Christmas Gluttony with a Family

Well another Thanksgiving has come and gone, and what must follow the Thanksgiving holiday, but Black Friday.  This is my second Thanksgiving and Black Friday with our youngest daughter, and I find myself wondering how to prepare for Christmas.  Christmas is often a time that many of us purchase things that we don’t need and give others things that they don’t need.

This is something I want to change with our youngest daughter, but even as she will only be 14 months old I feel pressure to consume to show our 14 month old daughter “our love.”  She doesn’t need anything as we have been showered in gifts for her and many people still continue to bring us gifts for her.  So how am I dealing?  

First off…I’m overthinking it.  I want to get her gifts because it’s how I’ve been programmed and also because I don’t want to be judged by others for not getting her gifts.  Others will find it odd if I don’t get her gifts.  I know I shouldn’t care about this, but people will misunderstand my lack of gift buying as not loving her or being insanely cheap.  So, my plan is that I will continue to purchase items for our older daughters as they are used to.  They definitely don’t (truly) need anything, but we did forgo “back-to-school shopping” this year so they do have more need than usual.  We have decided to continue to shop for them like normal because it is what they are used to and also because with split custody we don’t want them to feel less “loved” because they receive fewer gifts in our home.  They will naturally get fewer gifts this year because we are still spending the same amount of money as normal, but they have picked our more expensive gifts this year.  For example, they both want air pods.  I ordered these online on Black Friday for $125 a set, but this will be a chunk of their Christmas money.  

But for our youngest daughter, that only spends time in our home we are making a change.  This year for Christmas she will receive a wooden personalized name puzzle and Christmas books.  These items will not cost a lot of money.  The puzzle will be thirty-five dollars or less and the books are about $5-7 each, so her Christmas with cost around $50-55.  I have chosen these items because they are items that I think she will enjoy and will be useful for years to come.  The puzzle will bring joy as most kids just enjoy completing puzzles, but it will serve a second function of teaching her.  The puzzle will teach the letters of her name and basic colors.  The books are something we can read now and for many years to come.  Baby E also has many clothes in her closet that are still brand new with tags on them and I haven’t decided yet if I will just wrap some of those up so she has more gifts under the tree.  What do you think?  Is there a way that you’ve cut down on consumerism in your home or specifically around the holidays?  Let me know in the comments below! I’ll post an update about what I decide to do with gifts under the tree or not.