Unlike those commenting, i have no more small children but identify with the issues from years ago. Once my parents were gone we were more able to slowly cut back on gifts and attempted to give the holidays a more meaningful tone, until now my son at 25 is teaching me instead.

i loaned him my car last week (my unpaid for, still quite new car) and he had an accident. The car was just yesterday deemed a total loss. The miracle and the blessing is that my most adored son walked away without so much as a scratch and we were told by the investigating officer that he couldn’t have chosen a better utility pole to hit. It would seem that it was rotted clear through at at 55 MPH, had he hit one intact we might not be having quite the same conversation.

i love Christmas, spoiling those i love with all that they crave on the table, a warm and inviting home, and humble but fun little gifts to delight them.

Well, due to the expense, the fact that a 30 year tradition of my husband’s Christmas bonus unexpectedly did not come through, the stress and other factors (like the rental goes back Tues and another car in the near future is a question mark) i found myself standing with tears to tell my family that a tree was even too much just now. My usual handmade gifts may not even make it. There is just too much going on and not near enough money. My son’s eyes welled up and he said, “Don’t tell me we can’t have…a turkey??!!??”.

“Well sure, honey, we can EAT on Christmas”. His face brightened, he sighed and said…

“Whew! i thought you were going to tell me ‘NO TURKEY’, and Mom, all i really care about is that you and Dad and me and (his girl) will all be here together. We’ll have a great time”.

Food. My sweet young man wants only to be with his family, laugh and eat. i guess we did something right somewhere.

Gentle, tearful thoughts…

Now, educating the other side of the family… for us this is one battle we lose every year! Luckily my parents in law don’t want us to spend huge amounts of money on them, they just want to be able to spoil us all instead!

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Hubbs’ family was all about the amount of gifts – piles & piles of toys, whatever they wanted they got. Thankfully hubbs is a minimalist – but it’s to a much further extreme than I am. He doesn’t like celebrating his birthday – doesn’t want any gifts & actually is a bit angry when he DOES get a gift. So we balance each other out a bit.

Because our little family is fairly young, we haven’t really adopted any real gift giving “policies”, but we both dread Christmas rolling around simply BECAUSE of the gift giving issue. I don’t mind giving gifts in general, but I personally am not “gifted” at determining what might please someone else. Sometimes I am, but most of the time it’s a true struggle. And since I don’t “need” a lot of gifts, then it becomes strange to me when my adult friends send me gifts for Christmas – now I feel obligated to get them something as well.

I’ve recently heard of one scenario that both hubbs & I think would work well for our children as they get older.

1 gift they WANT (within a specified $$ amount)
1 gift they NEED
1 gift that reminds them of JESUS

It’s easy, keeps the gifts to a minimum & I’m a big believer in fun & cheap stocking stuffers!

I also hope to include a service project every year with my children during the holiday season in which they personally get to experience serving the needy in some way, or buying a gift for a needy child or something to that effect.

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