A Simpler Christmas

This fall as the "holiday" season was approaching, I started to wonder if it would be possible to keep Christmas simple (it felt like it had spiraled out of control the last few years).  I mean, we are a family of 6 which is not "simple" in and of itself.  In addition to our own family traditions, this year we would be traveling to Pennsylvania to spend a week with most of my side of the family (I'm one of 4 siblings which means there are spouses and 10 cousins including our four).  Then we usually celebrate with Jon's family after we return which is another celebration with his married siblings and 8 cousins.  And this year, we threw in an amazing & meaningful Christmas celebration with our church community that we happened to be heading up. 

I read through several people's blogs on Christmas--on sticking to the true meaning, on creating meaningful traditions and keeping it simple.  I read Jen Hatmaker's blog, Sarah Carter's blog and Shauna Niequist's blog to get the ideas flowing.  We didn't chuck everything, but we did pare things down both in our advent season (more on that later) and on Christmas day.

We decided that we'd take our stockings with us to Pennsylvania.  We usually fill these full of sugary treats--this year there were just 2 small treats in there for each child, a few lego guys, a new spin toothbrush (our kids actually get excited about this, except for Caleb who we learned is terrified of motorized toothbrushes), a chickfila calendar with a treat for each month, and a new book.  Each child got one small present that they had asked Santa for while were in Pennsylvania.  So, we didn't do away with Santa altogether---although we didn't promote him much either.

When we returned home, we had our "family Christmas".  We gave each boy one item that they wanted (a toy), an experience (Medieval Times, tickets to the movies, tickets to see Peter Pan and a trip to the Chicago Children's Museum) and $25 to give to a charity/cause of their choice.  That was it.  Nothing else from us.  No small toys.  No extra things we found that were a good deal.  No matching pjs (like we normally do).  No new clothes.  This was hard for me.  I love shopping for the boys and they still enjoy getting matching pjs, new clothes, books, etc.  I could have bought them all sorts of things that I could have argued were useful or good for them.  I also worried that they wouldn't think it was special enough.  I worried that they would notice we had scaled down and that they wouldn't think it was special.  I was wrong.  In fact, they seemed to be more thankful and excited about their one toy because it wasn't lost in a sea of new items. 

We went back and forth about the experience gift and whether it should include our whole family or just be for each specific child.  We decided that if we could find things that were reasonably priced, we would make it a family affair so that we were creating memories together as a family but also because it would get pricey and cumbersome finding babysitting for several different events.  So, we watched for groupons and livingsocial deals so that each of the "experiences" we gifted were less than half the normal retail price---yay! 

The $25 for them to each give went better than I anticipated also.  No one complained about having to give it away.  Instead, the older boys thought about what they wanted to do and asked for help doing research on the computer.  James decided he wanted to help orphans.  So we did research on different organizations.  We landed on Show Hope's website and then watched several videos about the different ways you could designate your money to be used.  He was really concerned about kids with medical needs and ended up giving $20 of his dollars to help fund a cleft palate surgery (yep---we had to explain what that was first since he had no idea).  He used his remaining $5 to send to baby Isaac who recently had a kidney transplant (His mom and I went to college).  We prayed for Isaac each night of December and he wanted to make sure that if Isaac needed medicine that he had some help with the cost.

Andrew wanted to figure out a way to get his money to help feed people in another country.  We looked at buying a rabbit or chickens through World Vision, but then he really liked the sound of Feed My Starving Children.  We watched several videos on the website (great learning tools) and I told him about the times I had served there packing meals before.  He loved the idea that his money could buy lots of meals for several people since each meal only costs 22 cents.  He gave his full $25 there and we signed up for him to go pack meals at the Schaumburg location later this month.

Aaron spent less time researching where to give (he's only 5 after all).  I gave him a few suggestions based on his interests and he decided to help support K-love (a christian radio station) since we listen to it regularly in the car.

For some, this might not even sound simplified and for others, this might be too drastic.  This is just what our family tried this year and I have to admit, it was nice having much less to wrap, hardly anything to put away and much less drama about "stuff".  Overall, it was much less stressful, required less errands and allowed us to spend more time as a family and in social settings with friends and family.  I'm sure we will have lots of adjustments in the coming years on this as we attempt to create traditions and also be intentional about keeping things simple.

The one-on-one time doing research with each of the boys was fun and interesting--to see their questions and see them starting to understand the privileges that they are blessed with--although we still have lots of work in this area.  I'm also thankful for the memories that our "experience" gifts are going to bring in the coming weeks.  Speaking of that, its time to wrap this up because we're heading out to Medieval Times (Aaron's experience gift) in a few minutes.