Liar, Liar, Pants on fire!

I said in my earlier post that i would expound on why we did not allow Clayton to attend part of a field trip. His class was supposed to got to the mall to eat and visit Santa. They did, but not Clayton. He was OK with it. Here was the reasoning behind it. The teachers sent home a form letter for the kids to do requesting gifts from Santa. We do not do the whole Santa thing with our children, therefore we were not about to sit down and help him write some selfish letter of wants. We have no problem letting the kids tell us a few things they would like to get for Christmas, but there certainly are no guarantees in this house. We chose not to include Santa in our Christmas traditions because it is all a big lie. We don't make it a habit to lie to our children about anything, and Santa is no exception. Furthermore, my husband works long hard hours to sacrifice to get the gifts we do get for them, and no fictional character is getting any credit for that! Also Christmas is about GIVING not GETTING. After all, the first Christmas was about God GIVING us a Saviour!
We have made it clear to our kids that we want the message of Christmas--JESUS' BIRTH--to be the focus of our holiday, but let's face it-they are kids, they want presents. (Honestly, Jacob and I could do without the whole gift getting) We get our kids 3 gifts each, plus they each have a stocking that is sometimes very full and other times not to stuffed. This year Clayton's "big" gift was a Razor scooter. Snagged it for less than $20-a great buy! Candice's "big" gift was a 4-in-1 Eureka vacuum cleaner. It is a real deal vacuum, not a toy! She loved it! Clayton loves his scooter too! But in the midst of opening gifts, tears were falling because there weren't more gifts for them under the tree. This sparked the idea of no exchanging of gifts next year among the 5 of us. Next year, our family will be buying our favorite things to give to someone who has not. We want to teach our children how wonderful it is to GIVE. It feels SO GOOD to give something to someone and share their enjoyment. I don't want them to learn that as an adult. My desire,and i know Jacob would agree, is that our kids could get absolutely nothing for Christmas and still be just as happy. The reality of them getting nothing is never gonna happen with as many Aunts, Uncles, grandparents and friends that shower gifts on them--but i want the BEST Christmas's they remember to be ones that they GAVE something to someone and were happy to do it.
I remember 2 of my FAVORITE Christmas's. The first one i was around 6 years old. I had bought my mom this little crystal figurine of a mouse. I saved my money and bought that thing all by myself! I was so proud to give it to her! The second favorite Christmas was when i was about 13. That summer i had my first job. I worked and saved money. My sister had mentioned that she wished she had a boom box radio. i took my money and went and bought her one. I was THRILLED to give it to her! She was so surprised! It was SO WORTH it--all those long hours over the summer paid off 100 fold to me! I want my kids to have that too!