I used to think that I handle stress well, but now I realize that I’ve actually never been really stressed out before. Come to think of it, I remember that sick-to-my-stomach stressed feeling when I was in junior high and had procrastinated a big project until the night before the due date – but I only experienced it once because I vowed to never do that again. I HATED that feeling so much that I did all of my school work weeks in advance for the rest of my education. I am not kidding.
So it turns out that I handle stress fantastically – if by “handle,” I mean “avoid.”
But when it comes to adulting – and especially mothering – some stressors are unavoidable. And the past five months, with a pandemic raging and lay-offs and new jobs and going back to college and homeschooling my kids and a death in the family, I have been SUPER STRESSED. I didn’t even realize it until I went all day long without eating anything and I started shaking [probably more due to the lack of food than the stress] and having what might be described as a nervous breakdown.
At that point I knew I had to do something.
So, I handed the reigns to my wonderful partner, Brett, who took over the dishes and the laundry and the baking and the grocery shopping and the cooking and…pretty much all of it.
Brett with three of our four kids [My oldest is the photographer]
It made me realize that sometimes the stress of motherhood and homemaking is a little bit self-imposed. I will be the first one to say that I don’t believe in any of that sexist bullshit about women being better caretakers and homemakers, but it didn’t at first occur to me to have him take over [ask him for help, sure, but I still had to be responsible for everything].
Well, all I had to do was let go and – turns out – Brett is AMAZING at doing all of these household tasks. He even brews my coffee and prepares breakfast for me to take to work every day [I leave the house at 3:30am]. He also bakes bread and makes OAT MILK. And for dinner one night last week, he made a mushroom galette [!!!] from scratch! I don’t know very many men who know what a galette IS let alone how to make one. And Brett doesn’t even like mushrooms.
[This is why I call our marriage a partnership – because it is not governed by the typical gender roles, but rather by what best serves the wholefamily. Right now, my family needs me to work and so Brett is doing the unpaid work of taking care of our home.]
So, what I’m basically saying is, Ladies, if you need some help, don’t be afraid to ask. And I know there are women out there without [romantic] partners, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask someone for help! Don’t be so stressed that you stop eating [or eat everything in sight], when help is available.
We don’t have to do it all. This is the 21st century and we women have earned the right to get some help with the kids and the house and the job and whatever else – we just can’t be afraid to ask for it.
As I’m writing this, my son is in surgery. It’s a common surgery for kids [tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy] but still requires a general anesthetic, an OR that I’m not allowed to enter, a two week recovery time, and a fair amount of fear.
I could go into all the reasons we decided to have this done – but the truth is, we are trusting our doctors. Theo was hospitalized twice before he turned one and has always struggled with breathing issues and chronic ear infections and mouth breathing. So there are reasons. But we didn’t have to have the surgery. We could have continued to treat his issues as we have been. We could have waited to see if he grows out of it. We could have told the doctors that we don’t think he should have this done because he’s so young and there are risks.
But I can’t pretend that I know more than the doctors who have recommended this procedure. And I know that they are recommending it because they are trying to do what is best for my son.
In the end, I’m not a doctor and I don’t know anything about tonsils or adenoids. I take my kids to see a pediatrician I trust regularly because I am not knowledgeable enough about healthcare. I need a professional’s help.
Like the first time I took Theo for a routine well visit and told the doctor that he was fine. Two breathing treatments later we were headed for the ER where he was hospitalized for a week. Or the time I took him into the pediatrician because I was worried about his hearing and it turned out that he had a double ear infection that required two rounds of antibiotics.
I clearly need doctors for my kids.
In the western world today, it is common to question the doctor, to look for advice on the internet and from friends, and to think that we know better than the professionals. And while I think it is important to advocate for yourself and make the best choices you can for yourself and especially your kids [I gave birth to my babies at home, you may recall], there comes a time when you have to trust your doctors.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently – even before this surgery came up – because I saw a rant on Instagram about doctors hiding lots of vital, black label information from patients. As if the entire medical world is out to get us. Trying to trick us into doing all these things [vaccinations, flu shots, epidurals, etc] that are really going to hurt us instead of help us.
I don’t believe that the medical world is out to get us and I think it’s a sad perspective to have of a profession that is trying to make [and keep] people healthy.
I, of course, realize that the issue is more complex than I’m making it out to be in this short post, but the main point is that we all need doctors eventually and all we can do is find the best doctors available and then trust them.
Theo is fine, by the way. And hopefully on his way to fewer encounters with doctors in the future.
Every year we do our “Carlson Countdown to Christmas” with twenty-five holiday-inspired activities. This year, we did some new things and revisited some of our favorites from previous years.
For those thinking of starting a similar tradition, here are the activities we did this year and [at the end] some tips for making this happen!
The Annual Carlson Countdown to Christmas
December 1: Santa’s Holiday Workshop. This year we kicked off the holiday season with a park district event where we watched Santa arrived pulled by sled dogs and the kids participated in a variety of holiday themed activities.
Tip: Check your park district guide or local event calendar for ideas of things to do with your community.
December 2: Put up the Christmas Tree and Make the Paper Chain. Every year, the kids and I make a Christmas paper chain so that we can countdown to Christmas. This is a helpful visual for them to see how far til Christmas AND cuts down on them asking a million times if today is the big day.
December 3: Shopping for Toys for Tots. This is an annual tradition. We take the kids shopping for toys to give to Toys for Tots then drop them off in a local collection bin. This activity reminds us to appreciate our many blessings and give back to other kids in our community. And, as an added bonus, it helps us to see what toys our kids really love.
December 4: Homemade Marshmallows and Hot Chocolate. This was my first time making marshmallows, but I make hot chocolate every year. The kids and I LOVE hot chocolate and it is so easy to make at home. I can’t believe I used to buy it in packets!
December 5: Christmas I-Spy Game. I wanted to create an activity that would get the kids outside, and since my kids are really into I-Spy and “Look and Find” books, I hid a bunch of Christmas items in the backyard for them to find. They played outside for several hours searching and then re-hiding the items. I wore the baby in a carrier and we got involved in the game too.
Tip: The activity for the day does not have to be a big event or time consuming trip out of the home. I always gather a few simple holiday games and craft ideas to use on occasional days when we just want to stay in [or I’m exhausted].
December 6: Geneva Christmas Walk. This is a tradition for us, even though it always means long lines and walking around outside in the freezing cold. This year we got hot chocolate at Kilwins and took photos with the Grinch. This event is a Christmas classic for us.
December 7: Clay Ornaments. Every year the kids and I make ornaments of some kind. We’ve done salt dough. Last year we did paper. This year, we rolled and cut and painted and glittered cornstarch clay ornaments. This is a great way to make gifts and to add some new ornaments to the tree.
December 8: Christmas Light Shows. This is another annual tradition that the kids LOVE. We have several big, fancy light shows in our area [one was even featured on The Great Christmas Light Fight a few years back]. This year we all got in our Christmas pajamas and drove to the displays.
Tip: Even if you don’t have a fancy light show in your area, there are usually neighborhoods to drive through where the lights are beautiful. I have also seen Christmas light bingo cards on Pinterest which would be a fun game to play!
December 9: Bake Christmas Cookies. Every year, I take one day to bake Christmas cookies because I know that I will eat an obscene amount of cookie dough, and my health [and blood sugar] can only handle it one day. Let me tell you – it’s a special day! The kids love to get involved. Thus far, we’ve been making different types of cookies each year, but I’m hoping that over the years we will settle on our favorites. I think the melted snowmen cookies we made this year might be my favorite cookie EVER.
December 10: Deliver Christmas Gifts to our Neighbors. The gift has been different each year [this year we gave away tins of the freshly baked cookies], but we always enjoy walking to our neighbors to wish them a merry Christmas. This year everyone was home!
December 11: Puffy Paint Snowmen and Christmas Shopping. One of my regular holiday crafts is puffy paint snowmen because the kids love it so much and all it requires is shaving cream and glue. The 11th is also our wedding anniversary so we went out to dinner with the whole family and then took the kids shopping for gifts for each other. It was so sweet to see how thoughtful they were in picking out gifts that their siblings [including the dog], would love.
December 12: Daisy’s Birthday Party. We brought Daisy home three years ago on December 12th as a Christmas present for our kids and every year we celebrate that day as her birthday [we don’t know the actual date]. We bake her a little “pup cake” [humans get banana muffins with cream cheese frosting] and wear party hats and sing to her and give her gifts – the whole deal. It is seriously great fun!
December 13: Christmas Movie. I LOVE Christmas movies. And I love the excuse to watch the cute kids Christmas movies like The Polar Express, The Grinch, and [my personal fave] Arthur Christmas.
December 14: Christmas Tree Waffles. These waffles are an annual breakfast tradition – one day a year only. I didn’t get a picture this year but they are just waffles colored green and decorated with mini M&Ms and powdered sugar.
Last year’s Christmas tree waffles.
December 15: Christmas Tree Cinnamon Rolls. I saw this on Pinterest and thought they were cute. They are harder to make into a tree shape than you would think…only half of them came close to resembling trees. Still delicious though!
December 16: Birdseed Ornaments. This is another annual tradition. We love to take care of our feathered friends – especially since we live in a very wooded area.
17. Gift for Peter Rabbit. This year for the first time, we bought and delivered a gift for the bunny who lives in our local nature center, Peter Rabbit. Then we played at the nature center for the afternoon.
18. Gingerbread Houses with Auntie Paula. Of course this is our FAVORITE annual tradition – with our favorite Auntie!
19. Frozen 2 with Judi. My kids are old enough to go to the movies!!!!!!! [At least, my two oldest are…] So we went to see Frozen 2 with my good friend and fellow movie lover, Judi.
20. Read Christmas books by the fire. We have a big collection of kids Christmas books that we bring out in December – and something about a warm fire in the fireplace makes reading the stories extra special for the kids.
21. Oreo ornaments. More treats! No wonder I gain five pounds every December!
22. Puppy Chow and other gifts. We love to give edible homemade gifts that go in mason jars! We make puppy chow every year because it is easy, delicious, and the kids can help. Only bummer is that I have to buy boxed cereal for it, which I ordinarily never do. Next year I think I’ll try making chocolate popcorn instead to avoid the waste since I can buy popcorn kernels and chocolate in bulk bins.
23. Polar Express and 2 Toots. Every year we do our own “Polar Express” train ride to a little train themed diner called 2 Toots Train Whistle Grill. This year, my parents and my sister and her family came up from Indiana to join us.
24. Christmas Scavenger Hunt. This is a new activity that I hope to turn into an annual tradition. When we had our first kid, Brett and I began the tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve – always one Christmas book and Christmas pajamas. Well, our sustainability values no longer include a) buying new books [because we use the library and already own too many books] or b) buying new pajamas when they aren’t needed. We needed to change the tradition, so this year I created a scavenger hunt for the kids to find one Christmas gift for them all to share. Because it was hidden, it didn’t need to be wrapped. And it was also a toy set that I bought used.
They were SO EXCITED.
25. Monkey Bread, Orange Julius, [MIMOSAS for the tired mama] and Christmas gift exchange. Every family has their own Christmas traditions, obviously. Ours include a very extravagant breakfast [compared to our usual oatmeal] and a gift exchange. [I like to use the phrase “gift exchange” as opposed to “opening presents” because the former implies that we are GIVING as well as RECEIVING.]
Tips for a Successful Christmas Countdown
1. Make a LONG list. I brainstorm a huge list of ideas of crafts to make, things to bake, places to go, community events to attend, etc. We don’t do all of it, but it helpsto have options.
2. Include LOTS of simple, stay-at-home activities. The activities don’t all have to be extravagant or costly. We do plenty of simple activities like reading Christmas stories together, dancing to Christmas music, or coloring Christmas pictures.
3. Be FLEXIBLE. I used to tryto plan out the entire month in advance, but it’s impossible to predict what will happen over twenty-five days and sometimes you’ll have to adjust the plan. In those instances, having plenty of simple ideas will be helpful.
PLEASE let me know if you start this tradition in your family! The holiday season is about so much more than just gifts. We have so much fun celebrating it all month long, spending time together, and remembering to real reason for the season.
Every December, we celebrate the holiday season with our Carlson Countdown to Christmas – which is basically an advent calendar of holiday-themed activities for us to do as a family like baking Christmas cookies, driving to local Christmas light shows, visiting Santa Claus, making Christmas ornaments, etc. Each year I come up with twenty-four of these activities [some old, some new] and then go through the process of planning and organizing and actually making all of it happen.
It is a lot of work. It is also a lot of fun, but with four little kids, at this point, it is mostly a lot of work.
So, why do I bother?
Well, I am hoping that it will result in a lot of cherished memories for my kids and holiday traditions that we can all look forward to around the holidays. I dream of my kids getting excited on Black Friday, not to go shopping, but to start prepping for our annual countdown which always begins on December 1st with decorating the house for the holidays.
But in these early years, the kids don’t really appreciate or understand the lengths to which I go to ensure that we get to decorate gingerbread houses with Auntie Paula, and go ice skating at our local outdoor rink on a night when it is not absolutely freezing, or coordinate with Brett’s work schedule to make sure we can take our annual train ride and read The Polar Express.
Ah, the things we do as parents…
So, for now, I’ve been using these days to build a foundation of gratitude and generosity in my children by intentionally turning their attention to ways we can give rather than things we can get.
Here are some ways that we celebrate the season of giving:
Giving Thanks
Last year, we had a “Gratitude Tree” in the month of November to count all of our blessings. This year, we are doing a holiday version. At breakfast time, we talk about the things we are grateful for and add some ornaments to our tree.
[I rather like how “Dr. Seuss” our tree looks, pieced together from all the random pieces of green paper I could find in my scrapbook stash.]
Giving Gifts
We encourage [read: “force”] our kids to give gifts in many different ways throughout the month:
1. We take them shopping to buy toys to donate to Toys for Tots. This is hard for the kids, but each year it gets easier. We always explain in advance that we are picking out toys for other kids to open at Christmas. We obviously foot the bill.
[Side note: this is very helpful for giving us gift ideas for them as well.]
The kids drop them off in a local collection box, and let me tell you, I am so proud every time my kids put toys they love into that box.
2. We take them shopping to buy gifts for each other. In my family growing up, all five of us kids always gave individual gifts to every other member of the family. I don’t know when or how this came to be, but honestly, it is still happening even though we are all adults. I want my kids to enjoy giving gifts to their siblings so we are starting young [and also paying at this point, of course]. The kids also pick out gifts for Daisy the Dog, of course.
I ask them what their siblings would like for Christmas to get them thinking about it and then take them shopping. They did really well this year [after my son stopped insisting that his big sister really wanted a paw patrol truck].
Later I wrap the gifts with each child. My 3-year-old son wanted to put a message on the gift tags so he dictated these sweet notes for his sisters.
This just melts my heart.
3. We hand deliver gifts to the neighbors. We’ve done this every year since we moved into this house because I resolved to be intentional in building good relationships with my neighbors. The first year, we gave store-bought boxes of chocolates. [We had just moved in so I didn’t know if people would accept hand-made goodies.] Last year the kids and I made chocolate covered pretzel rods with holiday molds. This year, we delivered a tin of freshly baked Christmas cookies to each neighbor. [I think they know us well enough now to eat them.] We also give a gift to our postwoman.
4. We make ornaments to give to friends and family. We’ve done different kinds of ornaments – salt dough, paper, clay, etc. We tried mailing clay ornaments to the cousins one year. That was a bad idea. The next year we sent Danish paper heart ornaments. This year we made corn starch ornaments and will give them to local friends and family.
5. We give to every bell ringer. I will write more about this some other time, but we have a lot of fun giving to the bell ringers outside of the stores during the holiday season. I always carry cash to make sure we can do this. This sets an example of generosity for my kids. I want them to grow up seeing us giving freely and generously as often as possible.
Giving Time
The rest of our holiday traditions revolve around spending time together as a family. The “Season of Giving” doesn’t have to be about buying stuff and stressing over what to give who and how much money to spend and all of that. Giving is as simple as spending time with friends and family. The gift of time and attention is worth so much more than anything we can find in a store – especially nowadays when everyone is so rushed and busy and families are spread across the country [or around the world]. Time is the greatest gift.
It is also zero waste. 😉 Just sayin’…
Putting up the Christmas tree
The whole family in our Christmas pajamas before we head out to see the Christmas lights.
Celebrating Daisy’s 4th Birthday
I try to find as many ways as I can to incorporate giving into our holiday traditions because I hope that someday this will balance out the emphasis on receiving gifts that is an inevitable part of Christmas.
When the kids are older, I look forward to volunteering as a family – all year round, but especially during the holidays – to expose my kids to the hardships that face many people even in this privileged country and to show them that the true joy of Christmas comes from giving not getting.
Last month in my “Lessons in Motherhood” post, I confessed that I have been having a hard time dealing with parenting my four little ones. I have been increasingly grumpy and short-tempered, getting easily annoyed and upset at my kids, and then feel terrible and guilt-ridden over it. So I was trying out a more positive approach to parenting using rewards instead of consequences.
Well, I’m back to say that I’m throwing out everything I said in my last post and starting fresh with a new perspective on parenting.
But FIRST, a recap of our “outdoor hours” for October.
[I modified my New Years resolutions in my Q3 Update to include 30 hours outside each month for the rest of the year.]
It was quite a month…
On October 1st, we spent the day at the pumpkin farm, enjoying beautiful 80° weather.
And on October 31st, we built our first snowman and went trick-or-treating in the snow – the first time I can ever remember having snow on Halloween [though it probably happened at some point].
In between, we managed to squeeze 30 hours of playing at parks, visiting zoos, picnicking on the back deck, riding bikes, walking Evangeline to school, and playing in the backyard.
Just for fun, here are some photo highlights:
Ok, so back to my parenting problems…
A story all parents can relate to…
A few days ago, around dinner time, my five-month-old woke up screaming and inconsolable after only ten minutes of sleep, while the timer started going off to take dinner out of the oven, and at the same time, my two-year-old locked herself in my bedroom.
There I was, trying to explain to a toddler how to unlock the door, while holding a screaming baby and letting dinner burn, when my three-year-old son began screaming from the bathroom for me to wipe his butt.
In that moment, I wished I was the one locked in the bedroom.
Not every day is like that, thank god, but there are definitely a lot of rough days when I am so tired and frustrated that I wonder, what am I doing with my life?
And yet, I always wake up with a new resolve to have a better day, to be a better parent, to find a better way.
Now Say This
And that’s what led me to Now Say This by Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright.
I read [or rather listened to] this book last year when we were having trouble helping my son process his “big feelings” and it was so helpful for me to see that his outbursts, which would have ordinarily been punished in a typical parenting model, were the result of him trying to learn a new skill: to process big emotions and channel them appropriately. So rather than giving him consequences, we provided a “calm down” space for him to go to process his big feelings of disappointment, sadness, or anger. And sure enough, the episodes became less frequent as he learned to ride the waves of emotions.
I mean, let’s be real, I don’t always handle my emotions very well, and I’ve been alive for thirty-two years. How can I expect my two-year-old to already possess this important life skill?
So, anyway, I’m back to this book again to learn what I canand hopefully become a better parent.
[Side note: it is easy to wish for better kids, but I think often the problem is that I need to be a better parent.]
After reading just the intro and first chapter, I’m already remembering a lot of the advice I had forgotten and I realized that I’ve [once again] been going about it all wrong.
What I WON’T do
So I will not be trying to control my kids’ behavior through punishments OR rewards [aka, threatening or bribing].
As I said in my last “Motherhood” post, my first reaction to a behavioral issue is to threatening with a consequence [“if you hit your brother, you will have a time out”] or bribe with a reward [“if you eat all of your dinner, you can have a treat”] in order to get them to behave. That’s how I was raised. That’s how I thought it was supposed to be done. Good behavior equals good things. Bad behavior equals bad things. But this type of parenting doesn’t teach my kids morality, it teaches them compliance out of fear. It doesn’t teach them to choose right from wrong, it teaches them to do what will be of the most benefit to themselves. And what I’m most afraid of is that it will cause them to hide things from me, suppress their feelings, and worst of all, lose their ability to think and behave autonomously.
I want my kids to CHOOSE to do the right thing because it’s the right thing and even more importantly because they believe it is the right thing – not because it’s what I tell them to do and certainly not because of the reward or consequence they may receive.
However, this does not mean that I am going to let my kids walk all over me or give them whatever they want. Absolutely not. [I’m just as afraid of sending selfish, lazy, or entitled children into the world as any parent.]
What I WILL Do
First, I will read this book on repeat until I can master this empathetic, loving, intuitive method of raising kids.
It is foreign to me because I was not raised this way and I have never witnessed parenting done this way. But after reading it last year, I started following the recommendations and saw a big difference not only in my kids, but in my own reactions to them. This book teaches how to empathize with your child’s feelings while still holding the limit and finding a solution together. Unfortunately, over time, I went back to old parenting habits.
Practice Makes Perfect
Honestly, I always knew I wouldn’t be a perfect parent, but I kind of assumed I could just do my best and “wing it” and that would be enough. But I am realizing now, five years into this, that parenting is like any other skill in life. It requires hard work and patience and humility. It requires practice.
So, after this very, very long ramble, I’ve gotten around to the point.
Parenting takes practice. So, I went to the library when I picked up Now Say This and got a whole stack of parenting books. And I am trying to make improving my parenting skills a priority going forward. Some of these things are so foreign to me or go against the habits I’ve spent the last five years creating that it will literally require focus and intention and apologizing and course-correcting for the rest of my parenting years to get it right.
Time to revisit the New Years resolutions and see how I’m doing.
😬
Everything was rolling along very nicely until I had my baby in June. At that point, the train basically went off the rails entirely. I’ve completely ignored all of my resolutions while in “baby-mode.” I guess I forgot when I made these goals that having a newborn is very time-consuming and exhausting.
But now that my baby is almost four months old [what?!?], she is not quite so demanding and I’ve gained back most of my energy now that she is sleeping through the night [for the most part].
So, I want to go back and evaluate and possible adjust these goals for the last three months of the year.
My original resolutions for the year are posted here.
Health-wise, I want to practice yoga. I did great with this during my pregnancy, but I have no done yoga once since I gave birth. Updated resolution: Add one yoga workout per week to my personal workout schedule [which will be harder than you might think since I already exercise several times a day]. I am also going to do simple yoga poses with the kids in the morning before Eva leaves for school so that we can all benefit from this practice.
Oh, and floss daily. Again, I was going great, but dental hygiene has also gone by the wayside. Updated resolution: Floss every day with my convenient and low-waste water flosser.
New skill is knitting. I haven’t knitted anything since January, and I think I’ve kind of lost interest in it altogether. Updated resolution: Find a new home for the knitting needles and let it go.
At home, I want to start making my own cleaning products. I am now making homemade dish soap and homemade deodorizer and homemade multi purpose cleaner. 👍🏻 I think that’s really all the homemade cleaners I need as I don’t use homemade detergents.
I hope to reduce our trash [and recycling] even more. After a brief relapse after the baby was born, the trash is back down to a small grocery bag per week. Recycling is also down. I’ve been making a lot more from scratch and our CSA really helps to reduce our waste. 👍🏻
Personally, I would like to read two books per month: one fiction and one non-fiction. Until last month I was reading way more than two books a month, but now that my exercise schedule is so demanding, I don’t have as much time to read. I tried listening to audiobooks while exercising, but it’s too distracting for me to have fully effective workouts. Updated resolution: Read one book per month for the last three months by reading a chapter before bed.
For my family, I want to spend more time outside. Unfortunately, it’s a lot harder to get out with so many kids at such young ages, but now that the baby is older and is happy in a baby carrier [for the most part], I am hoping to spend a lot of time outside with the kids. Updated resolution: Spend 30 hours outside each month for the next three months.
We started out October by spending three hours at the pumpkin farm.
I’m so excited for fall!!! And, for getting back to normal life.
My son, Theo, turned three a few days ago. In keeping with our new sustainability and zero waste principles, we made a big deal of our time together [at Chuck E Cheese for the afternoon] and downplayed the gift portion of the celebration. We actually never even mentioned a gift and he never asked for one.
But, of course, we did give him a gift – a set of used Paw Patrol characters and their vehicles [one of which I used to decorate his “Paw Patrol” birthday cake that all the kids helped decorate.]
A few weeks ago we began looking for someone selling a used set of these Paw Patrol trucks because we knew how much Theo would love them. Living in the Chicagoland area meant that they were easy to find. We ended up buying a set of six vehicles and eight characters for $15. At Target, these Paw Patrol vehicle/character sets sells for $15 each.
We’ve already lost a few characters…
But the point here is that it’s actually not about the money at all. Yes, there was a savings, but it’s not like we couldn’t afford to buy it all brand-new.
Why buy used?
The motivation for buying used is to give a second [or third or fourth] life to something bound for the garbage bin. Rather feeding the machine that is constantly making new toys [especially plastic toys] we should be intentionally prolonging the life of the current toy population. I basically rescued these trucks from a landfill. I am essentially a super hero. And they are perfectly fine toys. In fact, my son ADORES them and couldn’t care less whether they were purchased new.
Why not buy used?
So it got me thinking about why I would still never show up at another kid’s birthday party with a gift purchased second-hand. It’s one thing to buy a used gift for my own kid, but a completely different story if I’m going to give a gift to someone else.
There is some unwritten social code that says it’s unacceptable to give gifts that are second-hand.
We even frown [although slightly less so] on “re-gifting” and most people would agree that the appropriate way to re-gift an item is if the recipient doesn’t know it’s re-gifted.
Isn’t that strange? Why should it matter?
Gift giving today is about the represented dollar value, not how much it will be appreciated.
I think that what has happened to our society is that gift giving has become more about the ritual [i.e. gifts are required at certain holidays and events] and the dollar value [i.e. gifts need to be within a certain price range] than it is about the recipient’s enjoyment of the gift.
At my first baby shower, a cousin of mine gave me a gift for the baby – purchased new, obviously. After I opened it, she handed me a pair of baby girl Sperrys that she had found used and thought were so cute she had to get them for my baby, but she gave them to me separately because she wanted to explain that they were second-hand.
I LOVE those pink cheetah-print baby Sperrys! It didn’t matter if they were new or not. Both of my baby girls have worn them – and I’m sure this third baby girl will as well.
I find it perplexing and rather sad that we don’t feel free to give gifts just for the sake of their enjoyment value.
Similarly, when I started dating my husband, he and his siblings had a Christmas tradition of trading names for a gift exchange. They had set a value of $75 and then provided a detailed list of things they wanted. I went shopping with Brett that year and watched him cross items off the list and tally up the total dollar amount for his sister-in-law.
I couldn’t even believe it. Is this what gift-giving has become? I felt, even back then, that this was the total antithesis of what giving a gift should be.
Have you been out shopping for a gift and had some sort of mental idea of how much you needed to spend? Somewhere between being “too cheap” and being “too flashy”? And have you been invited to a party or shower or event and known without any overt statement that a gift is a requirement – or at least you would be viewed as a party crasher if you showed-up empty-handed? Have you tried to make sure that each of your kids gets the same general value of gifts or the same number of packages on Christmas morning?
Can we go back?
Can we go back to giving a gift purely because we want to, rather than because it’s required? Can we go back to giving a gift just because we know someone will love it and not care about how much it cost or where it came from?
I’m hoping that by continuing to exchange used gifts [whenever possible] in my immediate family that I will teach my children that gifts are for the purpose of making people feel loved and appreciated by giving something that they will love – not out of obligation or to follow social customs or to show that we have the means to buy new, expensive things.
Buying used isn’t being cheap, it’s being responsible.
Theo was so excited about those Paw Patrol toys that he didn’t even want to eat cake. Everyone else ate cake while Theo played with the trucks. All the other kids came to the table for cake eventually, but Theo only wanted to play.
These toys were the perfect gift – because they were used and because no one cared that they were used. They represented our commitment to sustainability and our belief that the value of a gift doesn’t come from how much is spent or where it is purchased, but from whether it is given out of love.
Theo’s Birthday Video
As is my new tradition for the kids, here is a short video highlighting Theo’s third year.
This entire year, I have been on a journey to become a more mindful consumer, a more generous giver, and a less wasteful person in general. [Besides that, I have also worked very hard to eliminate all of our extra “stuff.”]
So, when Christmas time came around this year, I knew that some things had to change about the way we do gifts for our kids and loved ones.
But – how?
How do we still show everyone how much we love them without giving them a bunch of “stuff”? And how do we make more conscientious purchasing decisions while still giving people things that they will appreciate? And how do I provide my kids with the fun of unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning without a lot of toys that will just end up cluttering our space?
I still don’t have perfect answers, and we didn’t do a perfect job [I should have asked these questions before Christmas to get some help from the blogging world], but we made an effort, which is the most important thing.
Here’s what we did:
Experience gifts for extended family. We gave all of our siblings and their families experience memberships [like to the local zoo for those with little kids] or gift cards to spend on an experience [like jump zone for those with older kids] or amazon/restaurant gift cards for family members without kids.
The nice thing about this type of gift is that it doesn’t even require anything to be physically exchanged [I actually texted the amazon gift cards to my siblings – thank you, 21st century!]. Can’t get much more zero waste than that. And [for the most part], the gift can be enjoyed many times throughout the year.
BUT, the downside is that there is no physical gift to open.
Used toys for our kids. If we are going to have toys to open on Christmas, I felt like we should get them used [as much as we are able]. My kids are young enough to not care at all if a gift is new or not. [Hopefully, they will never care, but that is probably wishful thinking.] We bought an AMAZING wooden train set complete with a table and rails and trains and cars [probably 100+ pieces] for $35 from a family that no longer used it. And we got an art easel from friends who were getting rid of theirs and graciously gave it to us for free. These are types of things that last for years and can be loved by many children – and are plastic-free!
That being said, we did purchase new consumables for the art easel like markers and paint and notepads and things like that. Some things cannot be purchased used. I probably didn’t put enough thought into getting these things from responsible sources [or making my own]. I know I can improve in that area in the future.
Consumable gifts from the family. Anyone who asked what to get our kids, I suggested consumables like art and craft supplies, coloring books, temporary tattoos, bandaids, or gift cards for ice cream. This really helped cut down on the toys they received and this way everything will be used. We received ornaments from two families which the kids loved. Some were homemade which were adorable and meaningful and some were supporting international orphans – also very meaningful to us.
Homemade, meaningful, or consumable gifts for others. We made chocolate pretzels for our neighbors. We gave chocolates and amazon gift cards to Evangeline’s preschool teachers. We made ornaments for our aunts/cousins.
Our Auntie Paula, who does so much for our family, got a special homemade ornament: three hearts [one for each of my kids] hanging from a moon that said “Love you to the moon” – the special saying she shares with my kids. It might have been small and not cost us anything, but sometimes something special and made with love is the best gift.
Any other ideas/suggestions? I know there are other ways to give mindfully and meaningfully. If anyone has ideas to share, let me know so I can continue to improve in this area.
We love giving to our friends and family – but now I feel the pressure to purchase from responsible sources and not burden the recipients with stuff they don’t need. It is a strange balancing act that I am new [and not very good] at.
Overall, we stayed within budget and [hopefully] made everyone feel loved and appreciated this holiday season.
Well, only the older two skated, but JoElle and I had fun watching and hanging out in the warming shelter. 👍🏻
This is another one of our annual traditions and gets more enjoyable each year as the kids get older. However, it was really cold tonight and the kids can barely stand on their skates, let alone actually skate. So we only lasted about thirty minutes. But we still made fun memories.
That’s what it’s all about, right?
Afterwards, we always go to Noodles and Co to get warm cheesy noodles. [It’s the only way to bribe Brett into skating the kids around the whole time – way to take one for the team, babe!]
