I have rules that I used to distribute to my family via a “xmas manifesto”:
– I don’t receive gifts. Period. Anything I receive I will try to return or donate.
– My kids should only receive a max of 2 gifts each. Ideally, the gifts are experiences (a trip to a museum, etc).
Originally, it included a detailed description of my anti-consumerism. But it had to become more concrete as the kids got older. Eventually, I just scrapped it completely. I realized that there are people (my mother) who just won’t follow simple requests. I’ve learned a great deal from the experience.
- Not accepting gifts is offensive to some people because it robs them of something that is important to them: shopping.
– Receiving a gift can be a gift itself, as it provides people the excuse they need to engage in unhealthy, compulsive shopping.
– Many people feel that parents shouldn’t have the right to curate their kids’ toys.
My wife and I do a pretty decent job at keeping things real within our house. The amount of gifts our kids get from “santa”/us is nothing compared to their friends. Also, the whole “transaction” of xmas means cleaning house of some of our older toys (donate) in order to bring in the new shit.
Xmas is a tough time for me emotionally, because it brings up different emotions. Some of my earliest memories of feeling intense alienation and sadness were on xmas. I believe I was around 9 years old when I first gathered up all of my gifts in the evening when things were winding down. I sat there staring at all of that crap and felt nothing but a deep emptiness and sadness. For a month I had anticipated getting all of these possessions. Now that I was surrounded by them, I wanted nothing more than to simply throw them out my window. And I felt guilty for feeling that.