“Before buying a whole bunch of stuff for your loved ones this holiday season, ask if your loved ones even want a whole bunch of stuff this holiday season.  Or look for new traditions in your family. Maybe you only buy gifts for people under the age of 18. Or decide to limit the amount of gift-giving stress by drawing names, rather than everyone buying gifts for everyone else.”

You may have seen our recent post about how to manage and organize your gift-giving for the season. We are all for giving gifts! As long as they are backed by intention and consideration for the person receiving the gift. But let’s also talk about the other side of the “gift-giving-coin”… which consists of setting limits and gifting experiences instead of materials.

Christmas is just around the corner! And so is the hustle and bustle of the “busy” season. So many things are pulling our attention in different directions. And the hunt begins to find the *perfect* gifts for everyone we care about… cue the stress. At some point, we all feel the overwhelm from managing all of the to-do’s throughout the holiday season. Keeping our eyes open for constant sales, in search of “just the right thing” for each person we love, and the pressure to get. it. right. Ugh!

All of that pressure, coupled with our jobs as home organizers {aka decluttering queens} we felt a need to say, stop!

Our consumerist society needs to stop putting constant pressure on us to “buy now” and “buy more”! But we also need to stop. Stop putting SO MUCH pressure on ourselves to spend all the money, and buy all the things… just to show people we love them. When we read articles like this one, from Becoming Minimalist about how much waste happens around the gift-giving season, we can’t help but want to stop. But we digress.

Instead of just leaving you with the infinite wisdom of “stop!” (even though that’s pretty good right?) let’s talk about some clutter-free gift ideas to consider this holiday season! Why you ask? We’ll give you two good reasons!

1.  They are gifts that are not only cool and personalized, they are also chances for us to share quality time together. Like face-to-face, off the phone, time.
2.  They do not add clutter to our homes and minds!

The awesome thing with most of these is, you can gift them as something you can do together, or as something they can do on their own/with a friend. Ok, are you ready?

Here are our 10 clutter-free gift ideas for you this holiday season!

1. Make a date- go to your favorite restaurant or cafe, see a movie
2. Bake a favorite holiday treat- you can do this together or give it as a gift
3. Gift your favorite book with a special letter from you
4. Tickets to a special event- something you would both enjoy or give as a gift
5. Plan a special day to go do a seasonal activity- ice-skating, light show, holiday musical or play
6. Offer to volunteer with them for their favorite cause
7. Game for family game night
8. Season Passes- zoo, museum, theater
9. Prepaid lessons for a new hobby- swimming, piano, dance
10. One big- ticket item- Consider pooling together with group of people to get one big ticket item, instead of a bunch of small things

We’d love to hear from you! What is one “experience” gift you remember receiving and loved? Share in the comments below.

Looking for more ways to be intentional about gift-giving? Grab our FREE guide below!