My exact words for asking, what I say to the kids about sharing one big gift, and the deal I made with my father-in-law so he could keep buying them whatever he wanted.
Hi! My gift guides are live, the sun is shining, and people got out and voted yesterday!! Life feels good today 💙.
Someone left a great question on my gift guide post, let’s talk about it…
When my kids were little, there was one part about the holidays that made me really anxious. It was the toys, and books, and dress-ups, and outfits that I knew were about to take over my house. All year long, I spent hours organizing the playroom and keeping their rooms manageable. And all that incoming stuff threatened the balance that I was barely achieving without it.
I have three kids, and when the holidays rolled around the first few years, it was like gift-a-palooza. We were the first of our friends and family to have kids, so our relatives were beyond generous with these new babies in the family. And our friends, not yet parents themselves, were sending and bringing gifts every time they visited around the holidays. Truthfully, it was too much. But what can a mom do beside be grateful for the good fortune, grin, and bear it?
And then, suddenly Ruby had 6 different plastic pink tea sets, and 19 dolls who urgently needed me to dress them, find their shoes and put them on.
Sloane, who loved Paw Patrol (bless those pups they brought so much play into our lives, more on that here), was opening gift after gift of Paw Patrol stuffed animals, a life sized tower, and a talking and walking Chase. (I literally was dying inside when she opened that one.) Don’t worry, I acted thrilled to receive it.
The kids loved them initially, but they were toys that did one thing, could only be one thing, and they took up so much room, crowding out the blocks, magnetic tiles and figurines that I knew would support hours and hours of pretend play… if the kids could find them through the sea of other toys. I could feel the mental energy these toys would steal from me as I removed them from the playroom over time.
And while I am being honest, I might as well add that I kind of started dreading the holidays coming. I was working year round to keep our play spaces lean, and curated by age, stage and development. (I was a bit of an overachiever in that department. If you followed me online back then, cringe. Sorry bout that…) But in my defense, I know so much about play and children that I wrote an entire book about it.
And all these years later, with a 13, 16 and 19 year old, I stand by the desire to go deeper not wider with toys at the holidays. In this post I am going to help you think like a collector not a consumer this holiday gifting season.
If your family is asking what to get the kids, make it a group project.
Let’s talk group gifts, how to ask for them, and how to manage them when your kid is upset they didn’t “get their own.”
Below, I’m sharing the exact words I used at the apple orchard when my in-laws asked what the kids wanted, and the talk I had with my three before one big box arrived (who pulls the ribbon, who gets the scissors), and what I said when one of them was disappointed anyway. There’s also the rule we had about presents that were just for one of them, and the deal I made with my father-in-law so he could keep bringing dollar store dolls and plastic flashing swords. And the group gifts I’d ask for if my kids were little again.
So when your mother-in-law asks what the kids want this year, you’ll have one answer.
The rest is for my paid subs…
