by Johanna Hatch
I have come to expect certain traditions in my family at Christmas time: Christmas Eve pasta feasts, midnight Mass, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and the hundred-dollar Christmas rule. For years I resented the hundred-dollar rule, but now I love it with all my favorite holiday traditions.
I don’t exactly remember how old I was when my mother announced, “We are doing away with the Christmas madness.”
She had decided that the materialism of the world and the “gimmies” of us kids had gone too far. She had to take drastic measures.
“From now on I am limiting how much I spend for Christmas to $100 per child,” she said. “We have enough cheap, plastic junk.”
She was right really. With a teenager and three little kids in the house, we had all the great toys (many in constant need of batteries) indoors and out. We all had enough clothes to see us through the winter. But I still bristled at the idea. Just $100 per kid?
My best friend Amy got a new wardrobe and a stack of CDs every year for Christmas. I knew exactly how far $100 would go in the Delia’s catalogue. I knew I might get one outfit, not including shoes.
As the hundred-dollar Christmas idea got into full swing, my mother showed how creative and inventive she was. Second-hand toys from yard sales we had been to in July began to appear beneath the tree. Her rule extended not just to us kids but to other family members, too. I remember coming home to jugs of homemade herb vinegar lining the kitchen wall and homemade pasta with bits of rosemary from the garden drying along the backs of the dining room chairs. These would be Christmas gifts for my aunts and uncles.
Naturally my mother tried to include us kids in her craftiness. I spent many an Advent evening painting ornaments and birdhouses for my grandmothers, thinking how weird my mom was, and how I should be banking on something more like Amy’s Christmas.
Much as I resisted, my mother never gave up on me. She kept trying to make me see the value in limiting our spending, creating our own gifts, and shopping creatively. But I didn’t want something useful for Christmas. I wanted something that I wanted. I didn’t want to make presents for my friends; I wanted to go to the mall with Amy and buy things.
As time has gone on, my mother’s hundred-dollar Christmas has become more social justice oriented. She still seeks out second-hand toys, but in addition to saving money, she also makes certain that the money she spends is not going to companies with unfair labor practices. She points out that “recycling” toys reduces landfill waste. She seeks out gifts that are fair trade, made in the United States, or have part of their cost donated to a charity that is important to us. By spending less money and buying fewer things, she is reducing the amount of waste our family creates.
It has taken a while, but I have come to realize how very special our tradition is. Because of our hundred-dollar Christmases, Christmas is no longer about what I can get, but about spending time with my family. It has caused me to consider what I need as opposed to what I want.
Upon “growing up” and looking back on our hundred-dollar Christmases, I now know that the hundred-dollar limit grew, in part, out of necessity. Our family was going through rough times when it first began. It probably challenged my mother’s ingenuity to scrimp and pinch pennies all year long in order to save $100 for each of us four kids from an already tight budget. Simply put, we could barely afford to spend $100 on each child. Yet she never told us that. When she announced the rule, she framed it as a choice: choosing to give up the materialism that has consumed the season instead of getting sucked into thinking only about what you can get.
It’s not easy to get away from the messages telling us that Christmas is about presents and that bigger and more are always better. Commercials tell us to “Dream Big” for Christmas with new flat screen HD TVs. Magazine spreads with the “ideal gifts for everyone” have pictures of Wii game systems, Vespa scooters, and Coach bags. Our spiritual connection to the season becomes whether the cashiers at big box stores say, “Merry Christmas,” or “Happy Holidays.”
The season starts earlier every year with Christmas wreaths and Christmas sales creeping into the malls before Halloween. We pack ourselves into malls, watch grown men and women fight over the last best-toy-of-the-year, and rack up credit-card debt to buy the biggest, the best, the newest, the coolest, which by next year will be none of those things.
The madness is exhausting. No wonder people get depressed during the holiday season; it’s nearly impossible to keep up.
I know. I’ve been guilty of trying for the latest and best, too, even after my conversion to the hundred-dollar Christmas. By the time I get home, I’m usually feeling guilty because the gifts I bring are probably made in a sweatshop by people who won’t even get Christmas off from work. But no one is perfect. The whole point for me is to stop, think, and not rush to buy, to know what my limits are and consider where my money is going.
At this point in my life, I can say that I am thankful for what my mother has taught me about Christmas through her hundred-dollar rule. Even though I still hear my friends talk about their fabulous gifts, I am content because I know how many gifts I do have that can never have a price tag: my family and friends, my health, my faith, and my education. My mother has given me a gift worth far more than any fabulous wardrobe I can imagine: she gave me the gift of being grateful every day of the year.
And new pink long underwear, which I know she got a good deal on.
Thanks Mom!
