Somewhere along the way, Christmas with kids changes.
Nobody is circling 47 things in a toy catalog anymore. Nobody is losing their mind over the giant box under the tree. Nobody is waking you up at 4:37 a.m. because surely that constitutes morning.
In some ways, older kids are much easier to buy for.
AirPods. Clothes. Money. The extremely specific thing they’ve already texted you a link to.
Efficient? Absolutely.
Romantic?
Not nearly enough for me.
And apparently what I’ve been missing isn’t actually the toys or Santa or staying up until midnight assembling something with 4,000 pieces and instructions written by someone who clearly hates parents.
I’ve been missing the conspiracy.
The secrets. The wondering. The sneaking around. Finding something because it made you think of someone. Waiting to see their face when they open it.
As our kids have gotten older, I’ve realized I don’t want to keep trying to manufacture the Christmas magic we had when they were little.
But I’m also not willing to give up on magic altogether.
So last Christmas, we made up some new rules.
The Four-Person Secret Santa
There are four people in our immediate family.
Four.
So please understand that we did not need to simplify Christmas shopping with a Secret Santa exchange. 😂
But that wasn’t really the point.
We drew one name, and that became our person. We gave the kids each $100 and set that as the limit for everyone.
Instead of buying a pile of things for everyone, we got to focus on one person.
And it was delightful.
Suddenly we were being secretive again.
We couldn’t talk about where we’d been shopping. We were hiding packages. We were paying attention to things someone mentioned. We had to actually think about what that particular person would love instead of asking for a link and clicking Add to Cart.
It brought back this tiny piece of Christmas I hadn’t realized I missed so much.
The anticipation.
And because we each only had one person, there was room to be more thoughtful about it.
It was so much fun that naturally we’re changing the rules this year.
We’re upping the budget to $200 and drawing two names each.
There are still only four of us.
The math on this tradition may be questionable.
The delight is not.
The Ornament Exchange
The other tradition happened with my whole family.
My siblings. Nieces. Nephews. Our entire crew.
My mom always made sure the kids had presents to open at Christmas.
Always.
But now the “kids” aren’t really kids anymore. Everyone is over 11. People are driving in from different places. Some are getting on airplanes. And at some point, hauling giant piles of presents back and forth stops feeling magical and starts feeling like a logistics operation.
Still, I didn’t want Christmas to become a room full of people who had simply aged out of having something under the tree.
So we tried something different.
We drew names and bought each other Christmas ornaments.
One person. One ornament.
Easy to buy. Easy to pack. Easy to carry home.
And absolutely hilarious.
Some people had customized ornaments made.
Some chose something that reminded them of the person they’d drawn.
Some referenced a memory or an inside joke.
And some apparently used the assignment as an opportunity for completely sanctioned family harassment.
Which, frankly, may have been my favorite part.
Everyone got something to open.
Everyone got to watch someone else open something they’d chosen specifically for them.
And instead of another thing nobody needs, we each went home with a tiny piece of our family Christmas to hang on the tree the next year.
I loved it.
Christmas Doesn’t Have to Stay the Same to Stay Special
I think this is the part about traditions I didn’t understand before.
I thought traditions were things you inherited.
The food your mom always made.
The movie you always watched.
The stockings that always hung in the same place.
The exact order Christmas morning was supposed to happen because that’s how it had happened for the last 20 years.
And I love those things.
But I’m starting to understand that keeping the feeling doesn’t always mean keeping the exact tradition.
My mom made sure everyone had something to open.
We’re still doing that.
It just looks different now.
Our kids don’t need Santa to make Christmas exciting anymore, but they can still experience the fun of secretly choosing something for someone they love.
My nieces and nephews don’t need piles of presents from all the adults, but they can still wonder what ridiculous ornament someone chose specifically for them.
The magic didn’t disappear because everyone grew up.
It just needed somewhere new to go.
Maybe that’s what this season of family looks like.
Some traditions get inherited.
Some get retired.
Some evolve.
And some get completely made up because one year you look around and decide Christmas could use a little more delight.
Turns out, you’re allowed to do that.
You’re allowed to make up the rules.
