As Christmas fast approaches, DH and I have had many conversations about how to change our Christmas to a more simple one. With my family, we always choose names and only have to buy for one other adult and then we buy for the kids. His family was our concern this year. We usually buy for everyone, and we spend a lot of money. But it wasn’t just a money issue for us, it was the fact that we were making our wishlists of things that would be nice to have but they weren’t necessities (and if we really wanted/needed them we could buy them ourselves).
Our favorite memories of Christmas are those special gifts. The one and only gift we could have gotten all Christmas and it would’ve made our day because we cherished them. The others were just that – others. They were fill-ins. Why fill in when you get the one thing that makes you gleam with Christmas cheer? We have really tried to focus on gifts that will do that.
Not only do we have memories of gifts though – even as children we loved setting out the cookies and milk for Santa, watching Christmas movies on TV (Frosty, Prancer, Charlie Brown Christmas…), setting up the Christmas tree while dad struggled with the base, decorating and putting the angel on top of the tree, and sitting in a dark living room being calmed by the glow of the rainbow lights on the tree. Those are the simple and special things of Christmas. Those are things we wanted to focus on this year.
Of course, we still bought gifts but we tried to make wise choices and have the presents have more meaning. Hopefully they will be considered thoughtful and bring a smile to someone’s face. In the back of our mind, we kept manifesting a lighter, simpler Christmas though.
We got our wish! His family has asked what we wanted to do for their side. Choose names, one last splurge, etc. DH piped up and said, “How about we spend the whole day together? Each couple will be in charge of a meal throughout the day and we’ll watch Christmas movies and comedies all day?” Now *that* sounds like fun and like a wonderful tradition for Sprout to be a part of.
Enjoy the moments of this Christmas season. Happy Holidays!
Picture courtesy of ~ http://www.kinkadecentral.com/tk2007b-christmas-cottage.jpg
Sounds like a fun Christmas to me! I love your blog and the pictures you find!!!
Best,
Kara
If/when Jeff and I have children, I know the gift thing is going to be a struggle for us. Like you’ve written about here and before, I want to be thoughtful about what toys/etc. our children will have. I’ll want to reduce the plastic, the purposeless, the battery-needed, the useless abundance of it all. I eluded to this before with my family, and my aunt basically rolled her eyes at me telling me that people will want to buy gifts and you can’t tell them what to buy/what not to buy/or even if to buy. I think she missed my point.