Four Steps to a More Meaningful, Less Commercialized Holiday — With Kids (continued)

Nature

Many families, like the Rhoads, observe the winter solstice on December 21st, with a simple candle-lighting ceremony. Others decorate an outdoor tree with edible "ornaments," like cranberries and popcorn, for their bird friends. Nature walks and sledding are also great ways to include the outdoors in your holiday plans.

Charity

Charitable rituals are particularly important for many simple living families. For example, the Hanukah tradition of charity, Tsedaka, inspires many Jewish families to make volunteering and charitable donations a part of their holiday.

Simple living parents note that traditions like Tsedaka mesh perfectly with the values they hope to instill in their children year-round. Rhonda Ramos, for example, says that "we want our children to know that happiness comes from a feeling of peace inside, regardless of how much stuff we have in our homes. They need to see the bigger picture of the world and know how many people still need to have their basic needs met." Rhonda and her two children participate in an "angel buying" program at a local bookstore, purchasing a gift for a child that might not otherwise receive one. The Rhoad family kids "adopt a family" (buying holiday food and gifts for them) each year with money they've saved for that purpose throughout the year.

Music/The Arts

How many people still go caroling during the holidays, or simply sing around the piano? Unfortunately, crooning cherished holiday tunes is something we now leave to the "professionals" on our CD players. Many churches offer caroling as part of their December repertoire. You can often join with a neighborhood church even if you aren't a member.

Making homemade gifts allows us to tap into our creative sides — all of us have them! — to produce low-cost, meaningful gifts. Visit the Center's holiday site, www.simplifytheholidays.org, for more information.

Fun

Remember that treasured traditions don't need to be complicated, or even particularly profound. Sometimes they're just fun! Driving around looking at Christmas lights with a thermos of hot chocolate is a simple, enjoy able holiday routine. Eating cookies and singing carols on the way to picking out the tree is another.

If possible, parents should try to schedule additional time off during December, to take part in some of these rituals and just to "hang out" with the family.

3. Downscale Gift Giving

What children "need" most for the holidays are realistic expectations about what they'll be receiving. To aid the transition to a simpler holiday, tell them ahead of time about your downshifting efforts. If your children are very young, you can probably wean them without their knowledge. For older kids, try a combination of focusing on fun, meaningful rituals along with some advance warning about your downscaling. Limiting television viewing during the months of November and December has also been shown to cure the "gimmes" during the holidays and year-round.

One way to de-emphasize gift giving while keeping it fun is to have a "white elephant" gift exchange with the whole family. While exact rules for this tradition vary, many families follow this approach: Everyone brings a wrapped gift to the gathering. Typically the gifts must be secondhand or garage sale items; the idea is to recycle items, not use more resources. Numbers are drawn, and the first person opens a gift. The second person can either open another gift, or take the first person's gift (in which case the first person unwraps a second gift). The third person can either open a gift or take one from the gifts already opened. Everyone continues opening and "stealing" until all the gifts are unwrapped. Gifts can only be "stolen" twice; the third owner keeps the gift. Creativity and humor are hallmarks of white elephant exchanges. Many families have gifts that resurface year after year — treasures like singing fish plaques and hideous hats.