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.
Our cozy home will once again house us all even if it’s just for a couple of days!
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 digital marketing manager and foster/adoptive single mom to five kids. She has run her own consulting company for over 15 years and took a leap of faith returning to the corporate world in 2021 to a job and team she loves! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally mastered the balance between family first and wise financial decisions.