by Hope
All of my kids are coming home from Christmas.
They have bought their own airline tickets, taken off work, and are already calling excitedly with plans and ideas.
For a mom who has done everything in my power to guide them and teach them how to adult well, I am so humbled that spending time together, using their precious time off and own resources to make it happen, is a priority for not 1, not 2, not 3…but all 5 of my kids.
Christmas Gifts
As a family we have already discussed a plan for gifts since everyone is pretty tight this year. This is what we have come up with…
- There will be 8 of us for Christmas – me, my 5 kids, plus two significant others.
- Everyone is to create a wishlist with prices ranging between $10-25 and share it with the family.
- Based on their budget, people will spend between $10-25 per person. The same amount for each person. Which means, Christmas will cost between $70 to $175. each.
- And we will have a family birthday celebration at the same time since the twin’s birthday, Beauty’s birthday, and my birthday all fall in this last quarter.
We all agreed that this was doable and took the pressure off, while making it fair for everyone.
We briefly played with the idea of drawing names, but the reality is with the way our family is formed, there are some ties that are stronger than others. That’s just to be expected. And as a result, some siblings prioritize other siblings over others. The plan we came up with avoided any hurt feelings or people getting “less.”
Navigating a blended family, however, it is formed, can be very tricky. Have you had to get creative with your own family for either financial or emotional reasons?
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.