{Mid Year Toy Sales}

If your a parent (especially of a young child) you are more than likely to have heard words in the media recently like TOY SALE, TOY EXTRAVAGANZA or TOY BONANZA!!!
In true style to my personality I got the toy catalogues in the mail and armed with my sharpie marker circling things I know would make my boys 'happy'. Before I knew it I had enough things circled to fill a toy room (regardless of the fact that that there are enough toys in this house to sink a ship already).

Then In amidst it all, I remembered a blog post I put up last year entitled "{12 Days of Christmas ::: Day 10} Fighting OVERindulgence with kids at Christmas".
Suddenly, a fog lifted and it all came back to me. How I want to stop the madness of 'STUFF' at christmas, because let's be honest, there are enough gifts from grandparents etc.... to create a frenzy on the day as it is!

So, inspired by the blog post above I am buying only 5 gifts for the boys this year. They fall into 5 categories :
*Want
*Need
*Wear
*Read
I have decided to add a 5th one that wasn't in the origional post taht inspired the idea. That category is *Give. For this gift, it is something from them to another person and helping them bless someone else. You could give a gift to the kmart wish tree, a donation to a charity or buy a goat from the tear catalogue.
What we are planning on for the 'give' gift is a Compassion Child each who has the same birthday/ birthyear (or similar) to each boy. This way they have a personal and tangible way to live out their faith and understand the gravity of poverty and what they can do about it to help.

I hope this inspires you to put down the cataglogues for a moment and think about what Christmas is really about and how the choices you make help shape the values that shape your children and the grown men and women they will become.

Lauren x