At odds with Christmas

It's that time of year, when I feel pressured to spend more money than we have to make Christmas memorable. My kids have been lucky and have had amazing Christmas mornings with gifts from Santa and endless presents under the tree, but it's a hard to keep up that momentum! How do you top the year before? And then I have all of my hippy, granola ideologies of not wanting my children to think they can have everything, not wanting to be a family reveling in the excess that is so American, not wanting to put myself in the poorhouse in order to fill my kids' closets with Wal-Mart crap that will be played with twice and end up in the never-ending cycle of garage sales and Goodwill donations! I long for a simpler time!

But how is this possible with the endless barrage of Fisher-Price commercials on the Disney Channel and every store having aisle after aisle of junk falling off the shelves to tempt the hearts of the young? Do I never go to Target, do I ban television? Believe me, the thought has crossed my mind! We have become such a disposable world. We seem to be wired to consume and dispose constantly! More is better and I'm just tired of it. It absolutely wears me down. I haven't even started my XMAS shopping and I'm, for some reason, not looking forward to it this year. I don't know if it's the money thing, or just being overwhelmed with what is out there and what the kids want that I'M alright with them having, or if it's the raging, rampant greed that I'm seeing in the general population to acquire as much shit as possible before December 25th? When did XMAS become all about trampling a Wal-Mart employee so you could get 20% off that crappy ass flat screen TV? Seriously?

So here I sit, reminiscing about the stories my grandmother told me of her Christmases as a child. How lucky they felt when their father was able to buy them candy (5 lbs of orange slices, 5 lbs. of chocolate cream drops, and 5 lbs. of coconut bonds) and some baskets of fresh apples and oranges. It was all about family, loving one another and having a couple of special treats to celebrate the season. Things have certainly changed! I am trying to keep things mellower this year, I want to get things I KNOW the kids will play with, I am planning on making many of the gifts, especially for the Piggle as she is still little and hasn't began to demand the Bratz dolls or My Little Pony's yet. It's definitely a thin line to walk, to make their day special, yet to tread lightly on the Earth and not raise entitled little brats that think they deserve everything they ask for. I'll be glad when it's over. Christmas used to be one of my favorite holidays, but now it just stresses me out. I think my new favorite holiday is Halloween!