Our Christmas tree is up and decorated. This means that the twins are getting a lot more pack and play time. :) We are using our Way of Light Advent Wreath from the Voskamp family along with the Advent Calendar I made last year. I love anticipating Christmas Day with my family.
What do you do for gifts for your kids? Dollar limit? Gift limit? No gifts? Stocking stuffers? We generally give our kids three gifts each and stocking stuffers. I am curious if anyone has given less to their kids and given more to the poor? We would love to head in this direction, but we are not sure our kids would get it or appreciate the altruism especially since they have not placed their faith in Christ yet.
Would love your kind feedback.
Merry Christmas!
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I recently saw a gift-giving prompt that I love.
ReplyDeleteEach child receives four gifts:
one they want
one they need
one they wear and
one they can read!
My husband and I have been thinking over this question for while, now especially since we have a baby on the way. We've thought of, when he gets big enough, to give him two presents: one he wants and one he wants to give away. Just an idea. I'd love to hear others' advice as well.
ReplyDeleteWe give three gifts... a toy, a book and clothes. We also stuff stockings. We have dorked around with Santa for seven years now... "We wont lie of they ask...." and I think Bowden knows the truth but we are going to stop it. We are going to watch the Veggie Tale about St Nick on Friday night and then talk about the history of Santa. I have been bothered byt he fact that our "small Christmas" has been lost among all the gifts from others. So we have decided to do things differently this year. We are going to open our stuff first thing, birthday party for Jesus, that kind of stuff. Then we are going to go and "pay calls" on people... we want to reach out to others on Christmas... not just have it be about laying around in our PJ's all day recovering from the frantic pace of the past five weeks.... then when we come home the littles can open anything else they got....
ReplyDeleteI've heard of adults doing the "donating to charity in your name" thing for Xmas and love it. LOVE it. So I think it would be wonderful if you started that same sort of tradition with your kiddos; if you start young, they'd never know any different! Perhaps start with something really tangible, like a tree or something in their name. Or like, a spot on a wall of a church/school building being built, ya know? Really fantastic idea.
ReplyDeleteWe obviously have little guys who won't know the difference this year; however, in my family growing up, we always got a pair of new pj's on Christmas Eve (it took us many years to figure out that the gift we got on xmas eve was always going to be pjs!), stockings (full of candy and socks and small gifts like lipgloss or pens, etc.), one main gift, and a calendar. There were sometimes other gifts, but nothing extravagant. We also had a habit of going through our things regularly (unrelated to Christmas) throwing away and giving away things we no longer used or needed. I plan to do this with my boys (to give excess toys/clothes to those who do not have many).
ReplyDeleteWe adopted a kid that lives at Our House homeless shelter this year. I know its too early to fully understand but it means something to me that I tried to make Rylan understand the spirit of it being about everyone having a celebration of the holiday, not just him and Max. Or just him.
ReplyDelete