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Christmas Gifts for the children

Hi Ladies. I was hoping to hear from other faithful moms who would share your Christmas gift giving guidelines for your family, especially the children, who else? I'm thinking of how many do Santa? Is it all from him? Do any of you not do St. Nick...do you wrap everything from him, or is it from you the parents? Does anyone give 3 gifts like baby Jesus got? Or is Christmas a chance to get all the stuff you hold off buying all year? We have 8 children, and I know they have always had very "big" Christmases compared to many others...so I'm looking for some spiritual direction. One thing we do now is that Santa leaves one thing, unwrapped like a surprise under the tree, it is usually the big item they have wanted (not always monetarily, but the most exciting I guess) When our kids were very small, they asked why Santa didn't leave everyone a bunch of stuff, how come he didn't leave poor kids all they needed...wow, so we have done it this way, so they can't say "Santa brought me blah blah...." We wrap everything else from Mommy and Daddy. My mom makes or buys them new jammies every year, and they are their favorite...I think they stay in them until New Year's! Any wisdom you can offer I'd appreciate! Blessings, Dayna

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Permalink Reply by Kristin Detloff on November 14, 2010 at 1:55am

We try to keep it simple with our kids. Our oldest boys are 5 and almost 4 so I'm sure we will find ourselves changing our traditions to fit their ages as they get older. We try to keep spending to a minimal amount and do try to focus them on giving more then what they receive. They pick out toys to donate and we usually get some giving tree tags from my husbands work where we go shopping with the kids and buy needed toys and clothes for families in our community who are in need. We don't ask them what they want for Christmas except maybe once if it happens to come up. There will be no list making etc. We usually make a birthday cake for Jesus for Christmas day and try and focus on the real meaning of Christmas with them instead of the media driven version while still keeping it fun and exciting for them! For instance we set up our manger right away at the start of advent but we have the various pieces travel throughout our home day after day until arriving at the appropriate time...usually the wise men are banished to the basement somewhere for their extra long journey.

As far as Santa we haven't really had to go into it with them much. We've never done gifts from Santa but instead save their Christmas morning stockings for that. So far so good! I'm looking forward to hearing from others with older children though as ours are still pretty young and "go with the flow" not really questioning anything we do or don't do.

Great time for a topic like this! Thanks for posting it!

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Permalink Reply by Patricia on November 14, 2010 at 9:41am

As St. Nicholas is the Patron of Children in the Eastern Catholic Churches, we celebrate his Feast Day by attending the Divine Liturgy & making special foods at home.

The Saint Nicholas Center has some nice craft & baking ideas, & tons of information in general on the Saintly Bishop of Myra:
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=38

Both my parents grew up with the Christmas gift-giving happening on the Feast of the Epiphany, since that is traditionally when the Magi brought gifts to the Christ Child. I like that idea & think it can help to keep the focus of CHRISTmas on CHRIST.

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Permalink Reply by SueMagoo on November 15, 2010 at 10:14am

Although neither my husband nor I grew up with St Nicholas visiting our homes, we have decided to start this with our boys (6 and 9) to try to bring the focus back to Christmas time being a Religious time. Our tradition is to open gifts from each other Christmas Eve and gifts from Santa are unwrapped around the fireplace Christmas morning. The gifts from Mom & Dad are usually clothes and books and the toys come from Santa. (Even Mom & Dad get gifts from Santa.) We bring the focus back to Jesus Birthday by place the Baby Jesus in the manger Christmas morning and attending Mass. The other factor in our family is that our sons Birthday is on December 26th but, for now, he thinks it is GREAT that his Birthday is so close to Jesus'! We make sure this is still a special day also.