Christmas Budget

Every year, how to budget Christmas is a question for many people. How do you get your children gifts they want that are not too expensive or extravagant is difficult. I though I would share a few of my thoughts on this matter. We have tried a few things over the years, with each year being a little different.

First, I think that from birth Christmas should be focused more on the  giving than the getting. Most years , we choose a family that is struggling and do something for them for Christmas. If we just give money, we talk to the kids about poor people who do not have much money and will not be able to have much of a Christmas. We ask them if they would be willing to have smaller gifts to help children who will get no gifts. The answer is always a resounding YES.  Some of the other  things we do is we have them get gifts for each other. We have to keep this small, but we have each child think about what their siblings might like getting. We also make cookies and let the kids take them to neighbors and such. We find that all of these things help our children in understanding that they do not need big things and lots of gifts to have a happy Christmas.

Second, focus most of our Christmas celebration on the birth of the Savior. Most nights during December, we read scriptural accounts of Jesus's birth. We sing Christmas carols most nights too and make sure we get plenty of religious songs in our singing. We also have the kids act out the nativity each year. This year, we even gave the first child to memorize Luke 2:4-20 movie theater tickets to Narnia. (Kate won that challenge) So she will have a date with Dad. I also make sure that some of our crafts include religious things, like making angels for tree ornaments. Making service a part of the Christmas celebration also helps our children to focus on the Savior and the needs of other people. We still of course sing songs about snow and Santa Claus. We hang up our stockings and count down to Christmas. We make paper trees, stockings, and santas. But we try to include as much of the Savior into all of this as possible.

Third, we just do small Christmas's. Santa Claus has only ever given our children one gift and stocking items. Then John and I only get the children 2 additional smaller gifts. The most we spend on a single item is usually around $20 to $30. The kids just know this. If it is a big present, it is for more than one child. Rachel and Anya are getting a large shared gift from Santa this year. Anything else we give them will be less than $10. The kids know that if they want a large gift, they have to wait for their birthdays. For birthdays, we let the kids choose between a birthday party or an expensive present. Since parties tend to be at least $100, our kids can choose a large gift instead. We find one birthday in any month a lot easier to budget than expensive gifts for 7 children all in one month.

Finally, we talk to the kids about our budget. For example, yesterday, Kate said, "it is pay day, why do we not have good snacks?" We told her she could either have Christmas presents or expensive snack food in December, but that we didn't have money for both. For the older kids, we will explain that we have this much money per person, so don't list anything more expensive than that. They will try, but they have never been disappointed.

We have tried a few different things like shopping sales all year round, getting used items, only giving small cheap items,  skipping grocery shopping etc, and I haven't felt like one thing has necessarily worked better than the other. What keeps us from going into to debt for Christmas is just plain old not being to extragavant and being generous to those in need.