Christmas List Ideas: Want, Need, Wear, Read

By Carmen Staicer, REDBOOK

Quite simply, my children have too much stuff. Which means that they are exactly like the vast majority of American children today-and in fact, most all of us.

I've been working very diligently throughout the year to teach my family that they don't need so many things, but it doesn't seem to be settling into their brains. I wondered if I could pinpoint where much of the "stuff" came from-thinking back through the last gift-giving occasions-and landing on Christmas. It was then that I realized that most of the consumerism came from me.

In purchasing gifts, I wanted to be fair. No one wants to play, "Who does Mom love best?," and absolutely no one wants any of their children to feel left out-so, I tried to balance it, as best I could. In this endeavor, though, I realized I'd gone overboard, buying items that were extraneous and often virtually ignored. I wondered: What could I do to change this?

Related: 3 Women Who Learned to Live on Less

I'm not quite sure where I stumbled upon the idea of Want, Need, Wear, Read, although I've seen similar ideas, using different prompts. These four prompts tend to work well for our family. Although different, each moves forward with the same goal, to lessen the overwhelming consumerism of current holiday traditions. Want, Need, Wear, Read has become our family motto for the coming holiday season. By condensing the number of gifts down to just four, my children have been forced to winnow down that fourteen page list to four items-one they want, one they need, one to wear and one to read.

My older kids were, predictably, unhappy. "You've ruined Christmas!" claimed one. "Now we won't get ANYTHING!" wailed another. No amount of discussion has been able to sway them to my side, my viewpoint. They've had years to rake in absolute masses of merchandise-and very few of us would want to change that for less. My younger kids thought it was a brilliant idea, and they quickly began to discuss under which level their wants and needs could fall. The differing reactions were not unexpected to me, and they helped me realize the reality that maybe this was a necessity. It's been riotous to see how they can finagle a certain item from a want into a need, leaving room for a more expensive item. Creativity-it's a GOOD thing.

I want my kids to really recognize the reason for the season-as trite and contrived as it may sound: Family, friends, and the religious celebration of the season are really what it's all about. Not how much "stuff" they can rake in, or who gets more of it, or which present is the largest; but spending time together and remembering what we celebrate in the first place-that's what I want to teach them. Rather than consistently reinforce rampant consumerism, I want to teach them that less is indeed more.

Carmen Staicer is a whirlwind of movement. When she's not ferrying her six children to their various sports/drama/forensics/track meets, she's usually to be found exercising. She's an avid fan of 5K and 8K races and she recently earned her Black Belt in Muay Thai boxing. She never sleeps enough, reads avidly, lives on Vietnamese coffee and is a fan of cupcakes, vodka and nachos. If you can't find her, she's probably been buried under the vast mountain of laundry that never seems to dissipate. Look for her at her main blog, Mom to the Screaming Masses, where she chronicles her story of one woman's insanity with her six kids.

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