Christmas Crisis - Grand Gifting
It’s DECEMBER yall!!!!!!!
Ok, so here we are, the countdown to Christmas passing a little bit quick. You have about 3 more weeks to get all of your shopping done, home decorated, gifts wrapped, and holiday plans settled. Any other time of the year, 3 weeks seems like plenty of time, but not now, it is going to go by so quickly. (Unless you are a teacher, then it will feel like 9 years.)
So, gift buying, where do you even start? I always like to make a list of what I would like to get for everyone, but then I become overwhelmed at finding those specific items and making sure they fit within my budget. During previous years, I have even felt like I was buying presents just to give them, not because they had any meaning or because I thought the person receiving the gift would absolutely love it, but because I needed to have something for them to open and be good enough that it doesn’t make me look cheap.
Throughout the years, the gifts I give have become more intentional, thoughtful, less focused on monetary value, and truly about giving someone a gift that will let them experience joy. Can I tell you by the way, that the cheapest gifts I give, end up being the most thoughtful and the most appreciated. That makes me feel so much better about my decisions on what to give to friends and family.
I think I finally realized how excessive the gifting was in my immediate family when I had children. They would come home with 20 items for Christmas or birthdays and for me, that was way too much. That would just be items from their grandparents, not including gifts from Santa or us. What does one adult, much less a child, do with so many items? We know their attention span is about 97 seconds, so they would open a toy, play with it, put it to the side a minute later, and be ready to open the next thing, plowing through all of their gifts with absolutely no focus or thought.
When my daughter was 3, I decided this had to stop. Now, I can’t control what other people purchase for my children. I always say thank you, because I know my kids appreciate being thought of. But I can control the things I purchased, not so much the item, but the quantity. So it began, we started a new tradition in our home, Santa would bring the kids 4 gifts that fit into the following categories:
Want: Something fun, maybe they had asked for it throughout the year, or it's just something I know they would enjoy.
Need: I try to make this something that they use often during the year. In the past, there have been crayons for the bathtub, bath toys, or even socks.
Wear: Honestly, for my kids, this ends up being pajamas pretty much every year. It works for us and they LOVE new jams!
Read: This is one of my favorite parts, especially this year because Ellenore is a full blown reader and Rowen is right behind her. It will be fun to see them open books that they will actually be able to read themselves.
Another reason I think this new mindset is so important is because Santa doesn’t make the same money at everyone's house if you know what I mean. What I can afford to give my kids is not the same as what someone else may choose to spend. I remember my mom busting her ass to make sure we had a beautiful Christmas, and we were always super happy and appreciative, but I also remember going to school after the break, hearing what other kids got from Santa, thinking daaaammmmnnnn. It was crazy stuff, multiple pairs of shoes, gaming systems, trips, etc. These things were obviously way out of my mom's budget as a single mother, but she still managed to get us the perfect gifts and things we had asked for. This is also what drives me to do the reasonable gifts from Santa and if we do decide to do something more expensive, we say it is from us. For example, this year, we got each of the kids their own Amazon Show. We will let them use them as a radio, alarm clock, timer, etc., so it made sense. These will not be from Santa, but they will be from us. Now, if anyone knows me in real life, you know I am kinda stingy and I don’t like throwing away a lot of money on Christmas gifts, so I do shop some sales, usually long before Black Friday. This year I got really lucky, the Amazon Show was on sale at Target and had a bonus gift included with it (the free gift was actually something we were looking to purchase in the next 6 weeks, so it worked out really well). The other thing Target had that was exciting, was a “Buy 2, Get 1 Free” promotion on games, books, and movies. So I was able to get a few books and some games we could play as a family, for a really reasonable price.
I hope that I am making the right choice as a parent to help my kids live in a world where excess is not their norm. I don’t want them to think that it is a normal thing to have a $500 Christmas, or $1000 birthdays. That just isn’t our life. I’d rather spend that money on experiences that we can do as a family. We love seeing movies, visiting the zoo, bowling, playing at the arcade, exploring new parks, and even taking weekend trips. All the money we save at Christmas time goes to funding these excursions all year.
I know that making the decision to tone down your gift giving can be difficult, especially if you grew up feeling like things were a little more simple. We always want to do more for our kids, or do better than what we had. But I feel like there are ways I can do more, and give better to my kids without spending any money. I do this with my time, how I show them love, and making them a priority in my life. I don’t want to raise little entitled assholes that grow up and think the world owes them something. (My kids are already genetically predisposed to be assholes because they have me as a mother, I really don’t want to add any more influence to this.)
Do you have a special plan when it comes to gift giving at Christmas? What do you consider excessive? What are your children's Christmas experiences like compared to yours?
Link to Echo Show we got our kiddos: Amazon Echo Show and here is the kiddo version… https://amzn.to/31gE11v
Also, check out how cute all of these Want, Need, Wear, Read gift tags are over at Etsy!!!!Gift Tags
And lastly, check out this Christmas letter to Santa that covers everything!
