Putting on the brakes: Hixson mom Nicole Stewart, checking out the sale section at Target with her 3-year-old son, Byron, says she’s keeping Christmas spending under control by resisting the urge to load up on last-minute “good deals.”

How to curb Santa’s spending

By Julianne Hale
Photo by Bryan R. Scott

He’s got ruddy red cheeks, a white beard and an extravagant red suit. The very thought of him brings smiles to the faces of children throughout the world. Sure, he might be the very symbol of holiday merriment, but Santa Claus is also a symbol of something else, something not quite so jolly: excess.

Let’s face it, Mr. Claus could use some Pilates, and he should probably consider cutting down on the cookie intake. He needs to take the stairs when he can, strap on a pedometer and park his sleigh as far away from the chimney as possible to get in those extra steps. Couple Santa’s generous waistline with his ability to command an army of elves to produce any item that a child may fancy and deliver it to their living room on Christmas morning, and you’ve painted the perfect picture of excess and entitlement.

Santa might be a dear, jolly fellow, but his message could use a little tweaking. How do we help Santa rein in the reindeer and get a handle on out-of-control holiday gift-giving?

The advertising trap

First of all, we’ve got to cut Santa some slack and hand out blame to the retailers who push consumerism on our impressionable minds faster than we can say, “credit card debt.” This year, for example, Santa arrived at Hamilton Place Mall a full three weeks before Thanksgiving. He’ll set up his “workshop” in this Mecca of climate-controlled shopping and make himself available for photo-ops and handshakes. Seven weeks of Santa sightings prior to Christmas might just make Old St. Nick mundane to the little ones.

In the wake of Santa-overload, advertisers are happy to take up the slack. Television ads dazzle our children with targeted marketing meant to convince them that they cannot go another day without the latest handheld gaming system or the 3-foot dinosaur that roars and walks and costs a mere $130. The girls suddenly will need any merchandise that Hannah Montana attaches her name to, and your 5-year-old will ask for a cell-phone and an iPod.

Thirty or so “educational products” catalogs have arrived in your mailbox, taunting you with promises of increased IQs and the potential of creating a future Nobel Prize winner out of your 11-month-old—if only you will purchase color-coded, hand-painted, not-made-in-China stacking blocks.

So what will you do? Will you succumb to the pressure to provide anything and everything your children want, regardless of the long-term financial impact, or will you approach Santa’s list as generations before us have done, as a work in progress, a cafeteria line where you as the parent (and Santa) can pick and choose what items to put under the tree? In this uncertain economy, where saving money for your child’s education might be a tad more important than making sure they have a Nintendo DS, common sense says we should choose the latter. But how do you do that—especially if your Ghost of Christmas Past is a shopaholic?

Avoid lost interest

Nicole Stewart of Hixson, mother of 3-year-old Byron, has some experience in this department. She explains, “Though I cannot claim that I wildly overspent in the past, racking up hundreds or thousands in credit card debt, I do realize that I (or Santa Claus) may have overindulged Byron’s holiday gift wishes a bit. For me—and I am solely to blame; my husband Andy gives me the pleasure/chore of all gift-purchasing—it isn’t that I get too many big-ticket items. I tend to stuff Byron’s Santa Sack with lots of little ‘good deals’ that I have picked up while out shopping. I do pride myself on being an expert bargain-hunter, but alas, it’s a bit overwhelming when I (again, I mean Santa) start to wrap the gifts and I see how much I got overall. So this year I resolved to try to cut back on Byron’s Christmas loot.”

Nicole’s vow to cut back is a sentiment shared by many parents this holiday season. The idea sounds simple enough. But how do we accomplish it? How do we break the cycle of Santa spending and put a gastric lap band around Santa’s gluttonous sack? Nicole has some promising ideas:

“I just think it’s important to always have the long-term financial health of your family in mind when holiday shopping. That Leap Frog Tag Reading System, FurReal Friend, Imaginext Super Friends Batcave, and Handy Manny’s Talkin’ Toolbox Set might be fun to spoil your child with on Christmas (as Byron hopes we do), but days, heck, minutes after the wrapping paper is off and it’s out of the box and sitting as more clutter on the family-room floor, most of it eventually just loses your child’s interest—not to mention the lost interest from your family’s bank account. Instead of lots of stuff, I hope to give Byron more board games and books so we can enjoy more family time.”

Make it a teachable moment

Ringgold, Ga. resident Michelle Werner, mother of Colby, 7, and Lydia, 4, has an interesting strategy when it comes to simplifying Christmas. She finds a way to honor her family’s religious Christmas traditions while also taking the pressure off of her and her family’s budget.

“Several years ago,” she says, “I heard someone at my church talking about their time-honored tradition of giving their children three gifts from Santa Claus to represent the three gifts that the Wise Men brought to the Baby Jesus. We decided to institute this policy in our home and give our children three gifts from Santa and three gifts from Mom and Dad each year. It provides us with a practical way to limit the number of gifts and serves as a great reminder to us and the children of the meaning of Christmas.” This gift-giving policy worked so well that the tradition has stuck in the Werner household and has since been adopted by many of Michelle’s friends. At press time, Colby Werner’s gift list included only six items.

Jonni McCoy, shopping expert and author of Miserly Moms, has turned her tight purse strings into a career, offering moms around the world tips on how to rein in their family spending. Here’s what her family does at holiday time:

“We tell the kids months ahead that they will get one large gift and a few small ones. They can make a wish list, but they must remember that we are not made of money. We also asked the kids to give away an older toy after Christmas. We do our best to teach them money doesn’t equate with a person’s value: The cost of the gift does not show how special they are to you.”

The author’s emphasis on taking the focus away from the cost of gifts is essential to her spending philosophy: that material value has nothing to do with the value of a person. This is a great holiday lesson for children to learn, and she has a suggestion about teaching it:

“Replace . . . gifts with personal notes or cards, or themed gift baskets that appeal to them specifically.” Helping children make a gift or card for their teacher, friend or family member, instead of taking them to the store to buy a gift, can make a huge impression on them and teach a valuable lesson.

No matter what your financial status or shopping history, you can become a responsible consumer during the holiday season. Together, we can provide Santa Claus with the extreme makeover he so desperately needs.

Julianne Hale is a freelance writer and mother of two in Cleveland, Tenn. Read more from Julianne on her blog, AnotherGrayHair.com.