Santa – Rachel Who?

I can’t seem to find my favorite niche for Christmas. I feel like I change it every year. Scratch that. I DO change it every year. Mostly because I have too. The custody agreement I have with my children’s father is far from simple. We split the major holidays. Not only do we share those days – we shuffle around my ex’s work schedule too. 🤦‍♀️

Every Christmas schedule is different than the year before. I might have the kids Christmas Eve night into Christmas until 1pm. Then they head to dads for the remainder of the day /night – OR – I wake up with them Christmas Eve morning, then they go to dads for Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning and come home Christmas afternoon. It makes it difficult to really have traditions because I am never guaranteed one or the other.

Gift Giving Traditions

For the gift giving portion of Christmas, I’ve tried a variety of different ways, strategies if you will. A few things have stayed consistent over the years, but not much.

I’ve had years where I went all out. I remember when my kids were 2 and 6, I lost myself in the Christmas spirit. That year I completely upped the anti. I even bought life size balloons of the kids favorite characters. An Elsa for Ry and a Star Wars storm trooper for Luke. They were at an age where quantity was better than quality. The balloons were $12 each and kept for months (possibly all year) after.

Here’s a visual. $12 for each and the best gift.

One year, I purchased very few gifts and instead, bought mostly gift cards to go places and experience things (PSA- not recommend for ages birth – 11. 12+ would appreciate/understand it more). They loved doing all the things they received, but that year, the kids didn’t think they got much. Even though we spent hundreds on them. One year I tried doing the whole “something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read” thing people do…ya, that year one kid didn’t think Santa came at all 🤦‍♀️

This year, I decided I would do something different…yes, again! This year we are starting to phase out Santa. My kids are 7 & 11. I have one believer left.

I made an executive decision to put ALL of the gifts I personally bought for each child, along with gifts to friends and family, on display under the tree for the entire month of December.

My thought process is – IF they are naughty during the month of December, they can watch me remove a gift of theirs from under the tree OR, they can pick out the gift but a gift will be forfeited for bad behavior.

My second thought is to make more of the gifts be from me, rather than from Santa. I thought of this after my daughter pointed out an expensive gift that she really wanted. After I told her it was a lot of money and I wasn’t sure if Santa could afford it, her reply was “it’s okay mom, Santa has lots of money” ummmmmm no, he actually doesn’t have a lot of money haha.

Finally – I’m sick of Santa getting all the credit damn it! 😂

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