I absolutely LOVE Christmas time. Yes, I am one of those crazy Christmas decorators who have their decorations up before Thanksgiving (gasp … another elf apparently bites the dust). I love everything that the holiday season brings to my family and having decorations around just makes me HAPPY! Shoot, I’d have that beautiful lit tree up all year long if I wasn’t such a clutter freak. Celebrating Christmas with all the wonderful components of it (baking, decorating, gift giving, spending time with family, going to church, etc) is the highlight of my year.
My cut back on my children’s gifts from “Santa” all began about 7 years ago. Back then, I had a 3 and a 1 year old. Christmas morning of 2007, I was smacked in the face with a reality check. My 3 year old had been opening gifts for over an hour. Like really an hour … and that was fast opening too. Why was it taking so long? What in the world did I buy that kid? How many presents did he receive from Santa? Did Santa actually sneak in my house and ADD to the presents I had already bought?? Surely he must have. It was SO.MANY.GIFTS for one tiny human. After approximately 73 minutes, my three year old turned around, looked at me with a very nervous smile, and said “Momma, can I stop opening my presents so I can play?” Oh dear … that just happened.
Time stood still in that moment. My mind was swirling with all the shopping trips that began in August. The stockpiling of gifts in every nook and cranny in my house, hiding from my kids AND my husband. The times I wondered, “Does he have enough presents? Oh, what’s one more!” as I wandered aimlessly around Target or Toys-R-Us. Oh my GRACIOUS. I was breaking the bank on all of the toys that I bought knowing he’d love every last one of them. I was raising my child to come to know that Christmas was a time of PRESENTS!!! AND LOTS OF THEM!!! Well, yeah, I wanted him to understand that Santa brings good boys and girls presents for Christmas, but I also wanted him to know the deeper, much deeper meaning of Christmas. It became apparent to me that Christmas morning, as I sat in my robe sipping cold hot chocolate, that I was failing my kids by the over abundance of presents. Something had to change.
As the next Christmas season approached, I was vigilant about finding a way to keep the CHRIST in Christmas, as we are a Christian family who attends church regularly. I read a blog I found one Saturday morning that pointed me in a new direction. I would give each child of mine 3 gifts for Christmas. Jesus was born on Christmas and received gifts from the three wise men. 3 gifts … on Jesus’ birthday … perfection in my mind, as cliché as some might think. So I set out finding the three most perfect gifts that holiday season for my two boys … 1. something that they wanted, 2. something that they needed, and 3. something that would surprise the heck out of them. It wasn’t about how much money I spent on these items, it was about the quality and thought put into finding that gift that I KNEW my children would cherish and love for months to come.
That Christmas morning was everything I had hoped it to be and more. The boys absolutely loved their gifts, we got to spend so much more time together, and my clean freak momma bonus … a much smaller mess to clean up. Score!!! Our family has chosen this method of Christmas gift giving since then and my boys know no other way. Gone are the days of endless purchasing of nonsense, filler, cheap toys to make the tree look fuller. Gone are the days of hiding all of my Saturday splurges. Gone are the days of the million mile pileup of toys in my living room from 2 hours of opening gifts. Our Christmas days now consist of more snuggling, more reading Christmas books, more cooking and baking, more one on one time with each child, more gratefulness, and more time to spend with each other. And in the end, isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Not presents that never end or spending $500 dollars on each child so they can have “enough” that chilly December morning.
Is this the right way for every family out there? I doubt it. I have gotten the stink eye a few times when I have told someone our gift giving tradition. I’ve been called a Scrooge. But every family is different and we all choose our battles. Keeping Christmas Holy was my battle, and I’d say that I finally have this battle won!
My daughter is twenty and she always received three gifts from Santa because Jesus received three gifts from the wise men. It is a wonderful way to keep Christ as the most important reason for the day.
I am so glad I found this. As kids my sisters and I always knew the true meaning of Christmas, and my parents did their best to give us a magical holiday season without losing the true meaning. I now have a soon of my own who will be one in January, and I have been trying to come up with a way to introduce Santa without digging ourselves a financial hole we can’t dig out of. This is pure genius and a great way to reinforce the true meaning of Christmas.
This is just not true. There were more wise men than the symbolic 3 wise men. And after everyone visited Jesus he had so many gifts he was a wealthy man. Study that. My son and his family practice this 3 gift thing and I have to respect that. But the reasons behind it are inaccurate.
What do you base this on?
Darlene, I am fully aware of all the riches Jesus was given because he was the chosen One. HE WAS OUR SAVIOR!!! However, I would never, ever expect to teach my children that they are even slightly comparable to our Savior Jesus Christ and receive tons and tons of gifts. I give my children three gifts referring to the three wise men and to keep them humble. My children do not need loads of presents on Christmas morning more than they need my love and time that day to reflect on the reverence of the day. I fully respect your way of gift giving, just as I would assume you respect mine. Or maybe you can study that.
Amen!
Katie, the Bible never tells us how many magi there were. It simply says that magi came, and the gifts they brought were gold, myrrh and frankincense. Those three types of gifts were morphed into a symbolic 3 wise men in our traditions, but it isn’t Biblical. If your purpose is to stick with the Bible, then I’d suggest giving 3 gifts to symbolize the 3 types of gifts Jesus received, rather than focusing on a specific number of magi.
While I agree there were probably more than 3 wise men and it could also be pointed out that Jesus wasn’t actually born on December 25th,but it’s not that big of a deal. Teaching her children that Christmas isn’t about materialism and teaching them about the greatest gift ever given to us — Jesus Christ– is the wonderful lesson she is teaching her children from a young age and I think it’s great. I have 2 step grand children who I watch open a ridiculous amount of gifts each Christmas morning from their parents, grand parents, aunt, uncles, etc. and I think it’s such a shame. The kids get so many gifts that nothing is “special” or has any type of meaning to them and they lose interest in all the toys and gifts they receive within a few days. I think it’s such a disservice to children to shower them in so many gifts at Christmas.
Since my children were babies (they’re now 20 and 17), we only gave them three. While other friends lavished their children with things, I feel our tradition taught our kids that there is no endless flow of tangible items just because it’s Christmas.
We do something very similar. We do 4 gifts though- something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read. We add the “wear” to represent Mary wrapping baby Jesus in swaddling clothes. My kids are now 7 1/2 and 4 and we’ve done this since my oldests second Christmas. He loves it, and HE loves to share why our family does it this way.
This idea is great! We have 1 present from Santa, one from mom and Dad, and 1 from grandma and grandpa. I like the less is more because we get overloaded with stuff. I wish Christmas was more about buying for the needy instead of our children.
Yes Eileen! We are so spoiled as Americans. I was just telling my husband that we need to take our family to visit a third world country because my kids just don’t get it, which I totally take the blame for. They fuss about a nice home cooked meal when other kids have so little if anything. And I know I am so spoiled too. We are so rich and have no clue.
Eileen, you do not need to take your children to a third world country. We took our two daughters to a poor part of our town and to a homeless shelter. We also took them to see the “mansions” where the rich lived. We explained to them how fortunate we were that we had a nice home although not a mansion, and food on our table, clothes on our backs. We could be homeless or we could have a mansion but what we have is a loving family who is fortunate to have what we need.
I come at this from a very different perspective. I have a 14, 11, & 3 year old. There is absolutely no one who would call my 14 & 11 year old kids spoiler or brattish, so let.’s get that out of the way. Now they are thoughtful and active members at our church. They no longer want toys or much of anything and it is so frustrating because I desperately want to express love through gifts at Christmas for them. So, this is the first year the three year old really gets it and she is so excited! She has loved decorating the trees and watching Christmas movies and she is looking forward to Santa! EVERYONE in the house and the grandparents can’t wait! I don’t care if we have to stop and play with each toy as we open them and I don’t care if it takes ALL DAY.! She was a most precious gift to us and she is the meaning of Christmas – a child. These years will go way too quickly and she will behave more like an adult so I am going to enjoy it and treasure every moment! I am very blessed to get to have these years again and blessed to be able to provide Christmas for her and a few others three year olds in need.
Thank you!! My love language is gifts so it’s really hard for me to try to scale back some. We are trying to do the want/need/wear/read but I already know I’m over that. This is a wonderful idea but really difficult too.
I’m loving all of your comments!!! Every household is different and run different ways. But this has been the absolute best decision I have ever made for my family!! They still get tons and tons of presents from other family members so I know they are being “loved”! haha!!! And this is the best way to keep the trail of toys upon toys under control!!! We all know the joys of stepping on tiny toys around the corner, huh!!! Being a momma is a blessing in itself and for that I am grateful! 🙂 Thanks ladies!
I love this. I struggle a lot with this balance because we celebrate Christmas FOUR different times with various grandparents who all like to go overboard. I really want Christmas to be as special in our home as it is during the other celebrations. And for little kids, that seems to mean lots of presents. I’ve dialed it back a lot at home and have encouraged our family to do the same, but we’re working on other ways to keep Christ in Christmas … including picking out birthday gifts for Jesus with donations to charities and sponsoring kids in our community. I just wish I could find a way to balance the gifts without taking the joy of gift giving away from the grandparents.
We do something they want (the Santa gift), something they need, something to wesar and something to read. We always pray and sing happy birthday Jesus (I have a 3 year old and a 4 !month old.)