Holiday Aftermath

Christmas is over and a new year has begun - - and although my husband and I set up our "Christmas Cash" as well as a holiday spending budget, we still used our credit cards. I haven't gone through to figure out how much money was charged (or should I say added to our already looming debt), I think I'm subliminally avoiding it. I started off with only 3 gifts per child and $100 per child. That left about $300 for the rest of the family. It was all going well until I couldn't find a big present for my son and went shopping with my husband. My husband loves Walmart and could spend a fortune if I let him - I wanted to get Christopher a Leapster but my husband felt it was too babyish. He then saw the 'perfect gift' which was a $67 remote control Yukon. With that purchase I felt I had to up the girls' to one more present but then I realized that Christopher has more in value but less in actual presents to open. Which is more important to a kid - how many presents each sibling gets to open or how much they are worth? Definitely how many actual presents because you know that they have this internal gift counter that sets off a silent but deadly alarm if someone else has opened 5 presents and they have only opened 3.

When all was said and done, my 3-gift rule turned into 7 gifts and my son still mentioned the fact that Santa did not bring him a Ninentendo DS. I still didn't teach him contentment! Maybe next year:)

Are you raising content children? Tell me your secrets.