Our Year Without Buying: January Update

Look at that… We’re almost done! Including today, there are only fourteen days left in our little challenge. I think I can make it from here.

However

I didn’t have it together enough to make Christmas a completely purchase-free event. We made gifts for our extended family, but still bought some clothes and things for the boys. And they got toys from Santa.

Thinking about children without Christmas gifts breaks my heart. I admire those who struggle, who get by with less and teach their children that the gifts aren’t what is important. But we aren’t struggling. We’re just not buying things as kind of a game. Although we focus our family on Jesus, and talk about giving, they are still little boys who know what we have. They would be so hurt to know that we could bless them with gifts but simply choose not to. Jackson may have been able to tolerate it, but Parker would completely lose his mind. I don’t know that gifts are his top love language, but he would be devastated if he didn’t get anything that he asked for.

And remember back at the beginning when I said that I didn’t want to send the boys to school looking like street urchins? We were getting to that point. There’s a limit to how much sock should be showing beyond the legs of the pants. For real.

We also had an opportunity to bless another family this Christmas. We were talking about the family over dinner one night, discussing ways in which we could help. Parker piped up, “Jackson and I have lots of money… We could buy them a gift!” So that weekend, I took the boys to Target to do a little shopping. They started out strong, but once we had spent a few minutes in the toy section, their resolve began to waver. There were so many things that they wanted for themselves… It was a challenge for them to spend their hard-earned money on a stranger. But they did it! I am quite proud.

Here’s a gray-area with OYWB: Gift cards. Andy ran out and spent all of his, pretty much right away. He didn’t spend money, so… still good? But I haven’t let the kids spend the gift cards that they’ve received throughout the year, so I didn’t feel right about spending mine. But I did return a gift and pick out some other things in exchange. Does that count? Probably.

Ugh.

At any rate, I’ll be glad when February 1st arrives!