How to Turn Cash Gifts Into a Tradition with Meaning

1386285536000-cash-gift       Ever since their teen years, my nieces and nephews have had just one item on their Christmas wish list: CASH.

      Chances are, you’ve got some young folk with the same requests. Maybe, like me, you understand that they’ve got their own tastes and wants, but you find giving money kind of boring. They spend it, it’s gone, with nothing left over to indicate there was a relationship between the two people in this transaction. 

       Maybe I got to thinking about creating new rituals for money gifts because of my grandfather, Michael Hohenstine, a craftsman and jeweler in Columbus, Ohio. He didn’t like to just give plain bills either. So he would get new bills from the bank, and using glue on one end, turn a stack of money into a pad. His 4 daughters got pads of twenty dollar bills every Christmas, while each of the grandkids got 20 singles glued in a pad. So simple, I know, but it made spending the money an adventure, because of the reactions of sales clerks when you started peeling off your bills!

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      But I wanted more than a memorable sight gag. I’m a word person, dontcha know, and I wanted to share wisdom and wishes with the cash I gave.  So I started doing what I call “Cash-PLUS.” I go to the bank and get new bills, like my granddad, but I take each bill and wrap it into a small scroll along with a thin piece of paper. On that paper, I write a series of inspiring quotes, or, depending on the occasion, my wishes, hopes and dreams for that child. When they reached milestone birthdays, like 21, I would use 21 bills (either fives or tens). 

      For Christmas, why not wrap your scrolls in holiday paper? You might consider writing on the papers events and accomplishments you hope for the kid in the coming year, or list the qualities of their character and personality you appreciate the most. 

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       What I try to do is find a small attractive box to hold the scrolls. This gives you something to wrap, and it gives the recipient a place to save the scrolls as a keepsake. 

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            Do you have other ways to make money gifts special? I did find some on a blog called Party Animal, including things like folding bills into origami shapes.  But I would love to hear some fresh ideas from you!

            Here is another idea from my friend Nancy Breland. When she turned 25 and was a “starving” graduate student, her father sent her a prescription bottle full of cash. On the label, he was listed as the prescribing physician, and he wrote: “RX: Take as needed.” Nancy says you can get new prescription bottles at your local drugstore and do this yourself for a loved one’s gift. I could also see this being done for a Christmas gift. 

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