The Modern Simplicity of Family Traditions, published in Nov/Dec 2005 Southeast Magazine

--A near catfight between two moms at a video game store over the last Nintendo DS.
--The roar of a Harley Davidson motorcycle on the morning of Dec.25--the recipient of such a gift? A 10 year old boy.
--Panicky parents rushing out on Christmas Eve, having decided that there wasn’t enough “big” stuff under the tree. They grab a foosball table in desperation; it begins gathering dust two weeks into January.
--A teenage girl asking for “cash and gift cards only” this year.
--Mothers and fathers actually feeling relief that a new, hot, must-have item comes out, because they couldn’t think of anything else to give their children that they didn’t already have.
--Christian children wanting to celebrate Hanukkah, too, because, “It’s not fair--they get presents for a week and we only get one day!”
--An elderly man lovingly carves small cars out of wood and takes them to charity. The workers accept but then shake their heads sadly when he leaves, knowing that the children in need are asking for MP3 players and remote control cars, not handmade toys.

Too outrageous to be true? Not at all. Gone are the days we only read about--quaint stories of orphans, expecting nothing, then receiving a single orange in their stocking and treasuring it as if it were gold, savoring the sight, smell, and feel of it for months. Holidays for children today can easily turn into one long “I want” list. It’s a yearly ritual, worrisome and tiring for parents. We may long to change but dread the resistance. Just like we cannot always convince them that too much candy will give them a stomach ache, it is hard for us to sell our children on the idea of a less commercial holiday season. Can our children learn to have a good holiday without us emptying the shelves at the toy store? Will our winter feel incomplete if we do not overindulge in gifts for the sake of gifts?

Jolie Solomon, in the August 15, 2005 online edition of the Wall Street Journal, asserts that granting a child’s every request “can create kids who consider a constant stream of purchases to be their birthright, who can’t relish the pleasures they do have, and who have little understanding of choice or gratitude.” We believe this --in theory-- but when it comes to the reality of the holidays, we lose our willpower.

For Moms, it’s the Holy Grail of family life . We want to manufacture the perfect holiday. We want our children to be awestruck by the mountain of presents. We never want to hear the words, “Is this all?” We don’t want them to feel one drop of disappointment, so we make sure they receive every single luxurious item on their wish list. We think we are failures as parents if they aren’t completely wowed by the number of and extravagance of the gifts. We plan carefully--there has to be the flashy things, the big-ticket items, and the all-important even number of gifts for each sibling. In the frenzy of the last few days of shopping, we toss the list and begin to desperately buy anything--filler gifts .We even wrap up the batteries separately so it gives the appearance of more. We rush out and buy just a few more things, even something they will never use, because we want the main event to be an impossibly large amount of gifts to open.

We also try to achieve the element of surprise. Today’s media savvy kids already know what they want down to the color, size and number of megabytes. We still keep buying, trying to pick out something so new and exciting they never expected it. We are searching for novelty but it may not exist in today’s heavily marketed world. It is difficult to find anything our kids are really lacking, or don’t know they are lacking. We have done such a good job providing for them there is nothing left to surprise them.

Then when the big day finally arrives, what happens? They tear through the gifts, barely pausing to catch their breath before wanting to go on to the next one. There is no savoring of the beautiful wrapping, perusing of the card, and they certainly don’t spend any time just being thrilled with the new present. They say, “Cool.” and then want to know which one they can open next. When it’s all over, we feel like we just gorged on a dozen doughnuts. It felt really good going down, but now we’re left with that feeling of, “Ugh, did I really need all that?”.

Much of the fun of the holidays is the anticipation. No number of extra gifts can prevent a small letdown afterward. It may be only days or even hours before you again hear the dreaded, “I’m bored.“ Their friends will call and ask, “What did you get?” and our kids will have a hard time remembering. There may not be one special gift they’ll treasure years from now and say, “I remember the year I got this.” No, last year’s cell phone will be replaced this year with a new camera phone. Topping our gifts each year becomes more and more difficult.

Though our children may claim the contrary, most are not deprived. We must ask ourselves, What is the worst that will happen if we downsize the holidays? Will lack of gifts affect their personality? Will they become unloved and unpopular? Hungry homeless social outcasts because they received three presents instead of 30? Is having an excess of objects going to improve their lives in the long term? We need to reconsider what we expect out of our family‘s gift-giving traditions.

It’s not like December is the only opportunity for an entire year for today’s children to receive things they need. They will have these things all year long. Nearly every trip to the store yields some urgently needed lip gloss or markers. We don’t need to feel guilty for downsizing. As far as receiving fun little extras, necessities like socks, or more downloads, generosity exists all year for our children. It’s not like it’ll be a whole year before we again buy them anything they want or need. So why do we feel we have to buy a year’s worth of goodies for one day? The other 11 months are already commercial enough. The mall will still be there . We can do that any day.

Let’s start a new tradition and make this the one week that is different. Focus on the good differences. For starters, no school! Mom and Dad are actually home from work. The family stays home, even cooks and eats together. Neighbors are outside playing and enjoying the glorious Arizona winter weather. It may be the only opportunity for the whole year that we have a chance to visit with relatives. There’s no schedule, no soccer practice or piano lessons, but there’s time to play board games. Time together will be remembered and treasured even more than the gifts, believe it or not. In 20 years, will they remember the momentary thrill of opening an ipod, or the pickup football game with the cousins?

Maybe instead of trying to wow them with extravagance, quantity and novelty, we should expose our kids to something they don’t get every day--simplicity. Let’s let go of the fantasy of the overflowing sparkly dream December. It doesn’t have to be about the gifts. It can become a tradition of the one time during the year that we take advantage of the time off, slow down and recommit ourselves to family, friends and service to others, and try to take that feeling with us the rest of the year. Let them anticipate time with dad instead of a horde of objects that we will only be seen again when we are collecting for a charity drive in June ---and we find last years gifts in the bottom of a closet, still in their original packaging.

The magic of holidays of old was the illusion of wealth and comfort on one day amid poverty for the other 364. We want to duplicate that miraculous feeling of the orphan receiving the orange for our children. But in today’s affluent society, is it possible? Do we want to go back to lean times like that? We can’t change the world’s obsession with material things, but we can try to stay somewhat unaffected by it , and create our own new kind of modern simplicity: a family tradition of togetherness.