Another Christmas is in the books, and oh what a Christmas
it was!
We always try to keep Christmas simple, but we decided to
make this year even more minimalistic. Last year the kids got SO much love from
our extended family that once we included our gifts, Christmas Day was a bit
overwhelming. We want them to enjoy each gift they receive instead of drowning
in wrapping paper, so this year we allowed them each to open some gifts leading
up to Christmas to cut down on the number of presents they open at one time.
Joshua and I both come from largish families who like to dote on our kids, so
even with this strategy each child still had one or two gifts to open on
Christmas Day.
We’re what I would call “comfortable minimalists.” We do have
more than two sets of clothes each, but we try not to have more than what we
actually like and use. We try not to buy things just for the sake of having
“stuff” for the kids to open on Christmas. I can’t stand clutter, and they
don’t need a bunch of toys they are going to forget about in two weeks. With
that in mind, we decided to do very little in the way of gifts this year.
We bought Baby’s first Bible, as we always do on our babies’
first Christmases. I bought two things from the dollar store that the other
kids needed, and we bought a tool for our oldest who is learning how to build
birdhouses. That was about the extent of the items we actually bought. The kids
and I made salt dough ornaments for Papa who (until now) didn’t have any
ornaments of his own to put on the tree. I re-gifted one of the gifts that the
kids received multiples of last year (and they were still just as excited to
get it again haha). Their big gift was a play kitchen and an easel that Joshua
found by the side of the road. They were missing a couple pieces, but otherwise
just needed a bit of cleaning up to be good as new.
The best part of the gifts was their stockings. We have a
tradition born of a bit of last minute fun a few years ago. One year my family
came to visit a couple of weeks before Christmas and we celebrated with them
early. On Christmas Eve Joshua and I decided we wanted to put a little something
in the kids’ stockings even though they weren’t expecting anything the next
morning. We went around the house stuffing in random items – old cell phones,
toys from our childhood, tea bags, fruit. Joshua and I had a blast adding funny
little things that we already owned, and the kids were thrilled to find their
full stockings on Christmas Day.
This has become one of our family’s favorite Christmas
traditions. Joshua and I always look forward to Christmas Eve when we have fun
together filling stockings with weird things without spending any money. And
the kids always look forward to seeing what strange things Mama and Papa came
up with this time. There are always lots of giggles and lots of squeals of
excitement as they open their stockings to find treasures new and old.
This year’s stash included: flash cards, a puzzle, finger puppets,
chapstick, a purse, and leaping frogs, all of which the kids had forgotten we
had. Each stocking also contained: a piece of chocolate, a disposable straw, a
peppermint stick, a special cup, a candy cane, and a green apple.
The toilet paper proved to be one of our best ideas. After
all the gifts were opened and everyone had eaten Christmas dinner we played
games with the toilet paper. We had a contest to see who could roll up their
toilet paper the fastest. We had a balancing game to see who could walk the
line of toilet paper without stepping off (adapted for Little Miss to see if
she could roll her wheelchair down the hall without touching the toilet paper
with her wheels). We competed to see who could throw their roll of toilet paper
the farthest. We had a “tree decorating” contest where Monkey1 and Monkey2 were
the “trees” and Mama and Papa decorated them with toilet paper. And lastly we
had a “snowball fight” with wads of toilet paper.
It was So. Much. Fun!
We love giving gifts to our kids. We love that they receive
wonderful gifts from others. But we don’t want that to be the main thing about
Christmas for our kids. We try to focus most on having fun together as a family.
Traditions like making a gingerbread house, going to look at lights on
Christmas Eve, playing games on Christmas Day, watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”
and eating a simple but scrumptious dinner is what makes the season feel like
Christmas to us.
Because this year’s budget was so tight, in the days leading
up to Christmas I felt a little sorry for how little we were doing. But it
ended up being hands down the best Christmas we’ve ever had! Kids don’t care
how much you spend on their gifts. They don’t care if it’s brand new. The
little ones don’t even care if it was already theirs before you gave it to
them! We were able to focus on relaxing and having fun as a family without the
stress of making sure we got the perfect gift for each child.
We laughed. A lot. We snuggled. We enjoyed the gifts we
received from others.
And we gave thanks.
For our family.
For life.
For love.
For God bringing us through the hardest year of our lives.
And for the simple joys of Christmas.
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