A few years ago Erik and I seriously downsized the holidays with a Christmas gift limit. We never really went overboard with gifts but the kids always got plenty of gifts! One night, as we were walking through what was then our toy room, we looked around in awe of all of the toys the kids had! We had two entire closet shelving units on one wall full of toys! That’s when we knew we had to change our ways!
That night, we stood trying to remember the last time the kids had played with all of them. Some of them they had outgrown and others we hadn’t seen be played with in ages. The next step was obvious…sort and clean!
BEFORE SETTING OUR CHRISTMAS GIFT LIMIT
Before setting our gift limit, we went through all the existing toys. As we were going through them, I kept feeling guilty. I worried they would miss them, or that they played with them sometimes. Finally, it got late, and Erik told me to just head on to bed and he would finish. Although a little concerned…haha…I went on ahead anyways.
When I got up the next morning I was mortified! He had literally cleared out over half of the shelves. The top half was empty! I was beside myself! I went to him explaining how upset the kids would be and asked how would we explain this?! Keep reading to learn the kids reaction and how our Christmas gift limit comes into play!
THE REACTION TO LESS TOYS
I was so nervous for the kids to wake up but I was so surprised when…the kids got up, ate breakfast then went off to play…in the toy room of course…and…THEY NEVER NOTICED!
You read that right. They never once noticed. They continued on playing and didn’t miss a single one of them! I was shocked…I think we both were!
Our Christmas Gift Limit
Next, we created our new Christmas gift limit. We would get each of them four gifts. And that is it. Nothing more. I really struggled with this too because they had so many things they wanted and the toy store was full of things they would love. But after working through things, I quickly realized we could get them that one thing, that bigger, more costly thing on their list. The one toy they want the most and would actually play with! It was important to us to give gifts that would be meaningful and that would last for years to come!
Click here to find out what our most-loved Christmas gift is!
SHARING OUR DISCOVERY
Of course I told all of my friends and family about our new tradition and they were surprised too! But having not experienced it first hand, they had hesitations. ‘Won’t they be disappointed that they will only get 4 gifts?’, ‘You spent that much on one gift?’. The beautiful thing was at the age our kids were, they didn’t remember much different. Our new tradition would be the new normal. And yes, we will gladly spend more money on one or two gifts that they will actually play with. I would rather stick to our Christmas gift limit than spend just as much on 10 gifts and have most of them tossed aside.
Click here for 5 reasons kids need less toys!
HOLIDAY TRADITIONS
Along with our Christmas gift limit, we are continuing to improve all of our holiday gift traditions. We like to teach our kids the importance of giving as well and of course we always stress the real reason for the season. (Read all about how we incorporate good deeds into Christmas by reading this post!) And we hope that with giving them less, they learn to appreciate what they have!
How do you guys handle the gifts for your kids? Do you have a gift limit?
