Honey and download their browser tool. Honey makes applying promo codes super simple. The great part about promo codes is there is no waiting for points to add up to enough to cash out for a gift card; the savings are automatic. I have saved as much as $25 off one online order using Honey.

3. A Night Of Hot Chocolate And Coloring

Purchase mugs from your local dollar store and a basket to put them in. Toss some hot cocoa mix, mini marshmallows, and candy canes in the basket with the mugs. Include a coloring book or two and some felts and crayons.

Here are more ideas of various gift baskets you can make up from items from the dollar store.

4. A Gift Card To Their Favorite Place To Grab A Snack

Treating a whole family to a gift card big enough to cover a meal might not be in your budget, but treating a family to a gift card big enough to cover a dozen donuts or a round of ice cream cones might be.

Thrifty Tip: At InstaGC, you can earn $10 e-gift cards to Cold Stone Creamery, Dairy Queen, Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, and Pink Berry. Here are my favorite ways to earn gift cards using InstaGC.

5. Ice Cream Sundae Night

Purchase a gift card to a local grocery store or buy the ice cream if you are taking the gift straight to their home. Make homemade peppermint chocolate sauce or caramel sauce and place it in repurposed jars (what do you eat regularly in glass jars that could be sanitized and de-labeled and reused for free?). Tie the jars with ribbons. If you can afford to spend a little more, consider adding a container of sprinkles, whipped cream, or a jar of maraschino cherries.

Thrifty tip: After you are done shopping for your gift, upload your receipt to Fetch Rewards to earn points towards gift cards. If you are not yet a member of Fetch Rewards, you can enter my referral code RE9FU at sign-up and receive bonus points when you complete your first receipt. Here is a post I wrote about how to use the Fetch Rewards app.

6. Root Beer Float Night

My family loves Root Beer floats. For under $10, you can purchase a box of vanilla ice cream (or a gift card if you are not delivering the gift directly to them), a 2 liter of root beer, and even throw in a few giant $1 glass mugs with handles from Dollar Tree (like these). Our family bought 6 of these mugs from the dollar store years ago (dollar stores still carry them) and we love them for floats, smoothies, and more.

Thrifty tip: Check the Ibotta App to see if you can get a rebate on the Root Beer or the Ice Cream (don’t forget to check the “any brand” section). Here is a post I wrote about how to use the Ibotta App.

7. Offer Childcare

Time spent as a couple is essential for the strength of the family. Come prepared with a special snack for the kids or a craft you can do with them–that way the kids are getting a gift too.

Here is an inexpensive bucket of craft supplies that should keep the kids busy while the parents are away.

8. A Family Meal Made By Your Family

This will be especially appreciated by families who have both parents working outside the home. Give them a coupon for a free meal made by you, make sure you follow up and set a date. Bring it over hot and give the family the time they save preparing it to spend together.

Thrifty tip: If you are not much of a cook, you could earn a gift card to Dominos through MyPoints. They offer so many ways to earn points from cash back offers to reading and interacting with emails. Here is a tutorial I wrote about how to use MyPoints to earn gift cards.

9. Cookies In A Tin With A Twist

Many families give cookies as gifts this time of year, so it is possible to swamp a family with too many sweet treats. Instead, why don’t you make up a batch of your famous chocolate chip cookie dough, but freeze the dough balls on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper? Place the frozen cookie balls in a festive tin with instructions on how to bake them.

10. Personalized Christmas Ornaments

I know this idea doesn’t sound like it encourages family time, but unique Christmas ornaments are cherished, and families often trim the tree together. There are so many different ways of creating personalized Christmas ornaments from a plain Christmas tree ball with their names and birth dates marked in sharpie or paint pen to hand-stamped dough personalized to their likes (trains for the train lover, bears for the stuffed animal lover and so on). Here is a link to my DIY Christmas Ornament board on Pinterest to get your creative side going.

Thrifty tip: Often around Christmas time, I see free product codes for Shutterfly personalized Christmas ornaments. You will still have to pay shipping costs, but it still makes for a relatively inexpensive gift–here is where I find all my free Shutterfly product codes.