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Christmas gifts, do you have any themes or traditions?
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Hi everyone!
Christmas is coming (152 days) and my husband and I have started to think about what we will be doing for each child this year. We also have 4 birthdays between Oct-Dec. Our Christmases are usually done by setting a budget per person (ex: $50 each, family of 10 means $500) and we always pay cash. While it has worked well, we were thinking about setting some gift themes this year. I know I’ve heard of this before.
For example:
Something to wear, something to read, something you want, something you need.
If you have done themes like this before or have a gifting tradition I would love to hear about it!
We don’t really have gift traditions like that but I thought this morning that Christmas is five months from today. And we just had it!! Crazy. 🙂
We give them PJs on Christmas Eve. We sometimes have a larger family gift that everyone can enjoy. I feel like that stretches our budget a bit more than just getting everyone a few little things. Although with their age spans getting farther apart, it makes it more difficult to find something they’ll all enjoy! Last year our budget was smaller, so their family gift was a few inexpensive sleds. Other years it’s been DVDs, board games, a Wii, building sets, etc.
Every year, I have had the intention of doing the theme of something to wear, something to read, something to create and seem to never do it. lol. The last two years, we have successfully transitioned to three gifts per child and a stocking to limit the consumerism of Christmas. Our kids receive so many gifts from family, we run out of ideas. We are really trying to instill the true meaning of Christmas and were finding our kids were forgetting about it. I sometimes feel bad when I see our tree isn’t filled with gifts under it like my childhood. But then I’m reminded, we are on a path of being debt free and not building debt like my parents did each year. It’s hard creating new traditions sometimes though. My husband and I are hoping to get relatives to give gifts of experiences this year (tickets, subscriptions, etc.). We have no idea what we will be giving yet but I always start my thinking with those themes…something to read, something to create, etc. I believe SimpleMom has had some great series around Christmas on themes you could google for ideas too.
We’ve always done three gifts without a certain budget per child (we have a total gift budget that we work with, but not the same $ amt per child). Our tradition is something useful, or a specific need (last year it was new bedding for older kids), a set or series of books and then something specific that the child would enjoy (an art kit for one child, a guitar for another, pottery lessons for a third…etc). Stockings have a little special candy and a few small things (nail polish, guitar picks or nice wool socks, for example). We have also always limited grandparents to one gift per child or a whole-family gift at Christmastime and, while they balked at first, they appreciate it now and see that our kids are better able to be grateful and appreciative when they aren’t being flooded with STUFF.
We celebrate heartily, taking the entire month of December off of school every year, and we enjoy choosing very specific gifts for each child (our kids are also really great gift givers and put a lot of time and effort into choosing gifts for each other, too), but we’re never regretted our decision to be intentional in our gift giving.
We do three gifts and a “Santa” gift. Our gifts are:
Gold – something the child really wants
Frankincense – something to bring us closer to God or closer to each other
Myrrh – something for the body
We also do PJs on Christmas Eve.
So many other things….One of our favorites, though, is that on the feast day of Saint Nicholas (December 6) we always do something to be a St. Nick to another family. One year we secretly made dinner for a family in our neighborhood, one year we decorated cookies and left them on people’s doorsteps, one year we put the traditional candy “coins” in people’s shoes. That is one of our all-time favorite things during the Christmas season and the kids brainstorm ideas for weeks. So fun.
We do a stocking. Last year each child recieved a paint brush and some paints and a couple small canvas to use. My whole family buys stuff for everyone’s stockings, so them my sisters bought nail polish for the girls and balls for the boys, stuff like that. We really try to only do one decent gift, we bought dd5 a razor scooter last year (70% off at target!) and my son I can’t even remember what we bought! I like Easter baskets more! We do a bathing suit, 1 chocolate bunny, a book and then a small toy/gift.
My goal when picking gifts for kids is:
Will they use it for more than a week?
Will I want to throw it away after a week?
Is it just going to cause strife between siblings?
Will it need replacement batteries?
Is it something that can be passed down to a younger sibling later?
Love the Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh idea! Will try that this year along with a stocking. My birthday is in October, our anniversary is in November, and my husband’s birthday is 8 days before Christmas so we only buy for the children.
We have a tradition that has only been in our family for a few years and I don’t know anyone else who does it, so I shared it on our blog last year. It came about one year when we had $0 for Christmas do to lower employment and a large car repair bill the first weekend of December. We all loved it so much that we had to do it again the next year.
Feel free to read the post here: http://stanclaninuganda.blogspot.com/2013/12/what-will-325-buy.html
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