I sit here staring at my kids christmas gifts piled up by the stairway just waiting to be taken to their rooms. Like most folks, Hope and I put a limit on this years gift giving. Honestly, it was more enjoyable. I think the pressure of buying for everyone takes a bit of the fun out of the season. This year we put a limit on how much we would spend for the kids and even got the grandparents to pare down the number of gifts they bought as well. For the adults we either drew a name and only bought for that person (on one side of the family) or decided to completely eliminate adult gifts (the other side of the family).
I for one have always felt that the season is more for kids. In fact I told Hope and the kids several weeks ago that instead of them buying me anything for Christmas that we would instead sponsor 2 kids through the YMCA angel program. So two weeks ago we headed to WalMart. It was girls against the boys and with a $100 budget for each of our “angel” kids we had a little competition to see who could get the most stuff. While Hope and my daughter got the most stuff, I think my son and I scored by getting our kid a bike! It was fun to be shopping for a child we didn’t even know. Somehow it put the spirit of the season back into the hectic Holidays.
Somehow I don’t think our pared down holiday was much different from others. It seems that everyone we know has been impacted in one way or another from this recession. Getting the spending inline with reality and explaining to the kids that Santa isn’t immune to the recession has turned out to be a good thing.
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