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We love it when moms share ideas with other moms (and we love the holidays!), so we’ve worked with our contributor team to collect gift ideas, holiday-themed activities, and great stories to help inspire you this holiday season!

2021 Holiday Gift Guide

We asked our contributor team to share their favorite gift ideas for kids of all ages.
Click through to find the full gift guide for each age group on our blog!

Gift Guide For Babies (Age 0-1)

Everyone asks mom what to give babies for Christmas, and it can be really hard to know what to tell them. Our contributor Sarah Limberg @sarahelimberg, mom to a ten-month-old daughter, put together a list of recommendations that vary in price, size, and more!

Gift Guide For Toddlers (Ages 1-3)

Toddlers are a tough group to parent, but they also get so excited to open up gifts that it makes up for all (or at least some) of the tantrums. Our contributor team shares their favorite gifts for this age group!

Gift Guide For Little Kids (Ages 4-6)

As we see our little kids develop their own preferences and start to share ideas with other kids their age, it can be both hard and rewarding to find a gift that matches their personalities. Our contributor team shares their favorite gifts for little kids!

Gift Guide For Big Kids (Ages 7+)

Check out the gifts that the big kids (ages 7+) in our contributor’s lives are excited to receive, and what our contributors are excited to give them this holiday season.

Gift Guide For The Outdoor Adventuring Family (All Ages)

Our contributor Jennifer Carroll @twinningtheweekend spends her free time taking her toddler twins camping, wakeboarding, hiking, and more. Check out her gift guide for families who love the outdoors!

Mom’s 2021 Holiday Wish List

After all of the work that you put into the holidays, have some fun and dream about what you want this year! We asked our contributor team to share one gift that they’re dreaming about right now. See what they’re asking for this year!

Shop Small With The Mom Hour Small Business Boutique

Hop over to The Mom Hour Boutique page to get to know small businesses run by members of our community. They’ve got great offers just for you on bath & body products, tea, jewelry, apparel and more!

Holiday Podcast Listening

We’ll add our newest holiday episodes to this page as they go live, and we’re including some of our favorite episodes from Christmas Past below. Enjoy!

Listen To New Holiday Episodes!

Want More From Holidays Past?
Hit Play On One Of These Episodes!

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More From The Blog…

Thanksgiving Planning Guide: Plan NOW So You Can ENJOY Later!

By Joanna Martin | @cafedumartin

We’ve hosted Thanksgiving for the past seven years (give or take a few years), and in that time we’ve learned many valuable lessons as home cooks and hosts. We’ve tried our fair share of trendy recipes and ways to cook a turkey. We’ve mistimed oven usage and have discovered new family favorites. Quite possibly the most important lesson we’ve learned while hosting over the years: Planning is ESSENTIAL for everyone’s sanity and enjoyment. [READ MORE]

Five Pandemic Thanksgiving Traditions I’m Keeping Around

By Chaunie Brusie @chauniebrusie

I won’t lie: Thanksgiving isn’t my favorite, and after so much togetherness last year, I wanted to try to mix things up a bit on that oh-so-traditional holiday. So I came up with a few new Thanksgiving traditions last year to make the day just a bit more fun. And much to my surprise, they were a success! [READ MORE]

Read To Get Inspired…

Need a fun holiday craft to keep your kids busy during winter break? Or tips on planning your holiday? Or a survival guide to holiday baking with toddlers? We have great holiday stories from our contributors coming to the blog! We’ll post links below to more stories as they go live through November and December.

Last Year I Skipped Christmas; Here’s What I Learned

By Chaunie Brusie @chauniebrusie

On Christmas Eve last year, after I said goodbye to my five children and husband as they headed out the door to go see my in-laws, I did something that moms everywhere have dreamed about for centuries: I spent the evening cuddled up on my couch watching cheesy Hallmark Christmas movies and drinking hot chocolate. Completely alone. [READ MORE]

Five Holiday Book And Craft Pairings For Little Kids

By Sandy Hsu | @hopefulsmiles

I began with a list of a dozen holiday picture books and then paired each one to a little craft with a similar theme. Having a simple framework and theme for curating activities helped me to avoid over-planning and Pinterest overwhelm. It was such a joy to spend quality time with my daughter while doing something festive and fun even when life felt crazy. [READ MORE]

Baking With Kids This Holiday Season: A Strategy For The Hesitant Mom

By Jayme Sherrod | @jaymesherrod

A small, flour-covered apron adorns the gleeful child as they work with their mom to finish baking the final dozen cookies for this year’s holiday party. The magazine photo looks magical. It feels inspiring. It seems fun. Yet, if you’ve ever invited your child to the kitchen to bake – or enthusiastically accepted their request to bake – you may have found out that the magic can be fleeting and the cleanup is pretty fierce. [READ MORE]

Easy Tips For Sustainable Gift-Giving

Want to know how you can be more environmentally friendly this gifting season? Our contributor Jayme Sherrod shares three easy ways you can make your holidays more sustainable. Watch her reel on our Instagram, and read on for her tips! [READ MORE]

Creating A Feeling of Advent

By Joanna Martin | @cafedumartin

Christmas decorations up the minute Thanksgiving is done. After the busy-ness of cooking and hosting, I am so ready to slow down and sink into everything the advent season has to offer. Advent is a season of building anticipation. Advent is considered to be a time of preparation and waiting in joyful hope of the birth of Jesus, and it’s typically associated with many Christian religions. However, I find that anyone can find ways, religious or not, to create a feeling of advent in the home. [READ MORE]

How We Do Hanukkah

By Katherine DeVries | @thepaperdart

Hanukkah is just around the corner! And although a part of me always dreads this holiday, because eight days of celebration feels like a lot, it’s also super important to me to make a big deal out of it. Because while my family identifies as religiously Jewish, we’re also culturally interfaith, and we celebrate many traditional Christian holidays (Christmas included), in addition to all of the Jewish ones. [READ MORE]

Other Holiday Goodies

If you made it this far, we’ve got some holiday goodies just for you – little things we love from the archives and things that have brought us joy in past holiday seasons. Enjoy!

  • Our Facebook community says these gifts KILLED IT last year
  • Meagan’s 25 Days Of Holiday Help
  • 6 Things You Can Do To Get Dreamy Holiday Photos On Your Smartphone (by Sarah)
  • Sarah’s Christmas 2014 appearance on The Home Hour podcast (the VERY first time we were on the mic together!)
  • 6 Easy (We Promise!) Homemade Holiday Gifts You Can Make With Your Kids
  • Our Favorite Holiday Picture Books
  • Our 2017 Gift Guide
  • Meagan’s Spotify Christmas playlist

Send us an email

Can’t find what you’re looking for? Email hello@themomhour.com and we’re here to help!

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On the podcast this week (and next!) Meagan and Sa On the podcast this week (and next!) Meagan and Sarah share some of our favorite kitchen gadgets, cooking tools, food prep solutions, cleaning solutions, and countertop appliances. Because every home cook has a different set of needs and priorities, we opened up the question to our contributor team to find out what gear makes their lives easier in the kitchen. Tap the link in our bio to get gear tips from @stacybronec @jaymesherrod @emilyeroark @sarahelimberg and @joannerevising!

(Looking for Meagan’s and Sarah’s kitchen favorites, as mentioned on the podcast? Head to the show notes for Episode 431, which you can find in your podcast player or by tapping through Tuesday's Insta post.)
Kids are back in school and we're back in our kitc Kids are back in school and we're back in our kitchens with a bit more pep in our steps - so let's chat about gadets and gear! Join Meagan and Sarah today to hear about the Porch Microwave, the Mercedes-Benz of Coffee Grinders, how our partners' personalities lead us to unwanted kitchen appliances, and more. We share our current favorite kitchen tools for food prep and cooking - with more to come next week, too.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts (we had a delay but all is well now!) or tap this image at the link in our bio!

#themomhour #motherhood #mompodcast #podcastsformoms #parenting #parentingpodcast #podcastlove #trypod #podcastersofinstagram #shepodcasts
Big transitions in family structure are never easy Big transitions in family structure are never easy. When it comes to blending families, introducing a new romantic partner as a single parent, or stepping into step-parenting, there's so much to think about. Today Meagan gets candid about her current blended family situation, following her wedding this summer and the integration of their families into a shared home. Sarah has lots of questions as Meagan shares what's going well, a few tension points, what she would do differently, and how it's going overall.

Find the episode wherever you get your podcasts, or click this image at the link in our bio!

#themomhour #motherhood #mompodcast #podcastsformoms #parenting #parentingpodcast #podcastlove #trypod #podcastersofinstagram #shepodcasts
Use code THEMOMHOUR to save 10% on @theessentialca Use code THEMOMHOUR to save 10% on @theessentialcalendar this fall!

I (Sarah) had the coziest evening with my Monday-start “Busiest Time Ever” calendar last night. If the next few months already feel like they’re filling up and you can’t quite picture it all, this is a great solution!

Tap the link in our bio to shop, or head to theessentialcalendar.com/themomhour. Happy planning!
New episode! Are you a "Today's The Day!" type, o New episode!

Are you a "Today's The Day!" type, or do you prefer to ease gently into a new adventure, challenge, or season? Whether you get excited to dive into a slew of new initiatives with the turning over of that shiny, crisp edge of a calendar page (like Sarah!), or really prefer to transition on your own internal timeline (like Meagan!), this episode is for you. Join us as we explore the many upsides to a soft start (in motherhood, business, health, and more) in an effort to take the pressure off moms this fall.

Find the episode wherever you get your podcasts, or click this image at the link in our bio!

#themomhour #motherhood #mompodcast #podcastsformoms #parenting #parentingpodcast #podcastlove #trypod #podcastersofinstagram #shepodcasts
Happy September! What are you looking forward to t Happy September! What are you looking forward to this month? Drop a comment and let us know! 👇
Raise your hand if you practiced some sight words Raise your hand if you practiced some sight words this week - or proctored a spelling pre-test - or ran through some multiplication tables? Sometimes supporting your kids' classroom learning at home looks like facts and flash cards, but we're here to remind you that there are LOTS of ways to nurture curiosity and promote learning, and many of them can fit seamlessly into family life.

This week on the blog we're revisiting a post Meagan and Sarah co-authored back in 2018 - when our kids spanned preschool to high schoool! - with six ideas for supporting school learning at home. Tap the link in our bio to read the post!
New episode! Meagan and Sarah had fun-filled trav New episode!

Meagan and Sarah had fun-filled travel in August before saying goodbye to summer. The Powers family traveled to the East Coast for a week of multigenerational state-hopping served with a side of bug bites and butt bruises! And Meagan officially opened a bookstore in Manistique, MI, right after surviving a 20-mile hike with her siblings and their spouses. Now we're back, shifting from summer-mom to school-year-mom, and sharing our "laundry basket of hopes and aspirations for Fall 2023" with all of you.

Find the episode wherever you get your podcasts, or click this image at the link in our bio!

#themomhour #motherhood #mompodcast #podcastsformoms #parenting #parentingpodcast #podcastlove #trypod #podcastersofinstagram #shepodcasts
Been thinking about trying one of our sponsors? He Been thinking about trying one of our sponsors? Here's your sign! 🌈 Once a month, we like to thank our partners and remind you of their great discounts. For our special promo codes and links, just tap our saved "Sponsors" highlight OR tap on this image at the link in our bio to check out the Deals & Offers page on our website.

We appreciate when you check out our partners who support our show and use our links + codes!

The Mom Hour is sponsored by . . . 

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This week on the blog we're revisiting @lisaapayne This week on the blog we're revisiting @lisaapayne4's tips for supporting your child's teacher and classroom this school year. Lisa is a career educator whose work takes her into multiple schools and classrooms, so she sees a lot! She's also a single mom to four kids who span elementary, middle, and high school this year.

Read the post at the link in our bio - and feel free to add more suggestions in the comments below!

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