Friday, December 28, 2007

What happened to Christmas?


It's been months since my last post... I feel like I have let my Blogger's Guild down - I'm sorry, girls. I'm really going to try to read your blogs regularly, as well as update mine on a more... regular basis.

I hope you have all had a Merry Christmas. Ours was, well, it was nice. To be honest though, something was missing and I can't exactly put my finger on it.

Growing up, Christmas for me was extravagant! Now that I have children of my own, I seem to be following in my parent's footsteps. I want Ethan & Titus to have everything; I want them to be blown away; I want them to feel that excitement that I always felt on Christmas morning. But to be really honest, Christmas has just become more commercial than anything else, in our home... and I am ashamed to say so. I have a knot in my stomach when I think about the past few weeks leading up to Christmas. I have been SO stressed out, staying up late and shopping almost every night until it's made me physically sick. Basically, I've been a wreck. And all for what?

I want our boys to have the toys that they like - sometimes I think I want it more than they do. I am certain that they would have been happy with just a few things, but every year I go overboard. The more toys they get; the more toys they want.

My boys are thankful when they receive gifts, but I can't help but sense this numbness come over them when they receive too many gifts... where they are not content anymore with what they have and want even more, or, they don't appreciate what they have anymore. What are we really teaching our children by giving them SO much?

Something is missing here - Christmas should not about getting stuff; it's really about so, so much more. I don't want to go through another meaningless Christmas. I want our Christmas's to be joyful and meaningful.

I need to think about this a little more...

Any thoughts? How do you balance the giving/getting?