12 Days of Finals Care Package

My daughter is a college sophomore 

(how is that even possible when she was just a teeny tiny baby girl what seems like a few days ago?) 

& one of my absolute favorite things to do is send her finals care packages. 

I seriously wish I could start a care package business. 

How fun would that be? 

This year instead of sending one big box of stuff like I usually do, 

I decided to space it out and send The 12 Days of Finals gifts. 

 I sent the wrapped gifts back with her after Thanksgiving 

and she will start opening them 12 days before the end of her finals. 

It works just like the 12 Days of Christmas song so 

day 1 includes 1 thing, day 2 includes two things, etc. 

I thought it would be more fun to have something to 

open each day rather than one giant box. 

For the gifts I alternated between gift cards, 

food treats, and fun brain breaks and little gifts.

Many of the days include treats for her sweet roommates too!

Here are a list of some things you could include:

• Snacks (cookies, beef jerky, crackers, popcorn)
• Drinks
• Gift cards to Starbucks, Sonic, a fave restaurant, etc (most can be in any denomination so they are great for higher number days)
• Cash (always a big hit!) 
• Coloring books/crayons
• Water guns
• Nerf guns
• Gum
• Candy
• Fun/holiday socks
• Play dough 
• Magazines/books
• Makeup or nail polish
• Silly string
• Christmas ornaments
• Craft ideas/supplies
• School supplies
• Cookie making supplies

And here's what I included:

1. On the first day of finals my mommy gave to me 1 iHop gift card. 

2. On the second day of finals my mommy gave to me 2 magazines. 

3. On the third day of finals my mommy gave to me 3 bottles of nail polish. ($1 each at Walmart) 

4. On the fourth day of finals my mommy gave to me 4 coloring books. ($1 each at Walmart)

 5. On the fifth day of finals my mommy gave to me 5 five dollar bills. (of course you ould do $1 bills)

6. On the sixth day of finals my mommy gave to me 6 cans of play dough. (they came 8 to a pack so I pulled out 2) 

7. On the seventh day of finals my mommy gave to me 7 boxes of candy. (the movie kind- that's less than $1 a box) 

8. On the eighth day of finals my mommy gave to me 8 cozy socks. (1 pair per roommate bought at Michael's a few weeks ago in their dollar spot). 

 9. On the ninth day of finals my mommy gave to me 9 packs of popcorn. (10 in a box so I pulled out one) 

10. On the tenth day of finals my mommy gave to me $10 to Starbucks. 

11. On the eleventh day of finals my mommy gave to me 11 cute new pencils. 

12. On the twelfth day of finals my mommy gave to me $12 to Sonic.

I created some fun tags for each day's gifts. 

I put a card on the outside of each gift as a label and 

then another card inside explaining what the gift was. 

I made the tags gender neutral so they will work for boys or girls 

and printed them four to a page. 

My tags said.....

On the first day of finals my mommy gave to me... 

but I also created versions that say parents, daddy, and aunt 

as I shared the idea with some friends on FB and they asked for cards to print too. 

If you'd like to print them out you can find all of the label cards in the folder HERE.

It was fun to package them up and get them ready to give them to my sweet girl! 

I even found ribbon at Hobby Lobby that matched perfectly!
{And of course it was 1/2 off! I love Hobby Lobby!}

If you don't have a college aged student you could 

easily adapt this idea for a younger child or your sweetie pie- 

and do it for the 12 days leading up to Christmas! 

If you have any other ideas for items to include- 

feel free to leave them as a comment below and I'll add them!

The items I included for my sweet girl were...

• one IHOP gift card
• two magazines
• three bottles of nail polish
• four coloring books