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

For the "real" gifts that you exchange, make them meaningful. Choose durable games instead of fad toys, buy from local artisans and independent stores, and look for organizations that donate proceeds to charities.

4. Start Planning for Next Year's Holidays

It may be too late this year to do much about your extended family's consumer-extravaganza. But December is the perfect time to start downshifting discussions with your kids. "When you're in the midst of it," reasons Linda McDonough, "is the best time to talk about it."

Linda points out that her extended family took a decade to progress from everyone buying everyone expensive gifts to their current practice of each family member drawing only one name. Despite the time and effort, she emphasizes, "it's worth it." Your ultimate reward will be in the fun you have with your kids, at the holidays and all year round.

Resources

Organizations/Web Sites

• Alternatives for Simple Living (www.simpleliving.net; 800-821-6153)
• Adbusters (www.adbusters.org) — sponsors "Buy Nothing Day" and other campaigns
• The Center for a New American Dream's Simplify the Holidays website (www.simplifytheholidays.org)
• The Al Galgalim project (http://www.hadassah.org/pageframe.asp?page=al%5Fgalgalim%2Ehtml&section=education&header=al%5Fgalgalim&size=60) — a Jewish education program helping families with kids ages 2 through 8 enjoy meaningul celebrations of Jewish holidays

Books

• Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli
• Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyful Christmas by Bill McKibben
• "Whose Birthday is it, Anyway?" pamphlet published by Alternatives for Simple Living
• While the Candles Burn: Eight Stories for Hanukkah by Barbara Diamond Goldin