christmas morning letdown

aka christmas morning disappointment
this happens when all the kids around the world are upset with what they did not get what they wanted/asked for christmas morning. reason being the toys are usually out of the parents budget

this week alone, i have found myself in conversations with other mom's who are expressing grief over what they did not buy for little janie and johnny and how sad their kids will be when they don't get that 300 box of lego, the 500 toy car or the 2000 lap top. for real

i was shocked and didn't say much, just listened. i was amazed that this would bother parents. i have a 4 yr old and his christmas list was redic. he ain't getting anything that he asked for (minus nana and papa who did get him 1 thing that he wanted) i chose to not buy, buy, buy and buy for him

christmas morning is going to come and i wonder how will he respond when he doesn't get things that he wants. i know how he will respond...he will be too excited with the 4 presents that he DID get to be upset over what he DIDN'T get

how do i know this?
bec i know my child. i know that he would rather have me and chris play with him, read him a book than have the big ticket toys

so what is this disappointment? how do we handle it?
we can prevent as much heart ache by buying (the adult carrying the financial burden) our kids as much as we can, so they will never or rarely have to deal with the disappointment (or better yet, as they get older...keeping up with those joneses)

or

we can teach them, from an early age that life is full of disappointments. suck it up. it's not the disappointments that is the problem it's how you deal with it

so, can we teach our kids how to handle disappointment? if so, how? that i am not sure but i do know that for me, for us and our family. nate will learn from a young age that life is not a free be. he wants something, he's gotta earn it. he had a lot. too much. so i went and stripped his playroom, packed away over 1/2 the toys. did he even notice? nope. he did notice that i took his atrzooka box (a box of GARBAGE) and threw that away...ha

i grew up not getting what i asked for. sure i was sad. but i got over it. from a young age i saw that having a mom at home did not leave a lot of room for money, toys, trips or having what my friends had. i had more. i had a dad too. most of them didn't. nate is going to learn this too :)

i think it's great to buy and spoil your kids. but what's the motivation behind it? really, why are we buying? who for? the kids? or us? hummm

i ponder as i wrap my 4 gifts to nate (all under 50 bucks) and i wonder. will he notice?
will nate notice that chris and i don't exchange gifts?

such a heavy topic for a fun sat! ha!

have a great day today

Posted by mel at 10:19 AM