For a lot of years now I’ve been trying to move towards less gifting. There’s so much emotional baggage around the entire topic of giving shit for Christmas. Almost no one outside our house is getting “stuff” from us this year. My little adopted nieces and Jenny and Noah is doing stuff for his family. We will give baked treats to our youngling friends in town but I’m not worrying about giving stuff to neighbors we have barely spoken to this year.

My big kids asked for a few items to finish their rooms from Santa. Eldest Child wants a box that can lock to keep stuff away from the little siblings and some fake foliage to finish her woods-motif bedroom. Middle Child wants a small table and a tea pot (haven’t found the tea pot yet–gulp) for playing tea party in their room. Other than that they are getting a few books and their stockings are barely half full. Additional presents are a floaty/light weight hippy dress for EC because even in Inverness she is often overheated and she has outgrown most of her clothes and MC got a beautiful hand made wrap in colors that they will love to go with their dressing up fancy obsession.

Last year I got everyone themed night clothes and they asked if we could please do that again so both big kids picked out a style they liked from Etsy. This was not a family tradition before moving here. I am amused that the kids have decided that this is going to be a tradition moving forward. Given that Noah is not usually one for wearing pajamas it may be a little weird for him to have to come along on this one.

Youngest Child is getting a gnome village from Santa and little gnomes in her stocking with some bath toys and hair clips. A couple of books as the only things to unwrap at this point.

It’s seeming a bit hilarious that I’m getting the biggest Santa present because I asked to upgrade the shoe racks as my gift. When we moved in I got a really irritating cheap £20 shoe rack as good enough to last until I knew what I wanted. Now I know what I actually want and Noah ordered it. They are fairly large because with 5 people and actual seasons we have way more shoes than we have ever collectively had before. So my present is a house thing for all of us.

I have a few things for Noah but not a lot and that’s all I can say about that because he reads this. I feel a little guilty about not doing more for him and yet he’s been telling me for years not to get him much. I don’t think he asked for a single thing this year. He doesn’t need any clothing items at all.

We didn’t do the mass Christmas card thing this year. I’m exhausted and sending a card to the US costs £1.70 a pop. We used to send about 100 cards. That adds up, yo.

I’m having a hard time shaking the programming from my youth that giving so little means I don’t love people very much. But we don’t need very much at this point and there isn’t a lot anyone wants. EC genuinely doesn’t want much. She likes having a room that is easy to tidy and she feels like she is mostly past the toys-stage and she’s not a makeup person and she doesn’t use fancy bath stuff and she doesn’t want or need a lot more clothing or shoes. We have all the art supplies we need for quite some time. MC is the sort who would always appreciate more but they have enough toys to keep them busy and they have a bursting wardrobe. They would appreciate being given more things but I can’t think of much they would actually use. YC doesn’t need much more stuff. They have enough to keep my house a constant tripping hazard already. I already rotate baskets of toys in and out of sight because if everything is out it is too overwhelming and just a mess. They would not be impressed by gifts of clothing even though they are the ones who are changing size the most quickly.

I am glad I didn’t get Christmas stuff out super early like I kind of wanted to. YC is breaking a lot of things and that’s feeling stressful. I don’t think things will be up long after Christmas this year. It will be nice to get back to having a lot of empty space in the house. I think I will like Christmas stuff being out more in about three years.

We’ve all been low key sick for the last week and we are all very low energy. It’s a cold, not Covid. Sore throat, barely runny nose, weak ass cough. Mostly just tired. But this year that means absolutely no going to school so EC has been home. After the last few years of starting to shove me away hard for budding independence reasons she has been real cuddly and that’s nice. I get in good snuggles with all three kids a lot these days.

Just plugging along.