Sunday Tea – 12/11/2022
We finished our Christmas shopping today! After doing the holiday marriage contract activity last week, Ben and I both identified overspending as something we don’t like about the holidays. On the other hand, we both said we loved watching our kids open presents. That lead us to a discussion about what to do for gifts for our children. We would love to give our kids everything they want. But we also want them to value things and understand the difference between wants and needs.
So what do we do? There are probably a hundred different answers and strategies for this, but here’s our plan. We are giving our kids four gifts for themselves and one gift to share from us. We’re also giving them one modest gift from Santa. To help us choose gifts and stick to our four gift rule, we defined four different categories: Want, Need, Make/Do, and Read. Our kids are little, so they can’t identify items to fit into these categories themselves yet. The goal (and our hope) is that if we establish these rules now, our 14-year-old John and 12-year-old Ella will be able think about the difference between the things that they want and the things that they need.
Last week Ben and I also identified that we want to do more family activities together. This fulfills our need of feeling loved and close during the holiday season. We are both craving the shared experiences of being together and witnessing each other’s (and especially the kid’s) joy and excitement. We took several opportunities to experience Christmas together this weekend. With a tiny bit of planning and lots of luck, we saw the Canada Pacific Holiday Train yesterday! John loved it! His laugh at the sound of the whistle was infectious! His words when we made our way up close were “Wow! Big!”
This evening we took advantage of the warmish weather and walked to Swan Park to enjoy the lights again. We came home to stove top hot chocolate, cookie decorating, and watching our friend compete on the Christmas Cookie Challenge. I feel like our focus on experiencing holiday activities together, combined with defined limits for gifts is helping us enjoy December in a way that we haven’t in the past. It’s giving us an opportunity to really focus on the things that we need as a family, as well as identify the special and meaningful things that we want.
John is building holiday trains and a Santa sleigh out of blocks. Ben is playing with Ella and she is trying so hard to roll over. And I am watching them all with joy and pride while sipping my Sunday tea.
Our Favorites This Week:
Recipe: Stove Top Hot Coco
Event/Activity: Canada Pacific Holiday Train
Book: Don’t Call Me Moana by Nina Macheel
Game: Hungry Hungry Hippos
Tea: Earth Mama Organics 100% Organic Milkmaid Tea with cranberry juice and honey
Quote: “Love is like swallowing hot chocolate before it has cooled off. It takes you by surprise at first, but keeps you warm for a long time.” – Henri Frederic Amiel
