One Way Grandparents Can Stay Within a Budget At Christmas

Dear Dr. LeCrone:

I am teaching a class to a group of retirees on how they can develop and stay within a budget at Christmas.

Several years ago, one of your columns dealt with grandparents who are guilty of over-gifting their grandchildren.

I will be using your column in my class and believe that it would be a good time for all grandparents to see this poignant column again.

Dear grandparent and teacher:

Here is that letter from a concerned parent on the topic of overindulgent grandparents:

My wife and I are very concerned that our children are developing a very unhealthy view about the true meaning of Christmas. We are trying to instill healthy values and establish meaningful traditions in our children’s lives. With two sets of grandparents, the number and extravagance of the gifts that our children receive from them has become absolutely outrageous.

At times we wonder if some kind of competition exists between our parents.

You can almost sense that score-keeping of sorts is being kept to determine the winner of the neatest gift.

Christmas dinner was delayed last year in order for the children to have time to complete opening their gifts. My son even began crying because he wanted to stop and play with some of his new toys only to be told “no” because he had too many more presents to open.

Half of the presents given to the children are played with several times, then stacked in the closet. Our attempt to change this pattern has fallen on deaf ears up to this point.

One set of grandparents states that they can’t control their spending when it comes to their grandchildren. The other set claims that we are being unreasonable and controlling when it comes to their presents.

My wife and I are tempted to put a stop to this over-gifting by giving our parents a list of acceptable gifts and then telling them that any excesses will be given to charity.

We are going to suggest that they consider giving some non-material gifts such as future invitations to the zoo or movies, museums, sporting events or the circus.

Concentrating on doing things with the children when you are with them, rather than buying things for them at Christmas, would create much better memories for the grandchildren, the grandparents and the parents.