Tuesday, October 07, 2008

1 per family please

So after Ayron and I discovered that Wal-Mart feels Christmas is just around the corner (read previous post) we began discussing our first Christmas as a family of 3. We decided to create a rule when giving presents to Taylor. 1 toy present per family. Meaning his parents can only get Taylor one toy. His brother and his wife and kids can only get Taylor one toy etc. We do something different with my sister and mom (I want to do what we did last year Natty) so I don't think it will be an issue.

We told Ayron's parents our plan last night and of course "grandma" was upset.

Here is our thinking behind it. We don't want Taylor to turn Christmas into a materialistic holiday. That is not what the holiday truly means. We had the simplest Christmas last year with my family and I want to keep it that way. My sister and I played and colored while Ayron cooked. It was great family time, keyword FAMILY. We also don't have the space for a ton of toys. I am a firm believer in creating an active imagination in children and I don't feel overloading them with fisher price toys they will never play with is the way to do it. Call me crazy, but that's the way I feel. I know kids who have so many toys they don't know what they have. I want my children to understand that a present is just that, a present. Not something to be expected. I also want to have my children donate their gently used, but hardly played with toys to someplace before (or right after) the holidays. This way they can know the joy of sharing.

As soon as we told grandma Reeves our plan she immediately tried to find a way around it. "Well, what if I get him clothes, does that count as a toy?" Now what do I do?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck with that one!! If JoEllen is anything like my MIL Sandy, you can talk till you're blue in the face and get ignored. I still let myself get stressed out every year, because she now does end runs around us to get to the kids for "Christmas list" before Thanksgiving. I'm still learning to just keep my mouth shut and control it at home...we have told the kids to write a wish list, but then we decide what to pass along to them to choose from.

I never wanted for my kids to look at G'ma as "Grandma moneybags" but unfortunately, they will now sometimes go ahead and ask her for stuff that we have already said we would not buy for them...like when they visit, or when we visit down there, Sandy always likes to take them shopping. It's a never-ending cycle up here.

I wish you luck, and much prayer, but you will also have to learn as I did that you can't control other ppl no matter how hard you try.

Love you!! Aunt L

Anonymous said...

I totally back you up on this one, Carma. Christmas at my parent's house last year was outrageous. My niece and nephew had more presents between the two of them than I think the 9 adults had combined. Josh and I were shocked and I have already informed my mother that she will NOT spoil my children that way. I go over to my sister's house and I am always amazed at the sheer number of toys they have. Just like you said in your blog, they don't even know that they have some of the toys that I've found. How sad is that? I want my children too to understand that Christmas isn't about presents and 'What can I get?'. I think it will be a battle with my family, but I'm stubborn-I think I can handle them. :)

Anonymous said...

Huzzah! You're going to have to remind me the details of "our" new tradition, though. I'm already rusty. I do remember it was nice and inexpensive though, and *that's* going to be essential (again) this year! ;0)

todd helmkamp said...

We're with you, too. Seriously, we cleaned out Luke's toybox the other night and he didn't even notice until he found the cardboard box filled with the toys going to Goodwill. I had so many toys as a kid that I never had time to play with them all. Dad tells me stories (that I like to tease him about) of only having a few toys, and he LOVED those toys. I want my boys to appreciate their possessions.

We put a spending limit in place. Now we'll see how well its followed.

Anonymous said...

I should make a bigger point to add that we DID try several times to talk to MIL about it when the kids were little, to no avail. (Hence - the "till you're blue in the face" comment.) Her response was either 1. pretend she never heard ut, or 2. "We never got to do this for our kids because we couldn't afford it. Now we can, so we ARE going to!"

I wish you MUCH better in your family!!

(Oh, and when the kids have done an end run around us the other way, be assured they DO get in major trouble. It's slowly getting better, and they are understanding more.)

Aunt L