As I have gotten older and have had kids, getting in the Christmas spirit has gotten difficult. Every year I get wrapped up in finding those gifts my girls want, TRYING to clean the house and prepare things so that on Christmas day, the house is "ready" for Christmas pictures. (looking back through old pictures I was not READY for Christmas day pictures. My house was a wreck and totally disorganized. I DO NOT want that for this year!) I put WAY more on my plate than I need to. I stress myself out to the brink of going nutso! And EVERY year I say I am gonna be ready WAY before November so I can ENJOY the Season. And yet again.... Here I am in the SAME predicament as always.... Stressed out and NOT in the Christmas spirit!
I fill my home with Christmas decorations. I LOVE to pull out all my nativities and find special places for each one. I love to decorate every inch of my home with greenery, red bows and lights.
It is a tradition in my family growing up to read a Christmas story, poem or scripture each night before bed through the month of Dec. This is SUPPOSED to help get us in the RIGHT mindset. The CHRIST-LIKE mindset. The one where is it better to GIVE than receive. I so wish that before we had kids my marine and I would've sat down to decide just how we wanted Christmas to be. I WISH with everything in me now that I would've started it LONG ago, to be SIMPLE. I have 2 sisters that do just 3 gifts per child. Just like the WISEMAN that brought gifts to the Christ child on the night so long ago. But I wanted my girls to have the Christmas they would LOVE and remember.
I remember as a child always having an abundance of gifts under the tree as well as the gifts from Santa. There were 6 kids in my family and both my parents were self employed. They did NOT have the money to do all that. Come to find out as I got older, we were SO blessed by family and friends each year. We had MANY angels and secret santa's that blessed our lives by giving us a Christmas.
My marines family growing up didn't have much either. His parents both self employed as well and just scraped by. Luckily their family was blessed by so many giving people at Christmas time too. Each year someone from church would "adopt" their family and there would have presents for everyone wrapped under the tree. But there wasn't much else. No presents from siblings and maybe just a homemade blanket and doll clothes for the girls, from their parents.
As I have gotten older I realize it is so much better to get things we NEED than what we want. We have become such a selfish people. It makes me sad. When I looked at my girls Christmas lists this year I was a little shocked..... my 10 year old asked for a IPOD Touch, IPAD, IPHONE etc. WHAT? I don't even have those. It is the society we live in I guess. I wish it was simpler like it was back then.
As this season draws closer to CHRISTMAS, I have prayed that the true season of Celebrating the birth of the Savior will fill my home and my heart. That the craziness of shopping and buying gifts will calm and we can focus on the importance of this season.
I don't think it's too late to change how you approach it! We never did a ton for our kids, but they certainly used to get a lot more when we were a 2-income family. Now that I'm a SAHM, they each get 1 gift from Santa and 1 small gift from us (bought on sale, of course, lol). They also each exchange a gift with 1 cousin, and then get something from their grandparents. It is still plenty! I was just totaling up how much I spent on them this year, and it was under $100 for all 3 girls. Yet, I have a feeling they will enjoy Christmas morning just the same. :-) I have to admit that last year I was worried they would be disappointed, but they weren't. They appreciated the homemade gifts as much as the store-bought ones. It seems to be something you really care about, so maybe get a plan in place for how you can simplify next year. :-) Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeletehey Thanks Nicole for the advice. I think a hard thing also is that as they get older they want more expensive gifts. But I will say that I have decided next year we are focusing on homemade :)
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