Try and tackle Tuesday - the slimline version
I have adopted the American way. I will not whisper the word Christmas or the Holidays until after Thanksgiving, my new favourite holiday. However just this once I am breaking my self imposed silence in the hope of broadcasting peaceful sanity during the season of clamour. There are 57 days left until the Holidays. Here’s your chance to get ahead of the hunt.
Nip over to your library and borrow a book called “Unplug the Christmas Machine” by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli. This will give you more than enough time to speed read your way through, so that you can figure out what, if anything, is important to you, and “jettison” all the stressful rest.
I read this book about 5 years ago when my children were really small. It was a Christmas present from a jolly good American pal of mine. I read it during the post Christmas carnage where my home looked like a toy shop but no child played with the mountain of gifts that had descended. I decided to adopt a new rule. The new rule was that Father Christmas only brought 3 presents and a stocking for each child.
The Grinches amongst us would announce this new rule on Christmas Eve, but for everyone else, the gentle introduction, nay suggestion, that the Holidays are about to be scaled down to fairer family fit size, would do everyone a favour.
Initially, in my home, there was a certain amount of confusion and descent, but during the course of the following year I played the little drummer boy and forced everyone to accept my benign dictatorship. Hence 57 days seems like a reasonable period of time to ease this new mind set on reluctant small people.
Three may seem a somewhat paultry number, but when you take into account the generosity of family, relatives and friends there is more than enough to go around.
Another aspect of this book that I particularly warmed to was the role of the male/partner/father/husband in all the festivities. Broadly speaking it is the womenfolk who rule the roost, determine which traditions are followed and delegate a whole host to dull laborious chores to the man. Otherwise, his contribution is somewhat limited. The writers suggest that if their, paternal or familial traditions were incorporated, this would give the holiday more meaning to them.
Whilst I’m tempted to do a ‘bloggy giveaway’ to pass on my own copy to the lucky winner, I shall restrain myself since I am wicked mean with books. I cannot think of anyone who would welcome a spine split, dog eared, copiously annotated floppy back.
Cheers dears
Cut and paste
from this little
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Stumble it!
October 28th, 2008 at 1:35 am
3 gifts each + stocking is an utterly brilliant idea. I’m adopting it immediately.
I read somewhere else about a family that give their children new PJs on Christmas Eve as a special early gift. This apparently encourages the kids to get into bed early and go to sleep. If I thought new PJs wouldn’t cause I meltdown of stellar proportions I’d almost be tempted to try it.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Ahhhhhhh! Yeah it’s just 57 days before Christmas don’t take on the American way! Hahahaha! I tried but it didn’t work and so I am starting my Christmas today! Hahahaha! That sounds like a good book. It’s better to be prepared than to cram on the holidays you know
October 28th, 2008 at 2:06 am
[...] | Tags: Christmas, Cross Stitch, cross stitch WIP, O Holy Night, WIP You simply must head over to Whitterer on Autism and check out Maddy’s fantastic suggestions for simplifying Christmas - don’t forget to [...]
October 28th, 2008 at 3:54 am
Another similar approach produces 4 gifts…
“Something they want
Something they need
Something to wear
Something to read”
It’s good to try & rein it in. Things can get so excessive, so fast.
October 28th, 2008 at 4:56 am
So much wisdom, Maddy and JoyMama!
I was blessed enough to have a book named “Christmas Your Way” before the children.
We made lots of lower-the-commercial-traditions moves over the years. There was some extended family fall-out, but in hind-sight we are very satisfied with the effects on our holidays.
Birthday parties is another area where we were non-like-everyone-else. We are the only ones I know who did not give a big bash for baby’s 1st birthday.
October 28th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Looks at her bookshelves.. Maddy - those are the best kinds of books.
S
October 28th, 2008 at 6:04 am
Ahhh, we’re doing the same this year. Luckily my children understand our financial situation this year and have accepted the whole ’scale-back thought’.
Actually, last spring I ’sprung’ that idea on them. I knew by this fall it would be worse so I just came out with it.
Thankfully my kids are older. They have short lists now. But a nice cozy Christmas with less mess, less expense and more ‘what it’s all about’ will be a freshing change!
October 28th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Way to get your mind set for the coming chaos. Great tackle!!
October 28th, 2008 at 6:49 am
i love JoyMama’s approach! I’m stealing that this year. I might substitute something to wear with something musical
October 28th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Good idea. I suggested skipping Christmas this year - and I only mean skipping the all out commercialism of the holiday. It’s not being received well. LOL
October 28th, 2008 at 7:00 am
I love this. Not only because the budget is tight, but it takes away the guilt (not sure where that comes from) of making Christmas bigger and better than the year before. That sure isn’t what it’s all about!!!
October 28th, 2008 at 7:02 am
We do the same thing…three gifts and a stocking. We decided long ago we wouldn’t go overboard at Holiday time and we’ve mostly succeeded. We do the same thing every year regardless of income going up or down. It just feels right. I’m always telling grandparents to take it easy so they don’t ruin if for us by giving too many gifts.
We also give pyjamas on Christmas eve and it’s been a hug success (I don’t wrap them so the boys know what they’re getting and don’t get dissapointed).
October 28th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Any suggestions on getting relatives to scale down? One year my mil came in with more gifts than Santa left the next morning. I was livid, because every year we ask her to limit it to two per child. I like a scaled-down Christmas. I made most of our gifts this year, and we have a new baby, so I don’t want to either travel to others’ houses or host a bunch of people here. I’ve already told my boys we’ll be having a quiet Christmas at home, just the five of us, which sounds utterly delightful to me. No protests so far.
I love JoyMama’s suggestion, too.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Wait. That’s three AND gifts from family and friends????? That’s still a fair number of pressies. We get one, and maybe a small stocking stuffer or two under $10. One from each grandparent.
We still have a lotta ’stuff’ though.
October 28th, 2008 at 9:15 am
I agree with you on this one. We do 4 gifts and open one each day over 4 days: Solstice Eve, Solstice, Christmas Eve and Christmas. Greatly cuts down on the sensory overload and allows for a much more pleasant holiday. I may try to find that book anyway to see if there are any other ways to scale back.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Are you kidding? The best books are the well-loved ones!
Every year I try to abide by my own limitations on gift buying without success. Damn credit cards.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:41 am
I start thinking of xmas once the bonfires are put out and the guys merely ashes. Luckily it is just myself and the not wfe and the cats aer happy with a piece of string and a metric ton of turkey!
October 28th, 2008 at 11:55 am
You are the second person I’ve read doing the 3 gift thing in the last day. My problem is I love to buy gifts for others. It’s ME that gets so excited and goes over-board on the kids. I don’t think I can control myself!
The White House
October 28th, 2008 at 11:59 am
3 gifts was enough for jesus when the magi came to visit. seems it ought to be enough for our mere mortal children.
good post, maddy. i heartily agree.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
We do six gifts and a stocking, and let the family do the rest. We end up snowed in, anyway, but then we put a lot of the stuff away and bring it out slowly through the year (or recycle to birthday…) This year, my mom bought a bunch of stuff over the summer at sales- so we’re not actually buying anything at all. Weird.
We also get out sleeping bags and encourage the kids to sleep under the tree on Christmas Eve. They get to have the excitement, and with my pair, they eventually get uncomfy on the floor and retreat to their beds.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I decided a few years ago that Christmas had gotten totally out of hand and the commercialization was just taking away from the overall joy of the holiday. I think a limit to the amount of gifts is a fantastic idea and 3 plus a stocking sounds perfect. I’m sure the retailers wouldn’t like that idea at all but tough luck - the success of Christmas should not be based on retail sales totals.
As for having a significant other to help out during the season … ah, I only wish!
October 28th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Love this - and love the poem from Joy Mama!
My family sends money, so I usually get to buy a couple of extra things but count them as from Grandma.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
We do one gift and the stocking from Santa , Anything else is from Mommy & Daddy or other relatives.
This year both kids have requested that Grandma England buy them M&S underwear!
Oh, and any major holiday in our house would not be a celebration with me doing the cooking - DH does it all! My role is limited to setting the table and loading the dishwasher! (And checking that the wine is OK!)
October 28th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Ah the joy of Christmas consumerism! I’ve always felt lucky that our son never seemed to get that crazy “more, more, more” need on holidays. Maybe it’s the autism, maybe not but I’m going to relish it as long as it lasts! But when he finally does get bitten by the material bug I’ll be sure to implement a limit. Great post!
October 28th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Oh, you are speaking to me. I hate Christmas. I hate anything that exhausts me. We do it up a bit for the kids, but mostly Christmas makes me count down ’til they’re in college and don’t want to come home so my husband and I can hop a train to somewhere.
We do one gift from Santa and one from Mom and Dad, but by the time you factor in all the other gifts from all the other family members, it still gets crazy.
October 28th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
We have scaled back a lot for Christmas in past years, and continue to do so. For instance, we also noticed that the kids got tons of toys and didn’t really play with them. Our house was a huge mess and I felt like the money I spent had been wasted.
Now we do something like, a gift from Santa, a set of PJs on Christmas Eve, and a gift from us (usually something they will actually use more than once like a DVD or computer game) and then their stocking. We also get one large family gift that is for everyone. One year it was a keyboard (electric piano kind, not the computer kind)…this year it might or might not be a wii fit…
October 28th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I also adopted the 3-gifts-and-a-stocking approach a few years ago. The kids are (I hope) less materialistic as a result, and I am less-in-debt!
October 29th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I ordered the book on Monday!!!