Dreaming of a Gift Free Holiday Season

I’m currently having an emotional wrestling match with myself about the upcoming Holidays.  After a year+ that involved two big moves and getting rid of a lot of stuff, I am feeling uncomfortable with the impending gift giving season and adding more stuff to our household that we don’t need (particularly when we could still use to get rid of more!).  But there are children involved, and therein lies the rub.  Whereas I would really love to go completely “gift free” I know I can’t with the kids (who both believe in Santa), it would be devastating for them.  Even last year, when we went to Disneyland for Christmas (a wonderful gift in itself) Avery was like, “Santa didn’t bring us much this year, he must think I’ve been a bad girl.”  I had to explain to her about the global economy and recession to try to convince her Santa cut back for everyone, not just her.  And it also made me angry with our society for impressing upon young children that they receive Holiday gifts based on their level of “goodness” which, if it was true, might be a fair system, but as we all know, it is not.

I was trying to explain this internal debate to my husband the other night, and unfortunately he misinterpreted my vehemence about the topic as being directed at him and so it almost turned into an argument.  I admit, I was whining about how it is a little harder because we have two holidays in our family that involve gift giving (Hanukah and Christmas) and how I was happy that this year they actually overlap so we can avoid celebrating a full 8 days of one and then all the days surrounding Christmas too.  Hey, I was being honest, I have nothing against Hanukah, except that it is so long and drawn out.  But, in the process I may have destroyed my best ally in this holiday gift giving battle.  So now I must reach out to the internet.

I continue to struggle with what to do, how to limit the gifts, how to talk to the kids about it without ruining the magic of the holidays, etc. etc.  Of course we try to focus on the role of giving of ourselves and the importance of spending time with family as a gift and they get that, sort of, but they still wish for toys and “things” and that is the harder part to wean out.  For example, this year Avery has said she wants one of those mechanical dogs that follows your commands.  Two years ago Santa brought her one of those dogs and she never played with it!  We got rid of it because it was so obtrusive and ridiculous.  Even when I remind her that she had one before she still says she wants it, that this time it will be different!  What? How?  I have repeatedly told her I think it’s really unlikely Santa will bring her a toy he’s brought before and that she didn’t play with, hopefully that will sink in at some point.

The adults in my family have actually been really good about minimizing the last few years; we give very few gifts to each other at Christmas (sometimes none at all) and we stopped doing stockings for adults a few years ago which has helped tremendously with holiday stress.  I think this year I’m going to try to focus on giving consumable items if I have to give a gift at all, something that can be used and then disappears (a flowering bulb or some coffee or something like that).  I’m going to try to translate that to the kids as well (maybe some art activities or science project activities that will get used up), but the pull to buy them things that they want, things that look like junk to me, is actually really hard to avoid.  Another stumbling block I have is that I do think there is some value in learning to be someone who gives a thoughtful gift, and that picking out something for your sibling is kind of fun so I’m not sure if I’ll be shooting myself in the foot if I have them not give gifts to each other.  I will certainly encourage them to be creative in their gift giving (and maybe make a gift) but I don’t know if, with a newborn, I’ll have time and energy to facilitate that (but will try!).  Anyway, I’m open to ideas that people have about how to teach our kids to want less “stuff” for the holidays and what strategies other parents may be using towards this goal.

In my search for useful information about how to talk to my kids about this, I ran across several Christmas minimalism sites (that are more adult focused) and thought I would share:

http://www.becomingminimalist.com/2010/11/26/35-gifts-your-children-will-never-forget/

http://www.missminimalist.com/2010/11/miss-minimalists-gift-avoidance-guide/

http://zenhabits.net/bah/