The floor is covered in wrapping paper, under the tree is already bare, and the children were happily engaged with all their new gifts… for approximately 25 minutes. As parents we felt frustrated after the time, thought, and money into buying, wrapping, and stating up way to late for the children to not fully enjoy the lesson Christmas could teach them. 

A few years ago on a whim we decided to put Christmas in the hands of our children. 

We decided to do a gift exchange with our children, and it has changed the atmosphere of what “the season of giving” means through in a real, tangible way. What started on a whim a few years ago has turned into a tradition our family (children especially!) look forward to. 

If prompted our children could still recall who they given gifts to and what they bought each other over the year the last few years! 

We don’t do this in addition to a bunch of gifts from mom and dad; we do this instead of buy each of our children a bunch of stuff. We buy a “family gift” as our gift to our children- one that everyone can enjoy.

As a mother of six now, I have to say our children look forward to guessing who they will get, hoping who will get them, and (sometimes) bummed when they get the same person, again.