Yesterday we were driving to Grandpa's house and Dallin says, "I feel so excited mom. It's just this time of year, the smells, the sounds, the weather. Christmas is my favorite holiday and I just feel so excited." I was wondering what exactly he was excited about since I had just spent four hours researching gift ideas online and was feeling the spirit of commercialism. So I asked him why Christmas was his favorite holiday and he said, "because we get to read stories and talk about the baby Jesus and we get to think about other people and feel so much love."
Yeah, I felt like a schmuck. But then Dallin says, "you know what I want for Christmas mom?" And I thought, here we go, the ultimate request for some $120 electronic gift. I asked him "what?" bracing myself and he said, "I just want to spend time with you."
Those words have been ringing in my head for the past 24 hours. So I've been thinking how I can make this Christmas less about "stuff" and more about "people". I was thinking I might let the kids decide some activities we could do and maybe put them in charge. Instantly, the controlling voice inside of me sent off warning sounds. But I thought about a conversation I had with a friend yesterday as we were going through the Reflections entries. We talked about how much better it is when kids do the projects all by themselves. Of course, they don't turn out perfect and sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what they made but we both recognized the pride our children felt knowing they had created something all by themselves. I can see how the spirit of Christmas could touch my children deeper if I let them be in charge of some things and have their own experiences with giving and serving. In addition, I think it would take some of the pressure off of me trying to make everything perfect for everyone.
So what to do? I have no idea. Because I'm a control freak creative ideas like this don't come easy. So what do you do? Or better, what do your children do to make Christmas special and take the pressure off of you and gifts, etc?
3 comments:
My kids are still young enoguh that we are just barley getting into them being involved...BUT my mom always had us make cookies and never said anything about how we decorated them, she jsut gave them away with pride, I now admire her for that! and we always 12 day of chrismased ( so not a word) some one- as a family decided who might appreciate the extra love and then she let us kids come up with the ides of what to do each night and let us do all the running and help with the shopping. I really miss that.
"Instantly, the controlling voice inside of me sent off warning sounds." I love that, you're really funny. You know what we should get my parents? Plastic cups. "Plastic cups?" Lauren says. "You want to get your parents plastic cups?". Umm, no, absolutely not. Sometimes hearing you say things makes everything so clear.
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