An Early (and Frugal) Christmas Present
About five years ago, Kellen received a nice Little Tykes play set and sandbox from Grandma & Grandpa for his birthday. This play set has served us very well and is in great shape.
Here you can see Lydia playing on it the weekend of Thanksgiving. Now that the kids are older, they wanted a big kids play set. So, a play set went on their Christmas list. Mamaw and Papaw started to keep an eye out for them. Wooden play sets are very expensive new, but Mamaw and Papaw found a used one in pretty good shape with a very good price.
The dilemma though was how to bring it home and keep it a surprise for Christmas. We decided it wasn't possible to keep it a secret from the kids. The weather was very nice at the time (week before Thanksgiving) and the cousins were coming, so Papaw set up the play set (and even power washed it), and the kids got an early Christmas present.
It has two big kid swings, a baby swing, the two person swing thing (beside the baby swing), and a slide. The top of the set also serves as monkey bars, when no one is swinging. The kids love it. It has already gotten a lot of use.
But a just a swing set is not good enough for Papaw's grandkids. He had to do even more. He took an old tractor tire from the neighbors and "planted" it in the ground for them to crawl on and through. (sorry no picture of that one) For the thrill riders, (Kellen and the adult guys!), he put up a tire swing, very high in the trees. Here is Kellen taking a turn on it.
It goes very, very high! Kellen has a love/hate relationship with this swing. He goes on and Tim pushes him and he wants to go higher and higher. Then he gets scared and tells Tim to stop. He comes off the swing yelling, "I hate that swing!" Five minutes later, "Dad will you push me on the tire swing again?"
When the weather was warm, (it is very cold here now) the kids were in the back yard nonstop. They joked that we never needed to go to a park again because our back yard is better.
Everyone won with this Christmas gift. The kids got one of the "big" items from their Christmas list. Never once did I hear them even mention that the play set was used. They don't care. Mamaw and Papaw got to give them all a "wow" gift without the wow to their wallet. I got a wonderful way to get the kids out of the house for awhile!
If your kids have a big ticket item on their list, I encourage you to be creative. Could you get it used? Is there a less expensive item you could substitute? Could it be a group gift? (As this was.) Could others chip in for the gift? You may be able to find another way to find that gift that seemed out of your budget. This works for me!
7 comments:
Great gift! You'll get tons of use out of that.
Craigslist is a great place to get high quality previously expensive kids items for a fair price. Most cities are on craigslist. A group from work recently gave a used double jogger for a birthday gift. I was only $20 each. Origionally it would have been $300. Our friend was thrilled and didn't care that it was used.
When we moved into our house we knew we wanted one of those wooden play sets for the kids. We got lucky and found a family at church who was getting rid of their old one to make room for a trampoline so we got one cheap. I try to get as many of those items used as possible--all the bikes are from garage sales--otherwise life gets too expensive with four kids. If only college tuition could be found at garage sales . . .
You asked about the pin in the candle thing? I guess I wasn't as clear as I could have been, you don't stick the pin in the candle, you only use the pin to make the dots. Hold the pin by its shaft (pointy end) and dip the head in paint. The paint clings to the head in a perfect little ball which you use to make a nearly perfect round dot of paint. Just an easy way to make a tiny circle of paint.
I love the description of the love-hate relationship with the swing -- that's hilarious!
That's great that you could find a used one! We cheated on ours and visited a place that sells them, took digital pictures and measurements and built one ourselves. It happened at the right time because a business near us was closing and sold their swings and accessories for 50% off! A friend of my BIL was tearing his down and gave us the accessories from his, too.
What a wonderful gift! Your kiddos will make so many special memories on that set! All our outdoor playstuff has been bought used as well. Living in the desert, we have found that the plastic spray paint works great to make faded things look new!
Great find!!
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