As a form of self-care, I am doing my VERY best to steer clear of news and social media and relatives who like to talk about politics and the state of the world. It may not be SMART to just put my head in the sand, but it is HEALTHIER – for ME – than my previous state of Engaged And Informed But Also On The Edge Of A Panic Attack At Any Given Moment.
So! I am now going to be ostriching myself straight through the holidays! So far, I have managed to not fill my Christmas list up with survivalist gear and have successfully supplanted terrified googling of “what happens if another country bombs us” with endless Buzzfeed lists of What To Get For Some Very Specific Person On Your List.
Anyway!
Snow – actual, heavy snow that is sticking to the ground as I type! – is falling and I’m beginning to feel a tickle of holiday giddiness. But it seems that this year I have some Questions.
We have one set of grandparents whose love language is Financial Planning and another set whose love language is Gifts. I am trying very very hard not to express a preference, because both sets of grandparents are far too generous and kind and thoughtful for me to ever properly express my gratitude. My daughter, my husband, and I are all extraordinarily fortunate to have such loving people in our lives.
But we have TOO MANY TOYS. Too many. I know, I know – when you have kids, there will be toys. Yadda yadda. But it’s beginning to drive me crazy. I feel lucky it’s taken nearly three and half years to reach this point.
What I’m asking here is, have you any advice for… keeping the NEW toys to a minimum?
My husband and I are getting our daughter three gifts. Two are toys, and one is a set of books. That to me feels like PLENTY. Her Financial Planning grandparents have in the past – and we have no expectation of ongoing or future support! I am simply musing on this as a possibility – added some money to Carla’s college fund, and then they may also send A Toy, which I get; they want her to have something to open on Christmas.
And then the Gift Giver Grandparents – The Triple G, if you will – are going to unleash a torrent of toys on my child that I can only envision as a raging river of wooden vegetables and mismatched doll shoes and magna tiles and puzzle pieces and stuffed animals. I’m grateful! Truly! They think of her often and want to delight her and that is WONDERFUL! But. It’s making my chest tight just to think of it.
The other thing is, Carla is three and a half, and she has a limited attention span. She gets bored and, frankly, overwhelmed by the present opening process. I don’t want to be impolite and allow her NOT to open something, when the gift giver is right there, eager to see her little face light up in response to the treasure concealed beneath glittery wrapping paper. But I also don’t want to force her to overload her brain. And it is cranky-making, to be playing happily with one toy, and to have your family prod you into opening something else when you just want to KEEP PLAYING.
Was it last Christmas – no, I think it was two Christmasses ago – when the gift unwrapping took FOREVER. Hours and hours. I thought I might go mad. And poor Carla was SO overwhelmed. (Part of the reason may have been that we had ALL family members here. We have since switched to One Set of Grandparents Per Holiday, which eases the pressure a bit.)
We have asked the Triple G to limit their gifts to THREE, which seems reasonable and will still likely result in my eventual burial beneath a heap of lego blocks and Elsa gloves and doctor tools and My Little Ponies. But – how do I say this kindly, because I KNOW they are simply excited and full of love and generosity and certainly not malice? – they are not hearing us, I don’t think.
What do you DO in that situation?
I recall some other bloggers who did things like… whittle the present pile down to something manageable before Christmas, and then hold out some of the gifts for later in the month/year. I could totally see keeping a few presents in check and then handing them out over the TWO WEEK HOLIDAY BREAK what are we going to DO during all that time OMG.
But… that seems much simpler to accomplish when the gift givers aren’t present. When they are – when they’ve traveled thousands of miles to be with their beloved grandchild on Christmas Day – it seems pretty cold to say, “Nah, we’re going to save your present for next Tuesday.”
(You might say, well, perhaps you could hold back YOUR gifts. To which I say, pfffffffft. No.)
(TANGENT AHOY! I have suddenly thought of a NEW question, which is: who, in your family, is Santa? My in laws have often exchanged gifts with tags from “Rudolph” and “Mrs. Santa” etc. But… I kind of have this selfish feeling that Santa gifts should be from ME AND MY HUSBAND. Is that reasonable? Is that how you do it? Why am I feeling so petulant about Christmas this year?)
(And, if you have children, do you give your child gifts from Santa AND from you? I can’t remember what my parents did! I think mainly it was gifts from Santa.)
One happy option, I suppose, is Hanukkah, which overlaps Christmas this year. Perhaps we could spread out the Christmas gifts over the eight days of Hanukkah? My husband didn’t get a gift every night of Hanukkah when he was growing up, but potentially we could make an exception this year? (Will that set a bad precedent?)
Does that mean I need to get my niece eight Hanukkah gifts, though? That seems excessive. I would certainly not want my sister to feel obligated to get Carla that many presents.
ACK. TOO MANY PRESENTS. Let’s call it all off AND, on top of that, let’s collect all toys we currently own and donate them to charity!
