December 3rd, 2007 - a BIG Christmas

I can’t get this family out of my mind. Last year, Six they gave their kids 40-50 gifts EACH for Christmas. It’s really, really, really hard for me to reconcile that with being frugal. And oh yes, her personal description starts out “A frugal mom of four….”

But, every time I’m aghast, I remind myself of something very important: People are frugal for different reasons:

We’re actually buying things for Maggie this year. It started with a lovely frog I bought this summer from Pleasant View Schoolhouse. I was just going to put it with her stocking. But then I bought a cat from Nepal at the fair trade fair here on campus. That’s going in the stocking. And we decided to buy a set of handmade in the USA wooden tools and toolbox for her. (To replace the Playskool plastic and painted wood ones I found at garage sales and am now scared to give her.)

Just because I can’t wrap my head around the idea of giving one person 40-50 gifts (much less four people), that doesn’t mean someone else is wrong for doing it. I still like the idea I heard long ago of 7 gifts for Christmas:

  1. something for physical exercise, such as a ball or jumprope
  2. something to play with others, such as a board game
  3. a book
  4. something to encourage artistic creativity such as paints, clay, etc.
  5. ???
  6. ???
  7. ???

The problem is that I can’t remember what they are anymore! I read about it in a book and it’s what the author and his/her spouse gave their children each year.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2007 at 11:10 am EST and is filed under Kids, Holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

2 Responses to “a BIG Christmas”

  1. Megan Says:
    December 3rd, 2007 at 2:14 pm EST

    I just read this on another blog:
    “Something you want, something you need, something to play with, something to read.”

    We don’t have kids yet, but I think I’ll be doing the $50 limit and 4 gifts (but I might not spend all the $50 if I reach the goal with thrifted or Etsy items).

    But I have been giving my husband 4 gifts.

    We both have bdays around xmas - so I did 4 gift for his bday and 4 for xmas.

    For xmas I got him…. 2 prints (the most expensive things, but they were BOGO free!) for his office, a vintage camera (I’ve been ‘collecting’ them for him…to go in his office, he’s a photographer), 2 sweaters (maybe go in one gift box??) brand new from Goodwill, and I think I’ll get him 2 thermal shirts (I wasn’t going to, but just realized his are too small this winter, so I might throw those in).

    For his bday - in Nov. - you can see my blog for what i got him :D

  2. Megan Says:
    December 3rd, 2007 at 2:15 pm EST

    Oh! And I was at the Fair Trade fair…I was so excited to see they were doing it!!!

    but I had class 1130-1, so I ran over as soon as I could (before another class at 120) = but didn’t end up getting anything, just signed the petition :)

    If I wasn’t a commuter, and graduating soon, I’d get involved in all these cool ‘Green” campus organization - I just dont have time :(

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