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Guests
Lorraine
Erica
On Christmas morning I sat there with my coffee in hand staring at the mounding pile of gifts under the Christmas tree and thought to myself…..”do a 5 year old and a 2 year old REALLY need all of this stuff?”. Don’t get me wrong, it was super fun to buy all of the goodies for my two little ones. But, am I setting a wrong precedent with my children right out of the gate that at Christmas time they can expect to receive everything and anything they ever wanted?
I know as parents we want to give our children all that we didn’t get as kids. However, with all of the waste and with the recession going on right now, is that the “right” thing to do? What really made me think about this was when my 5 year old asked me if Santa was going to bring her a laptop and iPod…..seriously? I asked her what she was planning to do with the laptop if she got one and she responded by saying she was going to surf www.webkins.com as she was sure that Santa was going to bring her a new Webkins as well. Gosh, when does it end?
I spoke to my friend and fellow mom about my guilty feelings and she felt the same way. She has a 9 year old and a 7 year old. However, she decided to take action this year. She told her kids that they could choose one present from Santa (with a dollar limit I might add) and she set expectations early in the month that mommy and daddy would be buying them two additional presents each and that was it. When I spoke to her after Christmas, to find out how it went, she said that her kids were a tiny bit disappointed at the decreased amount of presents….but, by noon they were over it and quite happy with what they did receive.
Now that my friend essentially did the preverbal “rip off of the band aid” this year with decreasing the present amount, she is good to go with setting reasonable expectations for the Christmas’s ahead.
What I learned through all of this is that it’s inherent in our kids to want ALL that they can have; however, it is our jobs as parents to teach them restraint and to set reasonable expectations on what they will receive BEFORE Christmas morning to avoid any disappointment on the big day.
Ok, parents….we have 361 days to accomplish our task. Good luck!
Filed under: Parenting Tagged: | Baby, Emotional Issues, Family, Motherhood, New Parents, Parenting, relationships, rookie mom
We went completely over the top this year at Christmas. In part, because it was the first Christmas that our nearly two year old could appreciate – she didn’t really get it last year. The other, bigger part, is because we just can’t help ourselves. And I convinced myself that she would be too young to remember anyway and hence not develop expectations next year.
But next year, I would definitely like to dial it back. Especially given how many presents she gets from relatives. I’m thinking one main present, a couple of little ones and the stocking. Something that’s going to be sustainable when we have more than one to buy for.
So funny, we were just discussing this at dinner tonight. But not so much how we would dial it back next year, but how we would tackle getting the grandparents to cut back. I had to have a word with my 5yo about making sure she was grateful for her presents and remembering to say thankyou to the giver. But I think her lack of enthusiasm for the later presents was due to overkill. She was actually bored of opening presents. My 2yo still had 5 to open on Sunday as his absence during nap time had put him behind on the present opening schedule. So next year we will ask for less and hopefully appreciate more what we do have.
And there will be no crackers. Another story, but I hereby declare them a waste of time, money and an unnecessary generator of waste. Bah Humbug!
My 7 year old had a long list for santa and on it were things like an iPod touch and a trampoline. After she wrote it I sat down with her and explained that while it was fun to wish for lots of things that she had to understand that Santa would look at her list and decide what… if anything she would get off of it. I told her she had to trust that Santa would pick something that even though it might not be on her list, it would still be something she would enjoy. So she did get a new Wii game from Santa, but not the one she had asked for. One I felt was better suited to her and also meant the constraints of our budget.
I explained to her that everyone would be cutting back and she shouldn’t expect a boatload of presents as she’s had in previous years. And she was fine with the explanation and was fine as we were receiving our gifts. Our 3 year old just kinda went with the flow, she doesn’t really have a frame of reference at this point, so she was happy too.
I directed the grandparents to categories of toys we wouldn’t mind receiving like Little People (which are a huge hit here with both my girls), board games, art supplies and books. My husband and I agree it was an improvement all around from previous years, but we could still do better.