12/23/15

Christmas

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

This summer, I was dreaming of a non-Disney or commercialized Christmas. I was thinking baby dolls, non-battery powered toys, and a stack of classic, hardback children's books. I added this darling wooden toy food set to my Amazon wish list.

But after considering my children's actual interest, I have altered my plans a little. I'd like to think my 1950's vintage Christmas dreams will meet in the middle with the tacky, commercialized, battery powered Christmas of our modern day. Can you mesh the two? I don't know.
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I still like to use the want, need, wear, read as a guideline for buying gifts. (We've done this for a couple of years.) It's plenty! Especially when our 4 gifts are combined with the gifts from grandparents and cousins and the few extra happies they get in their stockings.
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For stockings this year, I'm giving the older three children some new pajamas, Scotch tape, candy, and a $5 Starbucks gift card. My kids always ask for chocolate croissants from Starbucks, but they are expensive! So I'm thrilled to be giving them an "experience" to look forward to and not a thing. Yes, we can go get croissants!

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We do Santa to the extent that some gifts are mysteriously under the tree on Christmas morning, and the kids assume they are from Santa. Whenever my children ask me specifics about the North Pole and Santa....my answer is always....I have no idea, what do you think?

This way, all the Santa stuff is in their imagination. I don't like to fabricate the issue. This is mostly from a place of laziness than a moral issue. 


 sure, leave your Clementine peel there, I don't mind cleaning it up.

I'm not going to lie, Christmas has been a tad stressful to me this year despite my attempts to keep it super simple. There are so many extra social events and things at church and school. All good, but extra on top of normal which is pretty chaotic in itself. I've tried to just do one thing at a time without losing it, and every now and then I stop and have a cup of decaf tea by myself.

It's my coping mechanism these days, tea.


I did not buy Christmas pj's for my kids this year. Everybody is wearing an old pair of pajamas that somehow work or have Christmas colors in them.

Just because it's kind of a thing to buy your kids Christmas pj's...or do Elf on a Shelf....or go see Santa...or surprise your kids with a trip to Disney on Christmas morning.....or ____ fill in the blank, you don't have to do those things. You can pave your own way. You can do some of it and not all of it. It's easy to feel so much pressure to do the big, exciting things that everybody else is doing.

But if money is tight, or you are tired, or stressed or newly pregnant and feeling sick...go smaller. Don't do and spend in Christmas futures. I promise, nobody cares. Like I've already said, there is already so much extra going on this time of year without you thinking up more things for your family to go and do.

And don't you ever, ever....EVER...buy one of these for your kids for Christmas like I did one time. Bad idea.

1 comment:

  1. Corn popper just has to live in the garage and only be used as an outdoor toy! Though on Christmas morning..that's probably hard to do. :)

    ReplyDelete

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