four parenting tips for a sane holiday season

Yes, I realize it’s only October, but there is no time like the present to start planning for the holiday season.  You know the requests for your time, money and sanity are just around the corner.  So let’s chat about a plan, shall we?  Today I’m sharing four parenting tips for a sane holiday season.

Know when to say no.  Cookie exchange?  Sounds great!  Throwing a Christmas tea at school?  Perfect!  Volunteering with the church musical?  Yes!  Planning the holiday parties at school?  You got it!  It all sounds great in October.  But when you get closer to the holidays, you start to fill with dread.  Wait.  The church musical practices twice a week?  I need to bake 14 dozen cookies for the cookie exchange?  The Christmas tea is the same day as my preschooler’s Christmas pageant?  And I still have to decorate the house, set up a Christmas tree, shop, wrap gifts, sing at the nursing home, plan three different holiday parties all on the same day, buy teacher gifts, deliver goodies to neighbors, and the list goes on. Take a deep breath.  If you’ve already signed up to help with even one holiday event, take a good hard look at your schedule and consider saying no to the others.  If you haven’t signed up yet, take a good hard look at your schedule and decide what, if any, responsibilities you’re able to take on this year.  And then just say no if you need to.  It’s better for everyone if you do the best job you can at a few things than if you overcommit.

Teach your kids the art of saying “thanks”.  As we just celebrated my son’s fourth birthday, I was reminded that we need to work on the art of saying thank you for a gift.  More than once, his comments were “I don’t like it” or “Is that all?”  Yep.  Total mom fail on that one.  When my older kids were little, we made a game of saying thanks.  We wrapped some fake gifts and took turns opening them and coming up with something nice to say to the giver.  These “gifts” were things like an old shoe, a gaudy shirt, or a babyish toy.  Some appropriate responses were: “Wow, it’s so colorful!  Thank you!” or “I know just what I’ll do with it” or just “Thanks so much for thinking of me.”  A handwritten thank-you note to someone you won’t see in person is also always appropriate (for younger kids I’ve found printing a picture of them wearing/playing with their gift or even just holding it after opening it is a great option).

Start some holiday traditions.  Whether it’s an advent calendar, an elf, or hiking through the snow to cut down your own Christmas tree, it’s nice to have a few yearly traditions.  Our kids look forward to almost all of our family traditions (sometimes the hunt for the perfect tree at the tree farm gets a little long).  As soon as Thanksgiving rolls around, our kids start asking when the elf will come.  And upon arrival our elf brings some Christmas jammies.  So much better than Christmas Eve–they can wear them for weeks before Christmas!   (Now, if you haven’t started an elf yet, I might encourage you to forgo that little troll guy.  But I have to say, it is definitely a source of glee for our kids).  We also look forward to going on a horse-drawn carriage ride, attending a living nativity and driving down a street known for the elaborate light display.  And don’t forget giving to others!  We always sing at the nursing home and our neighborhood does a random acts of Christmas kindness day.  Remember that more does not equal better.  A few family traditions go a long way.

Focus on quality, not quantity. When it comes to buying gifts for my kids, I like to keep in mind one thing: anything under the tree has to find a place in my home. So if my living room is overflowing with oversized boxes from Toys R Us, well, my house will be too for the foreseeable future. I like to keep it simple. We try to stick to one or two toys, some high quality clothes and coupons or tickets for some things to do over winter break or throughout the year. Last year my daughter got tickets to Annie and Beauty and the Beast when the Broadway shows traveled nearby. My son got Red Wings tickets. And the kids each got some arcade tokens and a coupon for ice cream for a special date day over break. It was perfect to have some things to look forward to over the winter and our house wasn’t full of toys that only held our kids attention for a few minutes.  If you’re on a strict budget, consider coupons for things that cost nothing.  One-on-one time is a hot commodity over here.  Giving your kids a coupon to stay up 30 minutes late to play games with you is free and can be a lifelong memory for both of you.

Do you have any parenting tips to simplify the holiday season?  I’d love it if you share them with me!