How my Kids Guilt me into Buying Christmas Presents

Last Updated on December 23, 2012 by Babita

So finally it’s that time of the year and Christmas is two days away. From the time Thanksgiving ends and the holidays officially begin, my girls perpetually hound me. Their biggest question is what they will be getting for Christmas and my answer is always the same…..“nothing”. The reason for that is, as an Indian-American and Hindu we do not celebrate Christmas. We however celebrate all the other aspects of this holiday. The lights that we put up for Diwali are left on until the New Year. We have a 4 ft. Christmas tree that we all take great pleasure in decorating with ornaments and other knick knacks. My dinner table, which my girls usually litter with all their stuff, is completely cleared off and dressed up with Christmas themed décor. Cookies and cakes are baked religiously and there is a lingering smell of vanilla in our kitchen and living room.

 

 

Having said that, the only tradition we do not follow is gift giving. I know it sounds cliché. The fact is my husband and I don’t believe in it. We don’t want to fall into the mold of those parents who go crazy and fanatical and believe their darling babies need to have the latest toys, gadgets or games to be relevant or to have the greatest and best Christmas ever. I am not criticizing the parents who do that. After all they grew up with those traditions and it is but natural that they pass it on to their kids. It is however not our tradition of gift giving and I find it increasingly difficult to convince my girls of that fact.

 

 

When my girls were younger it was easy to do that. Now that they are growing up, I find it an uphill task. They come up with the sweetest and most clever reasons of why they should get the presents. I am pretty sure in their tiny little minds they are forever scheming to get us to buy presents for them. Questions like why doesn’t Santa come to our house? Have we been naughty? …… are common throughout  this period (and yes they do know the answer to that, but my little one conveniently pretends to ignore it). My reasoning that Santa does not stop at our house to disperse their gifts is difficult for them to comprehend especially since all their non-Christmas celebrating friends have also started getting presents. To make matter worse, I am a Christmas baby (although the term baby has stopped applying to me a long time back), and I do end up with gifts and presents on that day. My girls who are usually understanding little beings scream of it being totally unfair.

 

This year my little one has been very aggressive. She went ahead and bought Christmas presents for all of us from her school store with her tooth fairy money of $5. By doing that I am sure she was trying to guilt me into buying gifts for her. On the other hand my older one ‘T’ has to also deal with her own little pang of jealously. You see, my little one also celebrates her birthday during the last week of December. So she ends up with birthday gifts and that is a bit too much for ‘T’ to digest. So then she tries to guilt me into buying something for her. Who knew parenting would be so complicated. Anyway this year I conceded. I decided to get them presents that they truly need and not want. ‘T’ who is eleven now “truly” wants a cell phone and she knows she is not getting one. ‘S’ wants to have all the Barbie’s and dollhouses that she sees in advertisements and she is not getting those either. Both of them are getting gifts, which are appropriate for the talents they have.  Those presents might be boring but in the long run I know it will help them and be with them forever.  That as a parent is my compromise against the commercialization of Christmas and I feel it works out well for me too. In the end everyone is happy.

 

In the meantime to the rest of you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!