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When our oldest children were old enough to read gift tags on packages they began to sort and stack packages under the Christmas tree into piles according to the name on the tag. That was annoying to me as they compared piles of presents, who had the biggest package, guessing what was in the package, etc. It was distracting to the focus we wanted to have in our home and seemed to bring out the "gimmies'.
To solve the problem we began randomly assigning each member of the family a different reindeer name each year and they would not find out which reindeer they were until Christmas. The piling, comparing and guessing stopped completely! It is a system we have used successfully for about 25 years on the gifts that are from Mom and Dad.
Another idea for handling presents under the tree that I really like is the tradition of each child receiving 3 gifts, representing the gifts from the wisemen. One gift could be something useful, one could be something fun that is wanted and one a book or something related to a skill or hobby that the child has interest in.
3 comments:
Awesome idea.
We however, keep all gifts hidden until Christmas morning. But for those who don't have the space to hide them all....this is a great idea!
Sorry, just came upon your blog and am commenting in terms of the whole thing. Wondering how/if you celebrate April 6th which is Christ's actual birth date? We end up making a lot of fuss for December and December 25th with traditions and the usual fare. We've had birthday cake for Christ on April 6th and sing Happy Birthday, sometimes get out the carols (religious ones, usually albums are mixed, mp3 has made this easier)... but we just haven't had an equal amount of traditions or excitement for the season around the correct date. So looking for ideas.
Ruth,
I am an empty nester and sure wish I had this great compilation twenty five years ago! It has been such fun browsing through all the poems, music, and ideas-many of which were new to me and I thought I had seen most everything. Thank you so much for doing the legwork on this and then sharing to make it so much easier for those who want to change or sharpen their focus! I am now anxious to share with my grandchildren!
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