We’re finally past the early-childhood years for all of our children, which means that this was the first year at which none of our children expected Santa to bring the presents. Which is good, because I never liked the Santa Claus game in the first place — I didn’t object to Santa in principle, but I never felt comfortable with the elaborate, fictional stories. My kids learned about Santa from their classmates, and I didn’t contradict the stories they told, but when they asked me for details, I always reversed the question: “what do you think?”
Besides, Santa has a history of over-promising. Two years ago, Santa came to visit my then-preschooler’s daycare (it was religiously-affiliated, so it was OK), and my son reported that he was going to get a “How It’s Made” book from Santa, because that’s what he asked for. Mind you, it’s a modest request, all things considered — he didn’t ask for scads of toys, or a pony, but How It’s Made was his favorite TV show. Trouble is, there was no book in print that fit the bill — or, rather, the best, and really only, choice was, and is, out of print: See How It’s Made by the DK press. (The link goes the Amazon search result, where various book resellers will offer you new or used versions.) We were also under a time crunch — it was a week before Christmas and we were convinced we needed to get this, so we ended up a homeschool curriculum provider where this was offered, and we spent more on the rush shopping than the book itself.
Moving on from Santa means that the kids, for better or worse, understand that their dad and I are the ones selecting the presents. So far, the youngest is gleefully building Lego sets, and the oldest — well, he’s 13, and not very expressive — but the middle one did the present tally and decided he got gypped, but was very excited today when I told him that the Nerf gun (sorry, “blaster”) he had his eye on was now at 50% clearance at Target, so he used some gift card money — and I bought a second one “for Papa and I” which he was nearly as excited about. But, of course, the older they get, the harder it is to pick out presents for them. When my oldest was the age my youngest is now, we just added to the playmobil collection, but we’ve now got large quantities of playmobil, legos, board games, etc.
This also means that the kids, to varying degrees, are old enough to use their allowance money to buy presents for their brothers and parents — which is a fair amount of work for us, as I took my middle son to Toys R Us and, even with the “Christmas bonus” extra allowance, he struggled with parting with his money for the presents he had picked out. On the other hand, he knew he wanted to buy a book for his dad, and I took him to Half Price Books, where a single shelf of German books made his selection easy. My older son struggled a bit more, but was surprisingly successful, in the end, picking out a lego set for the youngest, Stratego for the middle one, and a Breakfast Sandwich Maker for me, which was such a huge hit with the family that we used up 1 1/2 packages of English muffins and had to go out to the store to buy more.
So where does my family’s Christmas celebration fit into the stereotypical orgy of materialism? I think we’re on the “less materialist” end of the spectrum (partly because we’re less social, too). We don’t shop for large numbers of extended family — we only sporadically shop for my parents, who are hard to buy for anyway, and my sister (who never married) gets a “donation in your honor” gift, which isn’t just a cop-out because it’s a charity that she herself is heavily involved with. We don’t have anyone for whom we “have” to buy for in that manner that you just buy anything regardless of value just to cross that person off your list. On the other hand, how many people really do buy for a long list of extended family, neighbors, friends and acquaintances, teachers, coaches, etc.? Even in our family, the presents my husband and I exchange tend to be practical — a knife block rather than a charm bracelet, for instance.
At the same time, I have to admit: I don’t really know to what extent people really do recklessly spend on any number of recipients. According to today’s Tribune, an article which I can’t find online, the growth in Christmas sales isn’t due to gift-buying, but due to an increase in people treating themselves, with the rationale that the sales are better this time of year and, if they don’t buy this item they have their eye on, no one else will buy it for them — which I suspect is the destination of large numbers of the sale-priced clothes this time of year (at least, I don’t see clothing as something too many people purchase as gifts for someone else).
And one final thought: can I just say that gift cards are the most useless gift ever? A gift certificate used to have the recipient’s name on it, didn’t it? so that you had to prove your identity and there was some security around it? A gift card, on the other hand, is no safer than cash — so why not just give cash, rather than giving a gift card to a store that the recipient may or may not shop at?
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