It’s that time of year again. I have been prepping for the past couple of months for our now infamous Auntie’s bags. Would you believe me if I told you that in 2020, our Auntie’s bags tradition will be 10 years old? Over the past few years, we have been doing them for Xmas too although honestly, I have no idea why or when we started this.

What I do know is that I will be in big trouble if I stop them now. I did mention retiring them after 10 years, but everyone including Olivia was outraged at the thought of the Auntie’s bags being stopped! I had no idea almost 10 years ago they would still be going.

What Are Auntie’s Bags?

They are little gifts bags we make up for Olivia to gift to my sisters. It started one Mother’s Day when Olivia, a cute and cheeky 4-year-old, asked why one of her Aunties didn’t get anything on Mother’s Day. She doesn’t have any kids we explained and so began our tradition of Auntie’s bags.

The idea is that you gift token presents in a bag full of sweets and chocolates. Simple really. As I have 3 sister’s it makes sense to keep them al the same and vary the gifts slightly if at all. Initially, the gift part of the bag was supposed to be around £5 per bag and small enough to fit into a perfume sized gift bag. But in previous years, we have totally thrown the rule book out of the window.

If you fancy making something up yourself check out the rules we loosely follow when it comes to creating a gift bag! Of course, you can adapt it to fit your gift but the premise of the bags is as a token present, not the main present.

• Bag needs to be perfume sized – we get them for around 49p in Home Bargains every time.
• Must include sweets – this year we have Haribo Xmas Trees.
• Must include chocolates – seasonal if you can eg Christmas chocolates etc.
• Include a small token gift – we try to stick to £5 or so. I tend to shop for these during the year in sales to get bargains.

The 2019 Xmas Auntie’s Bags

This year, as in previous years, I have been lucky enough to have been gifted some items for our bags. I will mark these with a *. I have a feeling I will be filling them with even more items before we get to Christmas Day!

For this year’s gifts, I have some cute jewellery that I got in a Forever 21 sale over the summer. I told you I was prepared early! They are all different and Olivia will choose which sister will get what item. There is also a keyring* each with a coloured glitter back and a picture of Olivia and each of her Auntie’s on the back so they have one each. They are from ASDA Photo and are from £4.50 each.

A first this year is these delicious looking chocolate bars from Sous Chef*. I know exactly which one each sister will like and I hope they share some with me this year. You can find the bars on the Sous Chef website in their gift section. The bars featured are £4 to £4.25.

There is also a selection of chocolates from Guylian* along with items I have picked up on my travels including these topped hot chocolate sticks, Haribo Giant Trees and these cute Smarties Xmas Robins! Top Tip – head to B&M and Home Bargains for great gift and chocolate treats for less! They are my go-to places for bargains. You can also find some great novelty gifts for things like this there too, especially for the candle lovers!

What do you think of this year’s bags? Do you give gifts like these to friends and family?