New Family Christmas Tradition

When the wise men visited Jesus after his birth they came bringing gifts for him. As far as we have been told, there were three wise men and three gifts. Special, yes. But there were only three. Not the dozens of gifts that we tend to find under the traditional Christmas trees in our generation.

For the last couple of years Jakob has received many gifts for Christmas. All ranging from the new size of wardrobe needed, to the classic toy that we just HAD to get him. We started to notice after two years that he really didn't care about ALL of the gifts. He just enjoyed the whole thought of it all.

So when my friend told me about their "Three gifts for Christmas" tradition. We grabbed it! As you have probably put together, just as Christ was given three gifts for Christmas, we will follow this tradition and each person in our family will receive three gifts for Christmas from this point on (except from other outside sources of course like family and friends, though we have asked Santa to keep his present giving to one gift per child:)

We will spend the weeks after Thanksgiving leading up to Christmas focusing our teaching moments on the true meaning of Christmas and the gift that our Savior is. I found a few different families who follow this tradition and they have nothing but good things to say. Their children even say that it isn't a concern to them not to get dozens of gifts on Christmas morning. The feeling of the Christmas Spirit steels the show!

But what about all of the NEEDED items that are purchased and put under the tree each year. You know like undies, new clothes, socks, etc? I am not going to wait when the kid's need these items. We will just purchase them when needed and not make them such a huge event. This might help us give special gifts for Christmas.