They get 3.
Yes.....3 gifts under the tree.
Plus stockings, but I didn't do stocking stuffers until the past couple years.
Please don't think my kids are deprived of anything. They are not! Please don't assume I am cheap. I am not + the husband will agree.
When I was newly married, we were with friends, they are "one step ahead" of us in parents. Their children were school age when I had none. It was the Christmas season and the wife and I were chatting and she said that her kids get 3 gifts. Her simple statement behind it was, "That's what they Wise Men brought to Jesus!" They don't assume they are getting everything they circle in the catalog or see on TV. They think really hard about what they want + make sure that they really want it!
That simple statement stuck with me!
It stuck with me so much that we are approaching our 16th year of this tradition! For Zak's 1st Christmas, Dec 1999, we lived with Rich's parents while we built our home. Zak was 2 months old. I'll admit, it was VERY easy to buy only 3 gifts. We were limited on space + he was fresh from the womb!
The boys are 16 + 13 this year, and you can bet they are thinking long and hard on what they want. Do they complain? No they don't. They have never spent Christmas morning with another family + seen their overflowing tree of gifts, so maybe they just think that is the allowed limit!
I will admit, I am so glad we started this tradition 16 years ago......because their 3 gifts are more expensive than what they use to be. And that's okay. It's what they really, really, really want!
Oh and you may be wondering about the big man in the red suit. He was never the hero on Christmas morning. He usually brought a board game or a movie for the two of them to share. They also found out early that he wasn't real!