What to do.. what to do...

So I posted on face book what do you do as far as being fair with your kids for Christmas...

LOTS OF RESPONSE.

I am not a nickel and dimer like some people said.. but I do think it should be pretty close. We have had a few times where someone got a bigger gift and it was unequal but USUALLY we play it pretty close.

I do tend to find this a problem because we like the 3 gift thing.... a few years ago I got around this by buying a group of "LIKE" items and calling it one gift. That allowed me to spend closer to the same amount. However it was never the exact amount or the exact number of gifts.

NEVER has any of my kids said... someone got more than me... or ANYTHING LIKE THAT!

As they have gotten older and know good and well for instance what a Lego set cost- this is generally based on the number of pieces... Matt KNOWS if he gets ONE large set- it is most of his gift!

This year Kate is getting a new DS. The one she has bit the dust and we said we would get her a new one. So that means a big gift for her. Matt and Emily do not have ANY big tickets items... So I need to figure out what to do.

I have a couple of ideas but my 3 gift is going out the window. I don't mind.. it is not a rule in our house. MY kids are NOT greedy so I am not worried about their attitudes on this or getting a lot. It is just not a concern I have.

A DS is expensive and I did get a really good deal on it so really I didn't spend as much on it making it way LESS than I originally planned on. So I changed Matt and Emily's presents too. Other people ended up buying a few of the items I had thought about getting which again change the original plans.... but none the less, they are NOW settled.

I am good with the plan.

Last year there were no big ticket items.
The year before we did a family gift the Wii.
The year before that was Disney and we did a small Christmas.

 So the kids haven't gotten individual big gifts for a while.

I am actually really excited about their gifts this year.  I read To LOVE  Honor and Vacuum She talked about the 3 presents: gold, frankincense and myrrh but she related them to

GOLD-- something you want like a DS
Frankincense-- something you need like pajama's
Myrrh-- something that nurtures your spirit

I LIKE IT.  so I am going to have more than 3 gifts but I will also do ONE of each of the above gifts.

For Kate-- nurturing the spirit, I am buying her the book Passport to Purity-- we will go through it and two other books I have and go on a retreat in Feb hopefully!

For Emily I am getting three of the Lily series... I would normally wait for parts of THESE conversation till she was older unfortunately she is forcing my hand... so going with the "have the conversation with them TODAY that they will be at 5 years from now" theory... i will start now rather than later.

For Matt---  we are getting him a SKILLET CD, which I think is a big boy gift.  He is into more ROCKISH music so we will nurture that will Christian artists.  Dave and personally are big fans of SKILLET also so this is not a hardship.

And some new Bible Man DVDs, personally these annoy me to death but Matt likes them and learns the concept and lesson they are teaching so there you go.

So that is their MYRRH gift, for nurturing their Spirit this year.

What do you do for your kids?????