Stocking stuffers! I love them! After all, what’s better than miniature-sized gifts designed simply to delight, and an excellent opportunity to shop small businesses, to boot?! I’ve done the legwork for us and rounded up some of my very favorite stocking stuffers for kids, women, and men. Of course, depending on how you distribute your budget, some of these would make excellent under-the-tree gifts, too. You get to choose!
Items marked with an * are ones we own.
Stocking Stuffers for Kids:
My philosophy for kids’ stockings (and, really, stockings in general): I’d rather spend a bit more money to stuff with things I know they’ll need, use, and keep over trinkets that don’t cost much but will be quickly tossed. Add something sweet and/or consumable and a little dash of silly fun, and you’ve got yourself a stocking!
— Liberty-print headband* | I put one of these in June’s Easter basket and it is a favorite. The only hard part is picking a pattern!
— Mini Squishmallows! I’ll give one to each child in their stocking, share a few with my sister, and save the rest for Easter baskets and friend birthdays throughout the year.
— A new water bottle*, since they always seem to break or go missing. Our kids are very into putting stickers (like these*!) on theirs.
— The sweetest starter earrings for girls! June has been curious about getting her ears pierced, and this shop is where I’ll turn when she’s ready. Or go for the stick-on variety.*
— Mini “passports” to record his or her drawings, trips, hikes, and more*
Of course, I would be remiss to write a stocking post and not mention my best gals’ genius business, Persnickety Gifts! If you want this whole process to be done in a snap, and support small businesses along the way, simply choose one of their themed bundles and call it a day. The Add-On Shop is also the perfect spot to pick up a few curated items in one place if you don’t need a whole bundle!
Stocking Stuffers for Men:
After 11 years of marriage and almost 19 years together, John and I still do not see eye to eye on stockings. We grew up with very different traditions: in John’s family, there were maybe five items in the stockings, only kids had them, and they were opened before the grown-ups came downstairs. In my family, on the other hand, stockings were a major event: they were large and stuffed full and opened one by one with oohs and ahhs.
Because of this, I gladly take the lead on stuffing every stocking in my family, including my own (more on that below!). While stocking stuffers for men are tough, here are a few ideas that would work for my guy and perhaps for yours!
— Interesting salsa or hot sauce. There’s a local foods store near us where I always pick up a jar or two.
— All the goodies from Trader Joe’s! They always have sweet and savory items that feel fun.
Stocking Stuffers for Women:
Yes, I stuff 90% of my own stocking, too, and honestly? It’s a delight. I include little luxuries I might not normally buy but feel confident I’ll love… which is the benefit of buying for yourself :)
— Liberty print toiletry bags | So cute and reasonably priced for Liberty! Again, the hardest part is choosing just one pattern.
— A petite beauty item that feels like a luxury, like a Merit bronze balm* (I have it in Seine), the creamiest (and easiest to use) highlighter* (I have it in Cosmic Dancer), the Merit blending brush*, or the best tan drops (I mix one into my moisturizer every other night – a bottle lasts forever!).
One of the best parts of the Christmas season? Pulling out the themed picture books, of course! Like so many things about the holidays, these beloved books are made even more special by the fact that their time in the bookshelf rotation is limited – and that we return to them year after year. I can remember the coziness of my whole family sitting around and flipping through Christmas books the day we brought the holiday boxes down from the attic each year, and I know my children feel the same way.
Today, I thought I’d share some of our favorite Christmas picture books, and a few winter-themed books, as well. A pro tip: go ahead and request Christmas books from your library now. Borrowing is an excellent way to fill out your collection and try new titles, but if your library is anything like ours, the holiday shelves will be bare by the time December rolls around.
Favorite Christmas picture books:
First, here are some of the Christmas picture books in our permanent collection – the ones we own and lovingly pull from the attic year after year! Most of these are favorites from my childhood.
— Christmas in the Manger| A simple board book for the littlest ones that introduces different characters (including animals!) in the Christmas story.
— Dasherby Matt Tavares | A quiet, gentle story of how reindeer came to pull Santa’s sleigh.
— How the Grinch Stole Christmas! by Dr. Seuss | This might be my children’s very favorite Christmas book. Dr. Seuss is unmatched!
— The Jolly Christmas Postman by Janet & Allan Ahlberg | A truly delightful book with envelopes, letters, riddles, and games folded in. Good for slightly-older kids because of the delicate construction!
— The Legend of St. Nicholas | The origin story of St. Nicholas and a reminder of the true joy of giving at Christmas.
— Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree by Robert Barry | One of my very favorites from childhood! It traces the journey of a Christmas tree from the original home to smaller and smaller animals with delightful rhyme.
— The Nutcracker, illustrated by Valeria Docampo | This story is based on the NYCB/Balanchine version, so it’s Marie, not Clara, but it’s a great introduction if you’re going to see the show! The illustrations are memorable and a bit surreal.
— The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg | A magical, dreamlike story (with illustrations to match) of the first gift of Christmas. This one chokes me up at the end, no matter how many times I read it.
— Silent Night by Lara Hawthorne | This is literally the lyrics to the beloved Christmas carol, which makes it interesting to read aloud, but I love having it in our collection for its beautiful, diverse, and unique illustrations.
I add one Christmas picture book to our permanent collection each year – this year, it’s this one! Here are some others we’ve already snagged from the library and tucked away until we get home from Florida.
— Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck | The sweetest story of a boy,his Dad and the true joy of giving. Love this one.
— The Christmas Pine by Julia Donaldson | Based on the true story of the people of Norway gifting a Christmas tree to the British people in thanks for their support during World War II. Julia Donaldson is a gem (The Gruffalo is a favorite in our house!) and this one is no different.
— The Christmas Wish by Lori Evert | Magical! A husband-and-wife team reimagined a classic Nordic tale with photos starring their daughter on her journey to the North Pole. This is a new one to us and I think my children are going to love it.
— Decorate the Tree! by Amanda Jane Jones | This is a brand-new book from someone who’s career I’ve watched for a long time. Our kids will love the interactive elements!
— Red & Green by Lois Ehlert | With cut-out pages and a story based on ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, this one is fun for little readers.
— Red & Lulu by Matt Tavares | The sweetest story of two cardinals who get separated and find each other again in an unexpected place. Perfect for city lovers!
Our favorite winter picture books:
Finally, here are a few winter-themed picture books you might love.
— Brave Irene by William Steig | Another favorite from my childhood, with a plucky heroine, a bitter snowstorm, and a brave mission.
— The Mitten by Jan Brett | Full of classic Jan Brett magic, with borders that lead you through the story.
— Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner | We have the original, but this winter version looks just as good!
— Snow Horses by Patricia MacLachlan | A cozy, loving book about the last night of the year starring two horses. Beautiful collage illustrations!
— The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats | A classic! It’s apparently the number one most checked out book of all time in the New York Public Library, and I can see why.
Of course, I’d love to hear: did I miss any of your Christmas favorites? If you celebrate another winter holiday, I’d love to hear your favorites, too!
I read Hunt, Gather, Parent almost a year and a half ago, and the fact that I’m still motivated to chat about it after all these months should tell you something! While it did take me some time to move this post to the top of the queue, it’s not for lack of enthusiasm. This is one of the most interesting, unique, and actionable parenting books I’ve read in awhile, and one I still think about often in our daily interactions as a family. And it’s one I regularly reference in conversation, so this post feels like a natural extension!
A brief summary for the unfamiliar: the author, Michaeleen Doucleff (with her three-year-old daughter!), visits three of the oldest cultures in the world: the Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula, Inuit families in the Arctic Circle, and Hadzabe families in Tanzania. All have found success raising happy, helpful, well-adjusted children, and her mission is to understand why by living with families – and applying their techniques to her own daughter along the way. She shares her findings (including lots of practical takeaways) with the goal of resetting the American paradigm, restoring sanity to parenting, and creating better outcomes for our kids.
The Maya culture, with their unusually helpful, generous, and loyal kids, is the one that inspired Michaeleen to write the book. It’s the section I got the most out of, too – when I went back to look over my notes to write this post, I had far more starred and underlined ideas than I had room to share!
Here are five that have particularly stuck with me:
1. Quit entertaining and instead invite. This starts from the beginning and continues until the teen years. “Toss out the idea that you have to ‘entertain’ the baby with toys and other ‘enrichment’ devices. Your daily chores are more than enough entertainment,” Michaeleen writes from her time with the Maya. I loved this insistence on inviting the child in to the work of the family from the youngest ages (and reminding us that toddlers find it terribly exciting to be invited in). She also describes how Maya parents never discourage a toddler who wants to help, even when they seem rude (like pulling a broom out of the parent’s hand).
“On the flip side, if you constantly discourage a child from helping, they believe they have a different role in the family,” Michaeleen writes. “Their role is to play or move out of the way. Another way to put it: If you tell a child enough times, ‘No, you’re not involved in this chore,’ eventually the child will believe you and will stop wanting to help. Children will come to learn helping is not their responsibility.”
Something else that stood out to me: the Maya continue to do chores alongside the child long after Westerners often want children to do a chore alone. For Westerners, the goal is often to get kids to the point of independence with a chore, but for the Maya, “the invitation is always for together, for doing the chore together.” Of course, the kids will eventually become independently competent. But personally, this freed me from a lot of the frustration of feeling like the goal should be to hand off a task. That’s no longer my immediate goal.
2. Make small asks. Michaeleen describes how the Maya fold in “small, quick, easy tasks that help another person—or the whole family. These are requests performed alongside the parents for a common goal. They are often subtasks of a larger one (e.g., holding the door open while you take the garbage out). “And they are often tiny,” Michaeleen notes, “I mean tiny, tiny (e.g., putting away one pot in the cabinet that’s across the kitchen, grabbing a bowl from the cabinet), but they are real. They really help.”
I loved this takeaway and implemented it immediately. It’s small ((Michaeleen recommends 3 or 4 requests a day) and perhaps obvious, but I hope it will make a big impact long-term. I think it’s a continual reminder to my children that their time is not only their own, that we are all a part of the work of the household and that they are needed and wanted.
3. Try activation. “Instead of explicitly telling the child to do a task, activate their help by telling them you’re starting a chore or by giving a hint that a chore is needed,” Michaeleen describes. By pointing out things like, “it looks like the dog’s water bowl is empty,” or “time to take the trash out,” or “the laundry just dinged,” we’re teaching kids to notice without nagging. Of course, they won’t always respond as we hope, but they’re learning, little by little.
4. Ditch the child-centered activities. Maya parents structure their family’s time to spend the majority of it together, living daily life alongside one another. They do very few, if any, child-centered activities, and Michaeleen also comes away recommending ditching almost all toys. This will feel radical (and even mean!) to some parents.
But in their place, she writes, the Maya parents give their children an even richer experience, something that many Western kids do not get much of: real life. “Maya parents welcome children into the adult world and give them full access to the adults’ lives, including their work,” she notes. Kids are nearby when adults work around the house, take care of the family business, or maintain the family garden. “And young children actually love these activities,” she notes. “They crave them. If we get kids involved in adult activities, that’s play for kids. And then they associate chores with a fun, positive activity.” A virtuous cycle!
While we haven’t thrown away all of our toys or ditched all child-centered activities, I think about this often. This perspective has given us extra freedom to say no to things like kids’ birthday parties that split our time and drive us apart, and instead spend our leisure time doing things we all enjoy together, like going for a bike ride, hiking, swimming at the pool, or playing a board game.
5. Answer misbehavior with more responsibility. We have found this to be incredibly effective with our children. Is one of them whining? Complaining? Harassing a sibling? Throwing toys? We invite them to come work alongside us or direct them to a job that needs doing. While my initial instinct is to get frustrated, speak sharply, or try to make a quick patch of the situation, inviting them in instead of sending them away is often much more effective. Again, at its best, it shows them we need them and we want them in the family, giving them the value and attention they’re seeking in a healthy way. It recalls them to their best self.
There is SO MUCH MORE I could say on this first section alone (let alone the other sections – parenting with calmness! Practicing silence! Child-child teaching! Telling family stories!) but I want to leave you with just enough to whet your appetite for more :)
I’ll end with this. At the beginning of the book, Michaeleen goes to great pains to make the point that the communities she visits are “just like us,” and I get it—on the surface, they might seem different (remote locations, unfamiliar traditions), and she wants to forestall her readers brushing off their advice as irrelevant. In the end, though, I loved that they are different, and unencumbered by many of the beliefs, expectations, and traditions that American culture is saddled with. This book was a neat opportunity to relearn the value in some ancient wisdom that, indeed, American culture generally does find irrelevant or backward. I’ve found it helpful and thought-provoking, and if you decide to read this book, I hope you do, too!
Now, I’d love to hear: If you’ve read Hunt, Gather, Parent, did you have a favorite takeaway? If not, have I motivated you to pick up a copy? : ) Any thoughts about these takeaways?
Thank you for coming along for this ride, friends! In this series, I hoped to give voice to committed Christian families who have made the decision to attend public school and who have had a largely-positive experience. I wanted to encourage other Christian public school families, and offer greater understanding to those who’ve chosen a different path. With the help of five generous friends, I believe we’ve done that, and I’m grateful.
Though it feels like there’s little to add at this point, you’ve got me today :) Let’s do it!
Tell us about yourself and your family.
You know me :) But for those who are new, I work part-time as a writer for a goal-setting company. My husband, John, is a financial planner, and we have three kids – June (7, in second grade), John Shepherd (5, in a Montessori preschool), and Annie (2, in the same preschool). We live in a suburb of Raleigh, NC.
Why are you choosing public school for your family?
John and I both grew up attending public schools and had positive – even great – experiences. I remember arriving at college and being surprised by the subpar writing skills of some of my classmates who had graduated from prestigious private schools. Our K-12 school experiences weren’t perfect, but the laughably-strange teachers along the way were more than balanced out by the incredible, life-changing teachers we were lucky to spend time with. We made great friends, had wonderful (albeit not particularly glamorous) opportunities, and were well-prepared to succeed academically in college, which in turn set us up for careers we love.
Structurally, school is very different here than it was growing up in Connecticut. We grew up with town-based schools, so pretty much everyone in our town went to one of three elementary schools, then the one middle school and the one high school. There was one magnet school and one Catholic school I can think of, and that was it.
Where we live now, the options are seemingly endless. We’re in a county system, so everyone has the option of a traditional or a year-round school (and rezoning feels like a looming threat). Next, there are tons of themed magnet options that are within the public school system. Beyond that, there are yet more charter, private secular, and private Christian schools to choose from. It is truly dizzying to consider, especially for this Enneagram 5 researcher. Each comes with pros and cons, from cost to technology use to commutes to school population to ideology.
Still, with all of those options (or perhaps because of them), we considered our neighborhood public school our default choice. Something relatively dramatic would have needed to happen to push us to another option, and it didn’t, so we didn’t.
We also believe strongly in the importance of a vibrant and healthy public school system. It’s scary for me to think what our schools – and, ultimately, our society – would look like if all the Christian parents, or all the engaged parents, or all the wealthy parents, or all the parents with social capital, pulled out of public schools.
Speaking of cost, though we theoretically could afford private school, it is mind-numbing to think of the money we are saving by not paying tuition 36 times over. If I consider the actual most likely private schools we’d consider (because you know I’ve done research!), we are realizing a savings of between $242,700 and $461,250 in today’s dollars by sending our kids to public school over their schooling lifetime. That is an INCREDIBLE amount of money that could – and does and/or will – go to improving their current schools, giving generously to our church and other organizations we believe in, starting our own non-profit, funding scholarships at our alma maters, traveling the world with our kids, and helping them launch families or businesses one day, if they should so choose.
Finally – and I have been trying for weeks to figure out exactly how to word this, so bear with me – we believe our children are infinitely precious, but not fragile. We don’t believe we need to coddle them, and in fact believe that they will have a better chance of growing into the people we hope they’ll be, and leading the lives we hope they’ll live, if they do not have every lesson handpicked and fine-tuned for them and their interests, every opportunity presented to them on a silver platter, every environment perfectly suited to their liking, and every obstacle mown from their path. We believe they’ll grow from having to navigate less-than-ideal learning conditions (within reason, of course) as well as different personalities and opinions along the way. In the long term, we don’t think the absolute best is, actually, always the best.
What has been your experience with public school so far? Give us an overview.
Our experience thus far has been pretty much uniformly positive! Our teachers have been fantastic – communicative, capable, warm, and ready to see our daughter as an individual and meet her where she is, with lots of creative ways to make sure she’s being challenged. Our feedback has been warmly received. June truly loves going to school, loves her teachers, and loves to learn. She has also made wonderful friends.
As parents, we are hands-on, and this feels like a calling and (mostly) a pleasure, too. I read every email and handout that’s sent home. I read policies and meeting notes. We go to as many events as we can. I peruse the library books she brings home. I connect with and talk to other parents. We vote in every local election. Her school makes it easy to be involved, and we take them up on it.
What has been one of your favorite parts about your school experience so far? Has anything been challenging?
Let’s do two of each!
First, we love going to a neighborhood school. Especially since the majority of students walk or bike to school, there is such a sense of community as everyone streams toward the campus in the morning. We love sharing a common experience with our neighbors, where it’s easy to ask for and give advice about school activities, teachers, etc. As Claire noted, this makes it much easier to love our neighbors in tangible ways. And, as I’ve mentioned many times before, biking to school is our favorite. It’s a delightful way to bookend the day, and because our commute is so short, we get more time back to be together as a family and spend in ways that are valuable to us.
Second, it is a great delight to love on the teachers, staff, and administration. While we could do this in any school we attend, my sense is that it’s more needed and valued where we are. Our goal is to make the school noticeably better by our presence. We want our kids’ classmates to be better off than if we had not been there, and to leave teachers grateful that our kids were in their class. None of this is to make our name great, but because it’s what we believe glorifies God.
(There are a lot of specific ways we do this, and I’m happy to share them. However, this post is exceptionally long already, so if there’s interest, I’ll add this topic to the queue for the future!)
Now for the challenges…
First, what has been most challenging personally is dealing with comparison and jealousy. For as confident of a person and parent as I am, school choice is easily the area where I feel the most doubt and experience the most jealousy. Private Christian school, classical school, homeschooling, Acton Academy, Montessori – you name it, I’ve probably researched it and can see the good in it. We love our kids and know that schooling is a huge part of their lives, and so it’s easy to feel a lot of pressure to “get it right” and to want the absolute best (whatever that is!).
Second, I know this is a series particularly about the place where our faith and our kids’ education meet, but the thing I most wish I could change three years in has been technology. In second grade, phones are not a thing, but every kid has a school-issued laptop and they spend time on them within lessons each day, and I just wish they didn’t. This is probably not surprising :) They’re certainly not on them all day, and I trust the balance the teachers are striking, but still, I’d change it if I could, and I’d also give the kids more time outside. We balance these school-day downsides by maintaining our low-tech environment at home and pushing them outside as often as possible!
What does faith formation look like for your family outside of or alongside school? How are you helping your kids to know and love God and their neighbors?
How much time do you have?! Ha! Knowing that our kids are not being formed in the Christian faith in public school, and in fact may be counter-formed in some ways, we spend an incredible amount of time and energy thinking about this and acting on it.
We worship and serve at church on Sundays. We invest deeply in our small group. We encourage their friendships, and our family’s friendships, with other believers. We continually point to our faith daily in conversation. We pray together. We play worship music on the go and in the house. We talk about the many forms of generosity, and invite our kids to live a generous, abundant life alongside us – and to share that life with others.
What are your hopes for your kids and their education? What’s the best-case scenario?
Honestly, my answer is a mash-up of Ginna’s and Krystal’s – they summed things up so beautifully!
We care deeply about education, but it is not ultimate in our family: loving God and loving their neighbor is. My hope for their education is that they learn from teachers who inspire them and alongside peers who bring them joy. I hope they grow to love reading and learning itself. As parents, I hope we can be involved in connecting what they are learning in school to the amazing God of the universe.
It’s also hard for me to tease out my hopes for their more formal schooling from their upbringing in our home. I could say much more about my hopes for who they are as one-day grown-ups, but that is not something I expect school to accomplish.
Do you plan to continue with public school indefinitely, do you plan to change course in the future, or do you hold it with open hands?
We will take it year by year. We have had a great experience so far with elementary and hope and plan to continue with it for all of our kids. We’ll consider our options anew when it comes to middle and high school.
Anything else to add?
For me, it’s been incredibly important to have close Christian friends who are walking the same public school path as us. Both of the other families in our small group who have elementary-aged kids have chosen public school, and that is an invaluable support, especially when the doubt or jealousy or fear creeps in.
Friends, please feel free to respond to anything I mentioned in your usual kind and thoughtful way. I’m sure this will not be the last time we touch on this subject, but I’m grateful that we could cover as much ground as we did over the last few weeks. Thank you, as always, for being a part!
