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!
What an awesome thought! I love this idea…wish I’d read this years ago! I was always like that with my 3 children; now I bestow my grandchildren with many gifts…but because of living on a fixed income, I really can’t do that any longer; I try to get one or two (maybe three) special gifts for each of them –
Thank you for sharing this option to the BIG Christmas; because, after all, the sharing you do on Christmas morning is way bigger than having a ton of gifts!!
I just read this and wish I could back in time to when my boys were younger. This is such a great read!
So many kids today get so much and don’t appreciate what they have, this would help stop that!
Would have helped us as kids too. I dreaded the hours of opening presents as a child myself!
Amen sister! My husband and I were thinking of trying one really special gift, but I like the idea of three. One they really wanted, one they need, one total surprise. That is brilliant! And I think it’s a tremendous idea to tie it into the story of the three gifts that were presented to Jesus. We are totally jumping on this band wagon! I know some people that are gonna shoot the hairy eyeball at me too, including the grandparents, but they’ll adap. And hopefully my children will easily and confidentially explain to others the true meaning of Christmas that is upheld in their home. Thanks for sharing!!
I LOVE the idea of asking the grands to sponsor sports or dance classes! When mine were young, we asked for savings bonds instead of the multitude of filler gifts they were getting. They each have a nice little nest egg. Now they are a little older and the things they wish for are more expensive, so they stopped the bonds and buy a nicet gift. It is nice to know they will receive a special something from the grandparents.
As for my house, we have never “done Santa.” We don’t ban Santa from our home, but always felt very strongly that our kids know a gift is given by someone who has worked hard and chosen thoughtfully just for them. That has not always gone over well with other family or friends, but I have 4 very grateful and appreciate kids. We don’t limit to a number of gifts, but do keep them to a minimum and choose to focus on quality over quantity.
We do the 4 gift rule:1. Something they want 2. Something they need 3. Something to wear 4. Something to read. The kids were so much happier when we started to do this and we too had more family time on Christmas. More snuggling, laughing, talking and sharing
I LOVE this idea too…I shared it with our Womens FB page at church. If kids grandparents want to buy them gifts let them. Don’t get all legalistic about YOUR tradition. Grandparents are a whole different ballgame. Let them lavish love on your kids. Your children will get the point.
I’m twice as old as you and it reminds me of growing up. We didn’t have much and these days I don’t expect much or anything. You appreciate things more. Also, some kids open present after present only to ask, Is that it? Good for you all for raising your kids not to be materialistic!
We do not do the 3 gift method, however I love it. We don’t have a limit, but don’t want to go overboard either. What we DO do is each Nov. we go through all of her toys and we choose items to give to a family in need. This is a great way to declutter and teach a giving heart. I have noticed it’s easier for a child to give new items to people in need then to carefully think about each item they want to part with. We find a family who could really use the items and we take her to go give them. In addition, we buy items for those in need but to a young child, there is no sacrifice because they don’t understand the value of a dollar. This leads to a wonderful story about what Jesus has sacrificed for US. This has worked so well for us!
I will add, we have told her if she only chooses 2 items to give away, then she only gets 2 items for Christmas (or 3 etc.). She has always chosen a car load of items (of course she doesn’t get a car load in return though). We explain Jesus didn’t put a limit on his sacrifice.
My children are now 22, 20, 19, 17 and 14. I had decided early on that Santa only brought 1 small gift and the rest were from mom and dad and family. I also added a gift from Jesus, which was some type of light since He is “the light of the world” hoping every time they would see it they would think of Jesus. They were the ones that taught themselves not to just rip open the presents. They would open a present and want to play with it and I would let them. They would take it outside or to their playroom and after playing with the new toy awhile, they would play with their old toys and I would let them. So I started the 12 days of Christmas and they would open a present everyday. Now some people would say that’s too many presents but 1 day would be what 1 set of grandparents sent them (we lived far away from ALL the relatives), 1 day would be the other set of grandparents, 1 would be the uncle, etc. This way they also would remember who gave them what. Then I would throw in a DVD for the whole family to watch 1 day, or a game that we would all play or a puzzle for all of us to do. I’m hoping my children will keep the tradition going when they have children.
All such great ideas! I am a grandmother now…..but the ‘tradition’ I started when I had my kids was first having Christmas morning (when Santa comes) on Christmas Eve morning. I work in health care and had to work many Christmas days. But the REAL benefit is that we were able to stay home ALL DAY and just hang out, eat, and play. I hated Christmas when I was a kid, having to leave my newly opened presents to go to relatives homes. Christmas day was now open for that. But the main ‘tradition’ that I did with my kids and now grandkids was to take them to a store that offered a giving tree……little cards with orphans names and gift requests on them. Each child would ‘adopt” a child to buy gifts for. They looked forward to doing that at Christmas time more than anything else! Then on Christmas morning they would imagine how happy the child must be opening those gifts. They always told me they liked doing that more than receiving a ton of gifts that they didn’t need anyway. I remember one year my daughter chose a little girl age 7 whose only request was for a winter coat. Well my daughter picked out everything for her….we bought her a pink coat, matching hat and gloves, a Holiday Barbie, and several other items. They are adults now but they still talk about those gifts for the children with fondness. They have adopted these traditions for their own children….