Dealing with a little extra stress at Christmas time seems to be something most of us who have an adoption connection can relate to. My friend Coley, as well as several others here have blogged about how difficult this time of year can be, no matter what your place in the triad. I admit that I often confront many emotional issues myself during the holiday season. Beyond worrying about the normal things like having all my gifts purchased, getting my decorating and baking done, and sending out our holiday cards, I also stress about visits and time spent with my children’s birthfamilies.

We have one of our scheduled visits coming up this weekend. Part of my added stress during this time of year has to do with the very different ways that our families celebrate the holidays. With the child’s birthfamily we will be visiting this has been a major issues in past Christmas seasons. They have their way of doing things and we have our own. In some areas the two ways do not mesh and we have had some heated arguments about it.

For one thing, our family is more toward the conservative side of gifting. We usually leave adults out of the larger family gifting, limiting gifts to children only. Our family also limits gift costs so that no one feels overwhelmed by the expense of it all. My daughter’s birthfamily disagree with our way of handling the gifting. They give, give, give, everything to everyone. They give numerous items to the adults and children. Most individual items are small and inexpensive, but when you have dozens of gifts, I imagine that the cost get very high for them. We have asked them many times to please not gift to myself and my husband, or to limit the cost and amount of gifts for the children, but they refuse.

I think once someone even accused me of being a Grinch.

Well I suppose my conservative approach comes from not having a lot of funds more than it does really not wanting to gift to everyone. I also really believe that if you overload little kids with gifts that you set the expectations bar pretty high early on. If things change later on they will be in for a huge let down when the overflow of presents suddenly dries up. I am also a big believer that time is really the best gift you could give a child, and in the end the thing that they remember the most.

So we were unsuccessful in our attempts to have birthfamily limit the presents at holiday times, but we created a solution in our own home. The kids now understand that they are allowed to unwrap gifts, but not to open the toys themselves up at the gathering. At home we let them select one or two items they really like, and the rest goes into a re-gifting box. Those items are then either returned to the store for a refund, or are given to others for various occasions throughout the year. This all might seem sort of ‘Grinchy’ to some, but for us it allows the kid’s birthfamilies to gift however they like, and then we can choose to do with the gifts as we feel works for us. It’s just one of the many issues that makes the holiday season a bit more challenging

Christmas isn't always Merry for Everyone



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