This year, we decided on a new gift tradition. We have spent the entire year learning about God. As you can see from my other blog posts, we are learning about following God in all that we do and say. Christmas has really become a secular and commercialized season. To keep the true spirit of the season, we have decided to rein in the gorge of presents.
Starting this year, each child gets 3 presents from us. The significance of the 3 gifts is that the wise men brought baby Jesus 3 presents in the manger. The children really like this idea. They made their lists cheerfully at the beginning of the month. I can honestly say that this has been a peaceful and wonderful Christmas.
Buying just 3 presents each posed some logistical dilemmas for Michael and I. We had to take into account what others were buying then find 3 gifts that we thought the children would enjoy . I had to rein in the urge to buy Logan things that he needed for his therapies but that is another blog post. 🙂 It was a wonderful experience though. A great deal of thought went into every gift.
We are still doing Santa for the time being. Logan has finally understood the concept of Christmas and Santa and all that goes with it. He wakes up excited and wakes everyone else up too. I waited many years to get to this point. I am not ready to give that up just yet.
GREAT idea.. ya’ll shoulda shared that earlier! i totally get the Santa thing too. we aren’t ‘doing it’…but not NOT doing it… but i know what you are saying about getting to a certain point… and wanting to savor the moment