Buying Christmas gifts for your kids are tricky. You want to give them a one-time, big-time gift, but you don’t know what. Then if you want to give them small gifts, you don’t know how many.
It’s important to teach our kids to be invested in what we give them. We can do this if we give them something meaningful and sensitive to their wants and needs. Teach them how to value things by going for quality over quantity.
Quality over quantity
For families that enjoy gifting more than one christmas gift to each kid, continuing with this practice can negatively affect how your child develops.
Giving a lot of Christmas gifts lets them get used to quantity instead of quality, and this can make them forget what you gave them. In fact, having too many toys has a negative effect on kids. Eventually, a lot of these gifts will end up ignored, unused, or in the trash by the of next year.
Christmas gift
How to select Christmas gifts?
Start with a budget
Save yourselves from the stress and extra expense of buying too many gifts for your young ones. Who has the time to go 12 Gifts of Christmas on their kids? And in this economy?
Set a Christmas budget and once you do, make sure you stick to it. Not only should you teach your kids about spending wisely, but you should teach yourself as well, especially in one of the most expensive holidays of the year.
If you have more than one child, make sure the combined monetary value for each of your child’s gift is equal. We don’t want them griping about these after they open gifts when they discover that the other kid’s gift is cooler than the other’s.
If you’re shopping for Christmas gifts for your kids, you can even ask your eldest child to help you shop for gifts for their younger siblings, they might have some useful advice for you, too! Same goes for each child when you need to buy gifts for the eldest and the other siblings.
Well, pat yourself on the back for making a selective and smart decision on buying Christmas gifts for your kids.
The Three Wise Men
There’s a way in which you can guide yourself into choosing the right Christmas gifts for your kids to avoid wastage and keep your child’s gift-opening spree in check. Do this by limiting your gifts to three gifts per child and be guided by these three categories:
- Something they want
- A thing they need
- Something to read
This list is modeled after the gift of the Three Wise Men in the Bible story. The first one represents the “gold” present, or a child would and treasure, like a toy. The “frankincense” present is something that will be used in one’s spiritual life, and since this refers to inner growth, it can be a book. The “myrrh” present is something for the body, like clothes or shoes, but can be any necessity, really.
It’s less stressful this way, and it’s more meaningful. So next time you’re getting Christmas gifts for your kids, use this as a guide to avoid overspending and spoiling your children too much!
Republished with permission from: theAsianParent Singapore
Needs ideas for what to give to your kids? You can check out these gift giving ideas on Pinterest.
