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!
Such a warm & loving idea , having raised my children & always worrying if I could pull Christmas off ( the gifting part ) I now read this wonderful experience of motherhood . We may not have had what the children hoped or dreamed of but the one thing I know we shared was our love for one another, sharing all that makes a family & the love of our precious baby Jesus . Would so love to see my children share in this spirit of 3 gifting to my grans . Thank you for sharing , Merry Christmas & Gods Blessings to you and yours .Nanagirl
Where does the bible say Jesus was born on Christmas? Is this just something you believe, cause I have never seen it in the bible at all.
The idea of Jesus being born on Dec. 25 is not in the Bible. It is a tradition established by an early Pope to celebrate the birth of Christ. You can do some research and find a variety of reasons to explain the reasoning behind the tradition, but it is not specifically scriptural. In fact, there is no proof of when Jesus was born, and some research that I’ve seen actually indicates it was more likely in the spring.
Yes, I too had that same epiphany…..so surrounding them with the true meaning of CHRISTmas. We clear out all toys and videos that are Slightly used and donate. Then we adopt a family that mirrors our family but are less fortunate. These values pour into their school life Church life and as they are all preteens and teenagers, it pours into their friendships. As I listen to neighborhood chatter from the our new home….it’s amazing how even their neighborhood aquaintiences have noticed that my children take care of the yard their toys and now cars. BByno means are . we rich $$$. We’re rich by God’s values. So from tithing to saving, service to worship all the way to leading and education we are living in the favor of Christ.
I am not trying to start a holy war or to criticize anything you are trying to do. If you are happier with this arrangement, then I am most certainly happy for you, but I always thought that the reason we give gifts on Christmas was to symbolize God’s gift to us of his son and not the three wise men. In the Catholic religion(Disclaimer: I am not Catholic but know many people who are and am learning about French culture where this is a big deal) there is a separate holiday called kings day for the wise men. As for Santa, the saint of generosity, people say he comes on Christmas to again to imitate God’s generosity. Granted there is actually a Saint Nicholas day where some parents give their children an early present. No disrespect. I am not a parent or a preacher. I just thought that it was a point that should be pointed out if we are trying to find the real meaning of christmas.
Our best gifts were trips. Santa brought us a letter 5 different years explaining our “big gift” was a trip, and all the little presents were things for the trip… car games, warm clothes we don’t need in the south, “tickets” for collectable when we got there, etc. I still remember those trips as the best part of my childhood
I’ve been doing this for many years, my daughter is 12 now and I started it when she was 3 due to the same overly excessive amount of gifts from me & other family members. My daughter loves telling people about this topic & she explains well that only Jesus is perfect, and she is not better than him therefore she shouldn’t have more than him. She only gets 1-2 gifts from me, but 3 from Santa. On her birthday, she only gets ONE gift from me and the party. She has never ever complained about it. She has asked why some kids get so many gifts and I tell her they may not understand about the 3 gifts Jesus got and she is just fine.
Love it! I feel like I let the gift giving get out of control last year so this year I used a “formula” recommended by a friend: “Something you want, something you need. Something to wear, some thing to read.” So, each of my girls will get 4 gifts and it gives me a purpose when I’m shopping. Sticking to this has kept me from picking up “just one more gift” when I’m put shopping.
My son is 7 and we have always done 3 gifts. As for grandparents, I asked that every time they wanted to go crazy with presents, they would put the money into a college savings account. It has worked out wonderful for us.
i think is a great idea. I can’t stand the clutter and stress of Christmas and have seeking a way to celebrate without those things. I just have one question, how do you narrow it to just 3 items? My children understand that we do not buy gifts except on birthdays and Christmas, so by Christmas they have a nice long list of items they want. At Christmas I use the list for Santa as well as to give grandparents and other family members an idea of what they want. In between holidays, my kids are welcome to purchase toys with their own money or gift cards, but mom and dad don’t buy them. That cuts down on the whining every time we enter a store. So my question is do you buy toys for your children throughout the year?
We’ve adopted the four gift rule: something they want, need, can wear, can read. My kids are 1 & 3 and we are starting now to make this our norm. My parents go way overboard with gifts and while I’ve asked them to stop, I know better so we scale it back. I like the three gift rule too.