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A friend of mine and I had this same discussion a few years ago and she does this with her kids and I now do it with mine. She told her kids " Jesus got three gifts on his birthday and we are celebrating his birth, so you get three gifts too." And when they were little, she told them "Santa brings you one."
I love this explanation! It not only gets rid of that "I want everything!" attitude, but reminds the kids what Christmas is all about.
That is great thinking. We're not Christian and we do not celebrate Christmas for that reason, but if we were and did, I think we would do that, too. What a great idea.
Unless the three gifts that the kids ask for are things like... an ipod, an iphone, and an imac... then you're in trouble!
As far as santa goes... we've always tried to be as diplomatic and neutral as possible - just as we have always tried to be with the religion issue. We want our kids to be free to make up their own minds, based on their own research, regardless of our own personal opinions, so we wait for their questions and tend to give them information or books or whatever tools they need to set them on a path of asking more questions on their own. We don't want to spoil their fun, and we like to be imaginative and we want their childhoods to be full of excitement and wonder... but we also didn't want to spend years lying to our kids about santa and feeling guilty about it. So, when they come to us asking "Is there really a Santa?" We always respond, " What do you think?" or sometimes, "Some people believe in him and some people don't... what do you think?" On the gift tags, we just put their names - not who it's from.
I think the counting presents thing is strange. We've never done that. I don't even remember doing that when I was a kid.
I think the counting presents thing is strange. We've never done that. I don't even remember doing that when I was a kid.
Yes, well unfortunately, this is how his friend is and how he is being raised. If I thought it would be a one-time thing, I guess I wouldn't be too worried about it, but I know this child will come back after Christmas bragging about his presents. He also lies about these things, but of course my son doesn't realize it. It sounds so sad, but he is really a pretty sweet, well-behaved boy except for bragging and lying so he can brag more. It is his role models... And since there are a total of three boys in his grade, there won't be avoiding him!
Thank you everyone for the suggestions! I have several ideas in place to head it off when it comes.
Yes, well unfortunately, this is how his friend is and how he is being raised. If I thought it would be a one-time thing, I guess I wouldn't be too worried about it, but I know this child will come back after Christmas bragging about his presents. He also lies about these things, but of course my son doesn't realize it. It sounds so sad, but he is really a pretty sweet, well-behaved boy except for bragging and lying so he can brag more. It is his role models... And since there are a total of three boys in his grade, there won't be avoiding him!
Thank you everyone for the suggestions! I have several ideas in place to head it off when it comes.
I saw a cute kids DVD called, "The Toy that Saved Christmas" (VeggieTales) the other day. The idea behind it is that the "hot toy" of the year "Buzzsaw Louie" knows that there must be more to Christmas than grumpy kids and greedy wishes. He leads the other characters on a search to find the true meaning of Christmas- the birth of Jesus. I'm not sure how old your son and his friend are, but this would be a good one for them to watch- together!
We're starting a new tradition this year---3 gifts for the three kings! That's it! That's enough, stores are open other days, you can buy stuff other times, too. Its just gotten out of hand, all the gifts given and expected on Christmas, you end up buying stuff just to make a gift, it either goes back or passed on or given to Goodwill. I ask myself, it if weren't Christmas, would I buy this? I came up with some nice ideas of gifts my kids could really use and enjoy, not just something to wrap and put under the tree
I think our kids ended up with 6 each (2 of which are slated as Santa gifts). And just from my recollection in terms of monetary value it is downsized from previous years.
Really the younger two kids just like opening stuff so you can't really go wrong with 5-6 inexpensive items.
So now that Christmas is over - how did everything go? Do you feel the kids liked their gifts and more importantly had a good experience and that Christmas lived up to the expectations?
Ours was good and simple. We do this thing where the kids may open one gift each day until Christmas, and we save the special gift for Christmas day. The smaller gifts leading up to Christmas are always practical, useful things that they need: new headphones, sweaters, warm hats and gloves, etc. This year our kids for some reason were really wanting fingerless gloves, so when they opened those they were really excited, which was fun to see. I'm not sure a lot of other kids would get excited over being given wool gloves for Christmas, but I figure this is just how our kids are because of the way we're raising them. They also were given blank journals to write in, a nice pen made by a local woodworker. We try to purchase local things as much as possible. The sweaters were made locally, the journals were made locally, the chocolates were made locally, the hats and gloves and so forth. All the smaller, more practical gifts we bought at a local holiday market where the crafters and artists sell their own handmade creations. (Eugene's holiday market) I also made some things for them as well.
Anyway - don't want to make it too long (too late! lol)... but it was a good Christmas! Simple and sweet.
This year we also got more creative with our gifts. I also started collecting coupons for stores like toys r us, bed, bath, beyond, walgreens, etc. One coupon at walgreens was for free photo book so I made each of my kiddos one of their lives so far; they loved it and I only had to pay for one. I had a coupon and bday coupon at toys r us so only spent $40 on about 6 gifts. Also, my little one has wanted batteries for a special toy she had and I finally found the batteries for it; she flipped!
A friend of mine keeps a running list all year and gets items when she sees them so at xmas she is not spending a fortune on crappy stuff. I guess it is a matter of listening, then the kid forgets, and is pleasantly surprised on christmas that mom or santa got it.
I am very pleased with how our Christmas turned out. Thank you to everyone who posted on this thread. We spent $50 total on the gifts for our two children (4 and 10.) We gave the children each three gifts, just like Jesus received at Christmas from the wise men. My 10-year-old has been very grateful this Christmas and has acted mature beyond her years. We made sure to spend time in prayer prior to opening presents to thank God for them. We moved our time to read the Bible's account of the Christmas story to after lunch, when everyone would be more likely to listen. My four-year-old has shown me that it would not matter what he would have received- he would still want more. He got a Hot Wheels race track from his aunt at Thanksgiving- now he says he wants to give it back and get a bigger better one. This actually (in a strange way) makes me feel relieved. I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that whether he received 1 or 20 presents on Christmas morning- he'd always want something else. Therefore I can keep my modest budget and not feel guilty about it! We obviously need to work on the issue of materialism with him, but we don't have to feel like we have deprived him of anything. We plan to keep our "simple Christmas" plan from now on- to keep the focus on Jesus- which is good for everyone in the family.
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