Just as the true reason for the season of Christmas is rapidly approaching, so too is that other aspect that stems from Christmas being a time of receiving a great gift -or in some people's minds -great gifts!
The older I get -and the more I see too of people going all out to get their kids EVERYTHING imaginable (or so it does seem at times) for Christmas, spending inordinate amounts of money too, the more I think of what it was like when I was a kid and yes, my cousins and I got gifts, but we certainly weren't showered with oodles and oodles of things either.
Gift-giving then was a lot more simplistic than it appears to be today.
Financially, I simply am not in a position to buy that much for my family -my kids, my grandkids -but in order to at least get a few things for everyone, I tend to do Christmas shopping all year-round too -watching for things the grandkids could use or would like -that wouldn't create an overload -and buy them when I see them on sale at good prices, even if it is in April or July or whenever!
This year though, I think the financial pinching began to really hit home with my kids too because they decided this year we would draw names between the adults and my older grandson -who at age 14 was deemed old enough to qualify for this lottery, of sorts. We're supposed to adhere to a limit of $15 for the gift for the person whose name you drew and then, not to worry about getting a bunch of things for the rest of the grown-ups in the family.
Sounds like a good game plan to me except for the fact that this past summer I had stumbled on a really good sale at Penney's and had purchased several t-shirts for the older grandson - some of them cute and funny but none of them were really outlandishly bad. I also had found several little shirts for Kurtis then too and each of them just so happened to come with a neat little hot wheels type vehicle attached to the shirt too. And, like most any little boys his age range, I know that those -along with those little cars or trucks -will suit his fancy to a Tee, won't they?
Maya, on the other hand -well, I don't have much lined up for her as yet because she tends to be -like her aunt before her -just a wee bit of a diva and yes, she's only 8-years-old and already things have to be specific colors, select items too, ya know! ARRGH! She -and her aunt -are gonna be the death of me in this department cause I just happen to still hold a bit of the old "tomboy" attitude I had as a kid in which a gift is a gift and it's new to me not does it meet this or that criteria.
Oh well, I survived dealing with this aspect this long, I'll just dig in and work my way through it again I guess!
2 comments:
If the kid is young enough, and imaginative enough, it doesn't matter what you give him or her. They'll play with the box!
I remember feeling much like you did as a kid when receiving gifts. Getting something new was rare throughout the rest of the year, unless it was a birthday or Christmas. So nothing was seen as "not good enough."
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