Sibling Christmas gifts

We are in the era of building meaningful family traditions around what is significant for our family. Commercial Christmas is not special to us, but Jesus is. We're convinced we've got more reason to celebrate, and more reason to ditch the excesses, than people who don't yet see what a big deal Jesus is. So, we love a simple but substantial Christmas. In our tradition building, I am often stealing other people's ideas.

A new friend inspired me with her own family's gift giving tradition. She is now in her twenties. Since childhood, her parents have given each child in the family 1 pound to spend on each family member for Christmas. (My friend is from the UK and my Aussie keyboard won't let me access the 'pound' symbol easily). The siblings would then go hunting through second hand stores for a gift for each of the other members of the family. Sometimes treasure would be found; sometimes just a laugh. Since I am quite attached to Op-shops (that's what we call charity stores here), I thought this was a fabulous idea worthy of adoption.

We have allowed our kids to spend $1-2 on each member of our household, meaning each child gets around $6 to spend in total. They get to enjoy the relational value of giving gifts, without unnecessary expense. They are (slowly) learning to think about the personality, tastes, needs and joy of others. They have to be creative problem solvers and pace their own spending. It is also pretty fun, apart from when the two year old has trouble with delayed gratification. It's all part of the memory making.

If you are looking for some substance for the Christmas season, you can find all sorts of things on Harrysdesk and 168hrs.