by Barbara Stockton

Created on: December 10, 2008   Last Updated: February 12, 2009

As we weave our holiday magic we constantly look for new and unique ways to make this holiday even better than the last. Each year the wants grow along with our children's expectations. How do we keep up with the media, the manufactures and the gimmicks that they use to promote the sale of the most popular toys of the season. In years past the parents started shopping by the end of October to fulfill their child's wish list. But as the toys become more expensive the shopping is starting earlier and earlier making us slaves to our own concept of Christmas, not just at the holidays but through out the ye

This one holiday is taking more and more of not only our money but also our time,as we start looking for those bargains the day after Christmas, for the following year. We max out our credit cards to the point that we spend the entire year trying to pay enough on them to afford the next bounty of extravagance.

But it doesn't have to be that way. we really don't need to keep up with the Jone's. Christmas is suppose to be a time of family not a time for breaking the bank. Todays parents are becoming more aware of the extravagance of the holiday and are using their imaginations to find ways to make Christmas magical without going to the poor house 364 days a year.

There are times when we feel like we are becoming slaves to the Christmas holidays because our joy for the season seems to be depleting. Years ago everyone looked forward to the joy of the holidays. We looked forward to the day itself when everyone came together and the children's faces would light up with the wide eyed expectations of what that jolly ole elf had left under the tree. Many of the gifts were home made especially those from grandma, but we loved them as though they had designer labels sewn on them.

Children were happy with the dolls and trucks and the simple games and would spend hours playing with their gifts. Today everything is about the biggest and most popular gifts you can find for your little ones. It started years back with the rush to get everyone the cabbage patch dolls. The manufactures realized that if they developed the hottest toy for the season than they could charge outrageous prices for them at a huge profit. In turn the credit card companies became more and more popular during this season and so in turn they began to raise their interest rates and when they couldn't go any higher then they started with the hidden fees. So even though Christmas is taking the brunt of our opulence

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