Christmas Our Way

Disclaimer: Please understand that this post is not a way to downplay what others do to celebrate the holidays, but it is instead a way to help others understand that celebrating can be done in numerous ways. People who truly know me, know that I am a very unconventional and nontraditional person.

So very often I get the question, "What are you getting your daughter for Christmas?" People look at me like I am crazy when I tell them she is going out to give back to the community or she is giving others a gift rather than receiving a lot of presents. They try to make me take that guilt trip, but I do not allow other people's opinions to dictate how my household is run. Christmas is a very commercialized day in the year that I see families spending a ton of money just to see their children smile. Well, I'm glad to say that I do not have to go to that length to see my daughter smile. She enjoys the simple things and for that I appreciate the time we are able to spend unconventionally during the holidays. My husband does not celebrate any holidays or events that are not explicitly mentioned in the bible or have a history of misfortune in the bible as directed by his religion. I have no ties to a religion that explicitly state that I cannot celebrate holidays. In fact, I grew up going through the motions and celebrating by tradition but I have never been one to take much excitement out of celebrating much of anything so it works for me and my family. My daughter just follows suit rather than wanting to do things like her friends and cousins. Yes, I get asked why I don't shower my daughter with gifts and that she will be upset with me when she grows up. I am told that I am ruining her fun as a child and taking her innocence away because I don't follow all the Santa superstitions. I just don't think it's fair for my child to believe a jolly fat stranger brought gifts into our house in the middle of the night while I go to work each day just to provide for her. Why should Santa get all the credit? Either way, I refuse to blatantly lie to my child about it. She knows the deal about strangers and that I wouldn't allow a stranger in our home anyway. Besides, I am not spending hundreds of dollars for one morning on things that I think she would want for my own personal thrill and risk her not even wanting the toys. She hardly plays with toys so it just doesn't make sense for our family. She is very blessed and does not want for much of anything, which is all I want for her to understand.

Visiting the nursing home

Look at that smile :-)

Family time at the movies!

Now, on to what we did do for the holidays. For starters, we sat up all night for a couple of nights watching family movies (she has watched Annie like 3 times now and I never realized it was so long before). She gets soooo excited being able to play games with us and she starts talking trash about how she's going to win (respectful trash talk of course). This morning, we went to see Big Hero 6 since she has been talking about it for a while now. All in all, we are spending FAMILY TIME together. Oh, and let me not forget that I took her to the nursing home to give gifts, sing, and pass out cards to the old folks. She absolutely loved spending time with the older generation talking and acted as though she wanted to stay longer when I told her it was time to go. I could ask for nothing better but to see a genuine smile form across my daughter's face for invaluable moments versus gifts of toys and nonsense that will leave a mess throughout the house. My only hope is that she learns the true meaning of happiness and not the happiness gained through monetary gain or material things.