It’s Christmas Time!
We are blessed. I’m going to start there.
This is a first world problem of a post and I get it.
Know that I’m working out these thoughts because I get that, and I really want to turn our blessings into making good humans. I am the kind of person that needs to talk it out to work out the kinks. Over and over and over. Ask my husband. Let’s just say he is glad I can blog about things.
A few weeks ago, Julia became mobile. And with that, Reegan became territorial. And with that, we realized we have some thinking to do in order to help her process this change. All around the holidays where gifts are plentiful. Hello, sensory overload.
Yup.
It’s also a post about Social Emotional Learning Skills and processing feelings while getting more and more stuff. That’s another post I’m writing about the guilt of being so focused on these… 1st world things. But I’m raising humans. And I care about how I do that. So again, bear with me.
As I mentioned in this post, I combat my urge for constant consumerism habits with instagram accounts and books on Minimalism,and somewhere on the journey I saw this video about the importance of kids being bored.
So, what do you do with Santa? And all the gifts from being good this year?
I grew up in a home where my mom made holidays incredibly special. For Christmas, the couches were covered in favorite things, my sister and I got one of each cool new toy, and my mom took joy out of pouring over us. Everything was thoughtful and she disliked limits on the occasion.
We had HUGE Christmases, and as a kid it was straight up the best thing ever. I have no idea how she did it.
So of course, I want that Christmas experience for my kids, but surrounding that is this feeling of wanting to simplify.
I haven’t figured out the balance. The balance of stuff and purpose.
This year, since Julia is only 8 months old and Reegan is almost 3, we’ve decided to make the Santa gifts, playroom gifts. Julia can’t open much and I don’t want the pressure of a certain amount of boxes each. It’s a test run for us. A year we can experiment and fine tune.
For right now, Santa brings things to share.
Playroom gifts, we figured, would be like classroom gifts… for everyone in the room.
We would leave the individual gifts up to grandparents and family. Also, giving each of them a small gift from Mommy & Daddy. I even encouraged family to donate towards activities like dance class, or gymnastics, and focus on things we will be needing like leotards and pajamas.
Money well spent and a present they can see in action.
I love to turn to my Facebook friends when questions like this come up. I asked how Christmas and Santa were handled in their homes and was amazed by the answers.
A lot of people do a small amount from Santa, to limit confusion at school, and then a gift from the parents. Most of friends are doing much smaller Christmases than we had ourselves (Maybe we are all feeling this way?) And some even follow the Want, Need, Read, Wear idea. Which might be my favorite of them all. I can see this being our rule book as the girls get older and make lists.
As we head into the Christmas season, I’m realizing that just like everything with motherhood, there is no normal and nothing is one size fits all. I wish there was a summit where we voted on shared rules, but there isn’t.
Everyone is figuring it out as they go, just like me.
For us, this year will be small and quiet. A few shared gifts, and time together. NGL it kind of sounds amazing.
Photos by Jeff Roffman Photography
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