Tis The Season
I must admit, I’ve been a shopping maniac lately. I’ve been trying to keep this holiday season one that is not too over the top, not too expensive and ideally kind of simple and home made. Yeah, right on that last part. I don’t know who I’m kidding, I’m sick of making stuff with my hands all the time (have a home based herbal products biz) and, really, I love to shop – especially for others. What’s more, I’ve discovered over the years that I love to shop and score some really quality stuff at amazing prices.
We did venture out on “Black Friday” to get the great deals on certain items we needed for our home. Kind of like a joint xmas gift we give ourselves. I looked at all the black friday ads and picked the few places to go to in the morning and really, we found the best deals on small appliances we needed to replace and some xmas gifts for family at Macy’s and Kohl’s. Macy’s was fine, not too over crowded but Kohl’s, oh my God it was like they were giving away free gold or something. Lines went from the registers all the way to the back of the store for both banks of registers (one set on each side of the front of the store). It was crazy but we did still manage to get the few items on our list at ridiculously cheap prices including a new (backup) portable dvd player for our son for traveling for $50. The one we have is a bit abused from him and we think it will die sometime this year. I stood on line for one hour there. Michael and Leif left to shop at another store while I waited. It was madness.
Now that my son is almost 4, he’s getting into an age where toys can actually be fun for the adults, too. I’ve really been into toy shopping for him and have found some great German made toys as well as quality toys from American toy companies. I’ve been getting mostly stuff that he can do creative and imaginative play with instead of the blinking, flashing lights or computer oriented type stuff. This is still the age where he can expand his creative capacities in his brain so that when he’s an adult, he will hopefully be one of those people who can think outside the box instead of being just a drone. We do still have a couple of the electronic toys that are for making music but most everything else is up to him to do himself and he surely does. He’s got a large wooden train setup and this kid loves trains and still plays with them more than other stuff.
Last year, I asked my husband to build him a wooden kitchen. He said ok and never got to it by the time of his bday and his teacher last year gave him a cute, corner kitchen that he really liked for a while and still plays with but only for short periods. It’s nice but plastic (little tikes) which would be great for my backyard but I don’t like to look at it much anymore in my house so I did ask my husband again to build him the kitchen for xmas this year. We had everything we needed except the wood and he got everything laid out onto one sheet of nice plywood so the kitchen only really cost $26 (plus hours of my husband’s time!). Michael has a decent tool shop set up and has built tons of stuff for us and for his family and friends even before I met him. This is the first thing he’s made for our son Leif and he says he’s having fun building this kitchen. It looks gorgeous and I can’t wait to see it fully finished. I can see why these big kitchens cost so much in the catalogs, it’s very time consuming for all the finish work. He is also building a tool bench for him out of another sheet of nice plywood and we are waiting on giving him that one until his bday in February. Michael wanted to give him both for xmas but I thought that would be overload for the boy.
Because of the large gift from Daddy, we just decided to give it to him this week for Hannukah. We celebrate almost every holiday this season – Hannukah, Christmas and Yule/ Winter Solstice. At Hannukah, it’s the festival of lights so we light a candle in the menorah while saying a blessing every night for 8 nights and (usually just kids) get a gift every night. This is both good and bad, with one gift per night, you can really focus on it and enjoy it. The bad part is it’s just one gift and kids like lots of gifts like at xmas. I remember this so much growing up. I am really loving celebrating all the holidays as an adult and the build up and the decorations for xmas are so fun. Christmas morning is really fun and we are developing our own family traditions since we celebrate everything and both of our families only celebrate one holiday.
So, my son will be getting 8 gifts (kitchen being one of them) for Hannukah, then I tried to keep it to a fair amount for xmas including the stocking stuffers but I have this fear I’m over doing it and will wind up spoiling him and creating a monster as he gets older. He’s an only child so I have a tendency to give too much bec. 1) I’m his mom and 2) I love to shop for him! Some things I’m delegating to the bday pile and last year, my husband had to tell me to put some stuff away for this year bec. it was too much so I did.
However, this year I have been trying to only go to the Ross/Marshalls/Tues. A.M type stores and look for only the quality brands for a great price or shop online where there are also really good prices on stuff. I’ve gotten some great things for him at amazing prices so that makes me feel better.
I’ve also gone thru all of his toys and taken out the ones he’s outgrown but that I’d like to keep for another child so those are packed away now plus I’ve freecycled some toys (esp. ones that eat up batteries) and threw away random cheap plastic stuff from wherever – parties, restaurants, etc. He has not noticed except for the puzzles I packed away, I let him know I was doing that to make room for new stuff and he was fine with that. It felt great to pare down his stuff and keep really just what he uses and what doesn’t drive me crazy (some toys he got as gifts drove me nuts!).
As for me, all I really want for xmas was for certain things around my house to be better organized which means for Michael to either build it for me or adjust something, no money but it requires more of his time which he doesn’t have alot of. Small things make me happy and that’s all I really want is better flow to make me happy in my day to day life. Last year he built a new shelving system for shoes for our small coat closet and he measured our bags and put hooks all over to hang all our assorted bags and backpacks on and wow, can we fit a ton more stuff – neatly – in that little closet. I loved that. One of his best gifts to me ever (I’m such a dork). The other great gift from him this past year was my bday trip to Vancouver Island and a really cool camera so really, I don’t want much.
I hope you all are enjoying this holiday season and are having fun, not stress, while out shopping!
December 03 2007 01:35 am | Home and Leif and Mel and Michael and holidays and parenting and society
