Blog Slacker...

I must say that I have been somewhat of a blog slacker lately, but..... it is all for good reason. Our family has been spending some quality time with the Moes Family.(Krysta's family) They were without power for quite some time so they decided to join us. We had a blast, but neither one of us spent much time at the computer. So... I must apologize to my angel sisters for slacking. I asked each one of them to take the time to post a Christmas Tradition, and I haven't followed through on the task I presented. So... here is mine.

Not only is this one of our Traditions, I also think it is a wonderful way to save money and cut down on some of the expectations that our kids have at Christmas.

We give our children 6 gifts from Santa, and 6 gifts from us. We have a short little poem that explains this, here it goes:

Something to wear

Something to read

Something you want

Something you need

Something to play with

...and something fun indeed!!

This a wonderful option for our family. Our kids know they are only getting two toys, two outfits, two items on their wish list(wants), and two surprises that are up to us. (fun indeeds) It also helps us cross off some of the needs that they may have, like our son got a back pack last year, and our daughter new mittens. They also know that they are getting some new books. Which I think is so important.

I love this idea because it cuts out all the fluff, it makes shopping easy, and my kids know what to expect.

To make it fun... I have made up tags that I recycle from year to year. They say what is inside like... something to read. This saves me so much time. All I have to do is tape the tag on. I found these adorable tags in the $ section at Target, and then some of them I made with rubber stamps. Our kids like to line up all their gifts once they have opened them and see what each gift is;this is my something to wear, something to read, and etc. You could also make them guess which gift it is.

When that is all said and done, then they have two family gifts to open, a game and a movie. Then we always do some treats in the stocking. This has helped my sanity at Christmas time. I am so thankful for this idea.

I guess you could say this is not only a tradition, but also a way to cut out some of the unnecessary of Christmas.