I
recently spoke to my good friend Jenny. She lives an upper middle
class lifestyle — she’s a stay-at-home mom with a large
house, a big yard, and a much-newer-than-mine minivan. She could
afford to give her children a lavish Christmas.
But
she is not going to do it.
Instead,
she has given herself a $20 budget per child. She said she is tired
of filling her house with stuff. She said they have too much stuff.
She doesn’t want to just add to the stuff every Christmas and
birthday.
Our
conversation reminded me of one I had many years ago with another
mom, Rochelle, when my budget was $20 per child out of necessity. I
was telling her about my plans. I was pretty happy with the things I
would surprise my kids with come Christmas morning on such a tight
budget.
I
knew it wasn’t much, but I also thought maybe this was better
anyway, because it would help keep my children’s expectations
realistic from year to year.
Rochelle
turned to me and said, “We do it to ourselves, don’t we?”
Yeah,
I think we do. Sure, the gigantic toy stores, the television ads, and
the neighbor kids’ playroom all contribute to our children’s
Christmas expectations, but at the end of the day, it comes down to
what we encourage them to expect.
We
love our children. We love to make them happy. We love to see their
dreams come true. Perhaps we want them to have what we didn’t
have.
But
it is not really healthy to have all your dreams come true.
Then what would you dream about?
Growing
up, I knew my parents struggled financially. So I tried to put all my
Christmas hopes into one thing, and bless them, they always came
through.
The
guinea pig that lived at my dad’s office for two weeks so it
could be presented Christmas morning, the bicycle that was put
together under cover of night in the far corner of the basement, the
cabbage patch kids my mother sewed by hand night after night once we
had gone to bed (because the store-bought ones were way too
expensive) — these were all gifts my parents sacrificed to give
me; they were all things I dearly wanted.
(Ok,
technically I wanted a rabbit, but I accepted the guinea pig with
grace. And bonus — it was apparently pregnant when my dad
bought it, so then we ended up with three guinea pigs! I’ll
take that over one measly rabbit, thank you very much.)
Even
though we don’t struggle as much as my parents did, and could
theoretically give our children more for Christmas, we are really put
off by the perception that Christmas is the time to give $500 iPads
to teenagers and motorized ride-on toy cars to kindergarteners.
My
oldest daughter always asks for one or two special things, and then
some “surprises.” It is times like this I think God knew
what He was doing when He sent her to us first, because her siblings
have adopted this strategy with their Christmas lists. Their lists
are generally very short — perhaps the longest has three items
on it.
I
think it helps that we don’t have commercials in our home —
we get our entertainment via Netflix and library videos. And I pretty
much throw the Toys R Us circular straight into the recycling bin.
But this attitude comes in part with just being happy with what we
have, and that attitude can be modeled by us parents.
Besides
the commercial onslaught that I feel we are beating back with a stick
every Christmas, I often sense an oppressive onslaught of do-gooding.
Well-meaning
traditions that get brought home from Primary, like putting hay on
baby Jesus’ manger bed to mark each act of service we do for
each other, taking plates of cookies to neighbors, caroling,
volunteering at my children’s school parties, and even the ward
Christmas party can all add up to just too much to worry about.
We
can choose to embrace a small handful of truly meaningful traditions
— some sacred, some secular, all of them about family,
togetherness, love.
There
are a lot of good things we can do around this season, but it seems
to me like the ideal time to apply the “Good Better Best”
principle of Dallin H. Oaks’ 2007 General Conference talk. For
our family, we choose to keep: getting out the stack of
Christmas-themed picture books at the start of the season, painting
sugar cookies*, taking small tokens to family friends, packing as
many colors of the rainbow onto one tree as possible, putting the
stockings out on the couch cushions before going to bed, and opening
presents after breakfast on Christmas morning so the eggs can
somewhat counteract the sugar rush in the stocking.
Growing
up, my father always read two things every single Christmas Eve: Luke
2 and The Night Before Christmas. This is another tradition we
have chosen to keep. To be honest, both make me cry.
Luke
2 makes me cry because as I have grown older I realize the
significance of those verses, and can imagine the discomfort of Mary,
the joy of the angels, the awe of the shepherds.
The
Night Before Christmas makes me cry because it symbolizes to me
the magic of childhood, at its peak in the Christmas season. When I
read it to my children I remember my father reading it to me and my
siblings. It was my favorite moment of Christmas Eve. Even as a
teenager I would stick around in the room and listen to it as he read
it to my younger siblings.
In
choosing these things, my husband and I have left some traditions
behind from our own childhoods. They were all worthwhile and
memorable, but there is not enough space in our family life to
accommodate them all. So we choose the ones we love best. Someday our
children will do the same.
I
hope they keep painting cookies, though.
*To
paint sugar cookies, dye evaporated milk with food coloring and brush
it on the raw cookie dough cut-out shapes with a clean artist’s
brush. The milk will turn shiny and bright in the oven when you bake
the cookies. This avoids the typical need to decorate holiday sugar
cookies with frosting. This is a trick my mom used as she desperately
tried to limit our sugar intake. Thanks, Mom!
Emily
Jorgensen received her bachelor's degree in piano performance from
Brigham Young University. She earned her master's degree in
elementary music education, also at BYU. She holds a Kodaly
certificate in choral education, as well as permanent certification
in piano from Music Teacher’s National Association.
She
has taught piano, solfege, and children’s music classes for 17
years in her own studio. She has also taught group piano classes at
BYU.
She
is an active adjudicator throughout the Wasatch Front and has served
in local, regional, and state positions Utah Music Teachers'
Association, as well as the Inspirations arts contest chair at
Freedom Academy.
She
gets a lot of her inspiration for her column by parenting her own
rambunctious four children, aged from “in diapers” to
“into Harry Potter.” She is still married to her high
school sweetheart and serves in her ward’s Primary.