Christmas Madness

Christmas has become a marketing scheme for almost every business that sells something in the United States.  Whether its jewelry or toys, cars or clothes, there is no end to the commercialization of Christmas.  Christmas is no longer about spending time with family, and for the Christians out there, celebrating the birth of Jesus.  Rather, it has been transformed into a buying frenzy with the imperative from corporations that both kids and adults need presents at Christmas.  We are constantly bombarded with messages that we need to buy children the latest toys, or for the husbands, to buy their wives some nice diamond jewelry.  And people buy it all.  People have come to feel that they need to buy lots of presents for their family and friends, that they need to go out and spend money on others.  All this because Christmas has become about the best gift we can buy for others.  We don't want to be out done by another family member or friend so we spend the most money we can, making sure we get the latest trinket or gadget before someone else does.  What about the simple gift of being with family and friends around the holiday?  What ever happened to simply enjoying the company around Christmas and not having it be about the presents?  Even children these days have come to expect getting what they want on Christmas.  It is getting a little out of hand in my mind and all you need to do is drive by a mall or any other store for that matter and take a look at the long lines at the register to see proof. 

So with my son pushing 3 months, what are my wife and I going to get him for Christmas?  Nothing.  There is nothing he needs right now, nothing he wants, and quite practically, nothing he will remember getting.  How could we do that to our son?  Its actually quite easy.  Even when he gets older, I don't want to instill in him the notion that he will get what he wants at Christmas.  Will we eventually buy him stuff?  Probably, but it won't be very much.  Lets be even more practical about this, how many of us when we were kids actually played with the toys we got for more than a week?  More than a month?  There might have been one or two things that we actually played with for a while, but for the most part, most of the toys and trinkets we got were shoved in a closet and forgotten about in short order.  If there was ever a greater waste of money than Christmas, I don't know about it.   I have also heard too many horror stories of children who react horrifically when they don't get what they want on Christmas and I don't want to go down that road.  I would rather raise our son to expect nothing and perhaps get something than to expect everything and be unhappy with what he gets.  Even from family, I would much rather have them contribute to his college fund than buy him toys that will be discarded within a year.  If people want to spend money on my son, let them make their money worthwhile, let it go to education, let it be an investment in his future. 

Don't get me wrong, I still buy presents for people, but none of it breaks the bank.  I think that overall, the amount of money my wife and I spent on presents was probably less than $200.  My wife and I each have a budget of $50 for each other and we normally stick to it.  There is nothing that either of us needs that is so important it needs to be bought.  But then again, we aren't your normal U.S. consumers.  Perhaps one day we will reverse the trend and bring back Christmas to what it is supposed to be about, enjoying the company of our family and friends and not breaking the bank trying to please everyone.  I heard a story of a family that reversed the trend after their son had a temper tantrum over not being happy with his presents on Christmas and being quite rude about it in the process.  Their solution was to eliminate presents for their son and instead go shopping as a family to pick out toys to donate to charity.  Their son was involved in the whole process and they were able to turn his mentality around about Christmas.  If more people could reverse the trend, maybe we could take back Christmas.  Rather than have to reverse the trend later, my wife and I would rather start out on the right track to begin with and save ourselves a lot of headaches in the future.  Luckily, it won't be that hard for us, but I know for some, it would be tantamount to reversing the flow of the Mississippi River.   Till Christmas, just take a step back from it all and try and keep in mind what the season is all about.