It seems to me that there are two forces at work throughout the holiday season that influence our gift-giving behavior (or higher said: over gift giving).
These two powerful forces are 1) social pressure and a pair of) love.
The holiday season has turn out to be completely commercialized and also you do not have to inform me that.
There is nothing flawed or unusual about showing love by giving gifts.
But when 40% of us express a rise in stress throughout the holidays, 45% of us feel pressured to spend more cash than now we haveand nearly 60% of us receive gifts we don’t need, the season has turn out to be overly commercialized. Even worse, we lose each the spirit and the enjoyment of our year-end celebrations due to it.
On the one hand, we feel the social pressure from marketing campaigns and stores to purchase things for ourselves and others this season. Each store proudly showcases items on the market, forcing you to purchase increasingly more at every turn. This is to be expected.
But there may be one other social pressure that pervades this season – one which is probably not so boldly displayed on billboards or storefronts.
The subconscious pressure is that this: everyone seems to be giving gifts AND everyone seems to be talking about gifts! We discuss what we give, what we wish, what we wish we could afford, and ultimately what now we have received.
Even during a visit to the doctor last January, a physician whom I had never met before surgery struck up a conversation by asking, “So what did you get for Christmas?”
This conversation often comes up with us as adults. But much more so for our youngsters. I do not forget that yearly in school after the Christmas break, the conversation between us kids at all times focused on what we got for Christmas. But not only amongst children, even teachers would ask.
And it isn’t just in school. Make a note of each time you hear someone (or yourself) ask your child what gifts they need or think they’ll get, or “what did you get for Christmas” conversations this holiday season.
The social pressure – each loud and quiet – to adapt and make this holiday season all about gift-giving is robust.
To add to this social pressure, we love our youngsters and naturally want the vacation season to be magical and memorable for them. Most of us have fond memories that we cherish, and we desperately want our youngsters to have the identical.
This is nice. There’s definitely nothing flawed with wanting our youngsters to like Christmas or whatever holidays you have a good time this season.
Problems arise once we allow these two conversations to converge and overlap.
When society (each consciously and subconsciously) begins to measure Christmas joy by the variety of presents under the tree, and we desperately want our youngsters to have fond memories of the vacation season, we mix the 2 and find yourself buying greater than we’d like.
We imagine that material goods will bring joy and memories. And if more presents make Christmas morning more enjoyable and convey back higher memories, then why should we stop? we don’t. You can at all times add another…
So how do you begin overcoming these pressures?
With a vital reminder: Your neighbor will give more gifts this Christmas.
When we fall into the mindset that the more the higher (especially in terms of gift giving), we’re stuck in a circle from which there is no such thing as a escape.
Because if we imagine the lie that the more stuff, the higher vacation for our youngsters, we’ll at all times buy increasingly more. We want our youngsters to find a way to share all of the things they got for Christmas with their schoolmates and adults, who will inevitably ask them what they got for Christmas.
But if we measure our child’s happiness by the variety of gifts he receives, we’ll never reach our measurement. There will at all times be someone who has more.
Sure, there’s one kid in your town who gets probably the most toys, but that child probably is not yours. Therefore, the best way we measure the enjoyment and success of our youngsters throughout the holiday season needs to alter.
And often an important step to helping our youngsters enjoy their holidays to the fullest is to reject the overcommercialization of the season.
Instead of taking on your child’s time this season to do more shopping, be more present.
Instead of adding to your stress and anxiety by worrying that your child won’t get enough stuff this Christmas, be more calm and joyful.
Instead of putting your loved ones in a financial hole this Christmas, give yourself a much bigger margin in your funds for the remaining of the yr.
Instead of opening your computer to order more stuff, lie on the ground to play or read a book.
Instead of defining joy within the variety of gifts this yr, find it in the explanations for the season.
And as a substitute of on the lookout for memories on a shelf in a department store, put them inside your 4 partitions.
The social pressure to purchase gifts will proceed to surround us. But there is no such thing as a method to ensure a pleased season in your family. If it were, you’d never find it anyway.
