MMM saved Christmas

[DocMcStuffins]

A few years ago my wife and I looked around the living room after our kids had opened their Christmas presents and noted giant mess with open boxes and torn gift wrapping everywhere (like a Christmas tornado)  but the kids were having fun so I started the clean up job. Surprising I found they didn’t open all of their presents. And when I asked if they wanted to they said they were happy playing with the gifts that had already gotten.  It was at that time that my wife and I decided that “enough is enough”. I started to talk to her about MMM concepts that I had been reading about and she agreed that we didn’t want to be a family that would be regretting Christmas come January when bills were due (wayyyyyy to many gifts!!!!!) So we cleaned up a few of our own financial issues / practices and decided to use the “4 gifts” Christmas which is the “you get one you want, one you need, one you wear, and one you read”. We love to joke that if Jesus got 3 gifts then you should be fine with 4.

[NaturallyHappier]

Very nice.  Congrats on the conversion to MMM.

[Sjalabais]

"4 gifts are 3.75 too many for a family of four"-replies in 3...2...1... =8^)

Seriously though, our family never tipped entirely over on the consumerist side, but the more frugal you become, the crazier the consumerist mainstream looks.

[moof]

We barely buy anything for our kid, but boy do the grandparents go overboard.  I’m still culling down the leftovers from last Xmas, and now this year’s stream of boxes have started showing up.

Getting the kid and wife to let go of stuff is such a mental drain, and tripping over knee deap kids junk is a frustration.  Due to those factors I see this “free”kids stuff mostly as a net negative these days.

[tinylittlemonkey]

I've been more into Christmas since my family stopped doing gifts. Now we do an experience and dinner. It's way more fun and cheaper too! At first, we were going on a trip instead of gifts. But now we do an activity. Last year we went to see the Nutcracker and had dinner and this year we are going to an ice sculpture exhibit and dinner. We've also done Christmas Light Tours at the Zoo! One day we'll get really good at a very MMM Christmas, but at least for now my mom has stopped giving me more stuff and we all stopped wasting money on wrapping, gifts, and all that.

[damnedbee]

I'm a huge fan of that saying! It works.

Something they want
Something they need
Something to wear
Something to read