So, is spending $100 on the holiday's an achievable goal? Well, probably not this year. I think it would need a year's worth of "education" if you want to call it that. Setting expectations with the kids about a new way to celebrate the holidays. Planning way ahead so that everyone would have time to come up with creative alternatives for gift giving. But having said that, we have actually been talking about alternatives since around May, when my mom was here visiting us and we were talking about ways to save money at Christmas. We said we wanted to move more toward a "Handmade, Antique or Fair Trade" holiday. Rachel has been thinking about gifts she can make for several months now. She's actually even made a few! I've been doing a lot of thinking too - that's where it has ended though. Alex and Pat are kind of at a loss. They don't do crafts, and I don't even think Pat knew what fair trade was until I starting organizing the whole CRS Fair Trade Sale at church. So, I'm still not quite sure what to do about the holidays yet. I am planning to keep it simple though. No expensive, electronic gifts. Nothing large and heavy that has to be shipped from Chicago to Seattle (we say this every year and every year spend almost $200 just to ship things...) Most of the gifts for members of my family are very small tokens from Peru (fair-trade - ha!) and in Pat's family we always do a White Elephant deal, so that cuts down on the frivolous buying. Somewhere I heard this catchy little piece of holiday-buying guidance - "Something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read". So, maybe that's what we'll use this year for a gift-giving strategy for the kids.
What is everyone else doing????
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
$100 on all of Christmas?! Sheesh, I'm feeling all frugal because I'm shooting for $100 PER PERSON. I think if I tried to do $100 for the whole family, that would just about cover a lump of coal in each stocking. :) With Santa making a BIG stop here each December, I can't cut it too far down. Friday night Bill and I went out for a little pre-season shopping and all he did was wander around the store grumbling about how "we have way too much crap in our house already." He's so much fun! :)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this is something that bugs me every year too. It feels SO awful and materialistic. Why do we celebrate Jesus' birth by buying a bunch of stuff we don't need? I remember a guy I dated in college wanting to say to his family, about what to get him for Christmas, "Well, you're not going to get me anything I REALLY want, like a car, so...just get me a sweater."
Every year I try to creatively buy as little as possible, while trying to make it feel like a lot. And I always struggle with the idea of telling the kids we're going to have a frugal Christmas, b/c we're going to focus on celebrating Jesus' birthday, we already have so much, lots of people need things more than we do, etc. etc. I don't want them to feel deprived, or have depressing Christmas memories or anything.
But this year I'm feeling a new spin on that theme. It doesn't even feel like such a sacrifice to me to have a small Christmas. More like a privilege. And if I'm not thinking that the kids will be deprived and depressed, then why would THEY think so? One of the bonus things about having lots of kids is that even with only one or two presents per person, the tree looks overflowing with stuff on Christmas morning. (But obviously that also means that even with only one or two presents per person, the tree IS overflowing with stuff...sigh)
I'm going to try to keep it down, though. And some time around Thanksgiving, we're going to have a big toy and clothing give-away by me and the kids.
Also, in honor of the first Christmas in a few years that I'm NOT pregnant:) and actually might have enough energy to do more than the absolute bare minimum just to get through the holidays (nice, huh?), we're going to try to get very involved in holiday giving. Our church does food baskets and a giving tree, and I'm thinking we'll sign up to deliver baskets and also to have each child choose an ornament from the giving tree and pick gifts out for that person. We also focus on Advent quite a bit, and read lots and lots of Jesus' birthday books.
And, by the way, we might be day-tripping to IL just before Christmas, so if you're going to be anywhere near the midwest, we'd love to see you guys! :)
Yikes--what a long comment! Sorry. :)
ReplyDelete