We keep it simple and go with the 3 gift rule.
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Growing up Christmas was always a really big deal in my house. My parents (and by parents, I mean my mom) went all out and always made sure we had what we wanted under the Christmas tree. Santa was a hero in our house! The interesting thing is that I can only ever really remember one present. Yes, you read that right: ONE. It was a Walkman.
When Katherine was 9 months old, we celebrated her first Christmas. Matt and I were pretty good about what gifts she got. She got a few books, a matchbox car, and a Cabbage Patch Doll. Pretty simple, right? I mean, what does a 9 month old baby need? It’s not like she was able to play with much yet. We were amazed, however, with the amount of toys she got from the rest of our family. Looking back, it wasn’t anything more (or even close to) what I had gotten as a child. It just seemed so excessive for a baby.
It was pretty much at that point that we decided we would stick with giving 3 presents. We’re Christian and Christmas is a celebration of Jesus. The 3 wise men brought baby Jesus 3 gifts so it seemed appropriate to follow the same tradition.
The following Christmas Katherine was 21 months old and Caroline was 7 months old. We tried to apply the 3 Gift Rule. As much as I’d love to say it was easy, it wasn’t. Were the 3 gifts all from Santa? Would our kids get presents from us? If they did, were they included in the 3 gifts? If we bought a joint gift for both kids would it count as 1 gift or 2?
This is what we decided:
Mommy & Daddy AND Santa both bring 3 gifts. That means each child gets 6 gifts total. This is to honor the three wise men. We want Christmas to be more about Jesus than it is about Santa*. If we do a larger combined gift, it counts as 1 gift. The largest gift always comes from Mommy & Daddy and the smaller gifts come from Santa. We don’t let Santa get all the credit for the best gifts!
1 gift is always a National Geographic book and 1 gift is always a board or card game. We also do stocking stuffers which aren’t included in the 3 Gift Rule. These usually never cost over $5 each. Clementines must go in the stockings along with Hershey’s Kisses and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. (You’ve all made my Reese’s Peanut Butter Ice Cream cake, right?)
8 years later and the 3 Gift Rule is still working great! The girls know what to expect and they know that Christmas is about more than just the presents. It also really allows us to not go overboard in spending money. To be honest, some years I have a hard time not buying them more and others I have a hard enough time thinking of 6 gifts to get each of them.
So how does your family do gift giving at Christmas? Do you have any set rules or just wing it?
xoxo
–k
*Santa – We’ve kind of made it a rule to never really talk about Santa. At least we don’t intend on bringing it up. Yes, Santa comes. Yes, Santa brings gifts. Yes, our children believe in Santa. Here’s the interesting part: they only know about Santa from friends at school, relatives, and things they see on tv. They’ve never learned anything about Santa from us. We don’t want to take any fun out of Christmas. We just don’t want Santa to be the show stealer from Jesus.
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Kristina, I love this, I absolutely love this. i'd love to repost it. I think more families need to adopt rules and guildelines like this. the meaning of the holiday(s) have gotten so lost on what's actually important, it is so refreshing to hear your system and why you chose to do that. There's religion behind it, yet there's still Santa, magic and fun!
It could not be a more perfect celebration in my opinion and I applaud you once again for raising your girls with such fabulous morals and values in a society where what you have seems to be more important than what kind of person you are.
Thank you for sharing and I would love to repost if that's okay with you. I love this so much! xoxox
Great post Kristina! I do not have children, but it is nice to see someone praising Jesus on this holiday, instead of Santa. The true reason for the season and you all have it down! Great job! Even better that the girls know the real reason as well!
I felt like my husband and I were the only ones who did the three gifts. When our daughter was a baby we came home from visiting relatives stuffed into our little car because she was given so much stuff. ( I must admit I shed some tears over this.) We have happily done the three gifts since then. We chose not to do Santa even though we both did when we were younger. It felt wrong for us, like we were lying. We do our gifts as follows: a Christian gift ( book, CD, DVD, Devotional, Bible….) an outfit or pajamas and a toy. I enjoyed reading your blog. Thanks-Diane
We do 4 gifts. Something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read. With 4 kids, it works out really well. And since ours are 26, 22,18 and 15, it's really better this way. For birthdays, they just get money now. Except for our only daughter (who is the baby), we also buy her the Growing Up figurine for that number birthday. I kind of miss the Christmas's when the kids were little and we had to hide everything until they were asleep on Christmas Eve, but not too much! It was always a huge task to hide everything!
Oh Kristina!! This touched my heart so much!! I just love that you are so intentional about keeping the focus on Jesus and not on the gifts or even Santa for that matter. I bet your kids will always keep that perspective because of your choices…
I can only imagine how much of a blessing this is to your family in celebrating the true reason for the season… Cliche and all! Ha!
We really do need to keep the gifts in check I think. It's nice when people think of us but it has become excessive.
We work more with budgets. Our rule is that Santa has a budget of $30-40 per child, which gets spent on as many gifts as that buys that year. Our budget tends to be higher than Santa's or at least more targeted towards the top of their wish list (we're not letting him get all the credit, either!). We buy ONE gift per child only.
But then the relatives go crazy – what can you do?
My son told me earlier this week that he wants THREE Christmas gifts. I was like um really? Because you'll get more than that from your grandparents and cousins but I love the idea of three from Santa 🙂
Are there any Christmas books that incorporate the idea of 3 gifts?
Sarah, see the comment below. 🙂
Yes there is a book called the three gift Christmas. The beginning of the book has some stuff about purity (which may or not appeal to you). But the rest of the book tells the story of a princess whose parents intentionally chooses to give their daughter three special gifts. Each of her gifts has something to do with the gifts that the magi brought the baby Jesus (gold, frankincese and myrh). Then she does something wonderful with each of her gifts. It is really a beautiful story.
Actually I just googled it. It is called the The three gifts of Christmas. I will warn you that when I read this book to my kids (a boy and a girl), my daughter thought the story was delightful. My daughter immediately said, "I want to be like baby Jesus and get three gifts." My son replied, "he wanted to be Jewish!"
Thanks for letting me know! I don't have your email and couldn't reply directly to your message. I've never heard of the book but will look it up. Thank you!
Thanks guys!