Do you give your child everything on their list?
Do you set a dollar limit on the amount you spend on them?
How does one shift the kids' atttiudes from getting to giving?
This year we will try something new and will be putting a portion of what we normally spend on the kids towards life-changing gifts for others through World Vision. My kids have agreed to this with cheerful attitudes....much to my delight.
7 comments:
This is our first year so I have absolutely no insight but it's already on my radar! I think we'll have a $$ limit while he is little and then will depend on what's on the list when he is older. With that said, we have no plans to go absolutely crazy this year and are already looking at a few ways to have some meaningful gifts for his first Christmas. Regardless though, each year there is and will continue to be something involving charity. Last year we started a new trend for our extended family. Instead of 1 gift per person (which was getting way expensive) we now do 1 gift per family/couple and then something little for the kiddos (there are only 4 of them) and so last year we had some extra cash to put towards charity. We'll be continuing that each year now. :)
I'm requesting that it's fine with me if you gift a needy family instead of buying me anything.
After you get me a Kindle, you can do what you want with the rest of your money. Hahaha.
We don't really put a dollar amount on the gifts we give the kids but we don't go hog wild with the spending. This year is especially tight so it will be a meager Christmas but thankfully the girls are ok with that. As for charity, when the girls were small we always did the Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. A couple of years ago our church did a Build-A-Stable dealio through World Vision and our girls pooled their money to buy an animal. This year Paige's best friend discovered that one of their school peers is really poor so their whole group of friends is pooling their resources to buy the needy family a grocery store gift card. That made me really proud to see that the lessons we've instilled in the girls over the years have become a way of life for them.
Yes, we have a limit on what we'll spend on each child. We are trying to give more away each year and spend less on ourselves. We buy from the World Vision and Compassion catalogues and we print out a picture of what we gave (a goat, a pig etc.) and put the pic in a box and wrap it up and put it under our Christmas tree. It helps the kids really think about what we gave away on Christmas morning. Also, Operation Christmas Child boxes and we've convinced one set of grandparents to give to Compassion instead of gifts for our family. The materialism of North America at this time of year almost makes me crazy!!!
We try to buy one thing that they really want (which is getting more costly as the years go on) and then also do something charitable. Our situation is such that we are able to be hands on and quite practical in the charitable gifts, taking the kids along with us when we give out food and items of need. We've always done a toy clear out a few times a year, donating the no-longer-played-with toys. Just the other day, Charlie and Lola sorted through their toys on their own initiative and gave their bags of toys to lesser fortunate kids in our area. I was really impressed by their generosity.
we usually set a limit per kid. we did World Vision last year for a few gifts; it was awesome.
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