By Kris Ann Valdez 
It’s December, nearing Christmas. Early in the morning before the kids wake, I throw open the lid of the recycle bin and toss the Amazon 2023 Holiday Kids Gift Book. This annual print magazine, sent out so kids can build their wish lists, doesn’t belong in our house. Not this year.
Standing at the recycle bin, my breath puffing out like cold white clouds in front of me, I am suddenly transported to when I was a girl of 11 or 12. As Christmas wound into a slow-paced, after meal hibernation, I snuck outside and called my best friend.
“What’d you get?” she asked. My words billowed in front of me, containing the excitement of a ballet leotard and skirt, a few books, and collectibles.
“What’d you get?” I reciprocated.
She listed her gifts, and I added them up in my head as if they’d come straight off the pages of a robust catalog. A new desk and monitor. A Coach purse. Clothes. A make-up set. More clothes. It must’ve been over a thousand dollars worth of stuff, my seventh-grade brain estimated. While my mom made our $50 stretch far, it was obvious I couldn’t compare here.
The thing about the holidays is that they’re expensive. It’s as if money earned in December is sacred and marked for spending. But this Christmastime, my husband is on LinkedIn frantically job hunting and preparing for interviews. Spending money no longer feels blessed, but out of the question.
Later, while scrubbing last night’s sticky spaghetti noodles out of a pot, I worry about how to buy my children gifts. The baby, who sits at my feet banging a spoon onto the hardwood, does not need anything. Too small to notice. But the others? Ages 6 and 11 . . . they will know. Oh, they will know.
I think of my brother, who just became a father for the first time, remembering how he pressed his sleeping daughter to his broad chest and nuzzled his face into her neck, whispering, “I just want to give her the world.”
I want that too—to give my children the world, especially for holidays. And yet, I also want to teach them resilience and resourcefulness. Two skills that don’t come pre-packaged in an Amazon box.
The pot scrubbed, I leave it there to dry, wipe my hands, and think, “Time to get resourceful.” I pull out my phone and tap on Facebook Marketplace to search for “Angelina Ballerina,” that twinkle-toed mouse who inspires every ballerina’s dreams. By luck, whim, or a miracle, I discover a complete set of the doll’s house and furniture for $120 on a long-ago listing. Upon messaging the seller, I find out it’s still available.
I telephone my mom. She, a connoisseur of American Girl Doll products, will know if it’s a good deal.
“What do you think?” I hold my breath.
“That’s a steal!” she exclaims. “And if you’d like, I’ll pitch in my $50 towards it.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” I shyly admit.
As long as I can recall, my mother has always kept gift-giving fair—everyone gets their $50. If you want something more expensive, you’re welcome to throw in some of your own savings to cover the deficit. I do the math in my head, $70 left for me to spend.
“You have to get it!” my mom gushes. “It’s worth at least triple that too! You could resell it if you wanted.”
My mom is right, I reason, deciding to message the seller that I’d like to pick it up. Then I see she’s in the same community where my sister lives. What are the odds the woman lives within walking distance from my sister and her husband? A half-hour or so later my brother-in-law strolls off to the house where Angelina Ballerina sits rigid and unblinking in a box. I wonder how long she’s sat there, unplayed with, waiting for small hands again to position her in the splits and arabesque poses.
I sneak the boxes into my car and drape a sheet over them so VV will not notice. Oh, how precious a gift. How excited she will be to wake up and find this on Christmas morning.
It is my 20-year-old brother, Hondo, who snags my 11-year-old’s gift. Hondo is a bike enthusiast and finds a quality one on Facebook Marketplace to replace the one my son’s outgrown. Hondo, bless his soul, even drives 30 minutes from his house to pick it up for me. A few nights before Christmas, we wheel it into our neighbor’s laundry room where it will stay until the holiday morning. Seeing the bike there in my neighbor’s laundry room, this bachelor grandfather we’ve adopted to spend the holidays with, makes my spirit swell with gratitude for the uncanny season.
Remembering my own frugal Christmases as a child, I suddenly realize I never minded that I received less than my friend. In fact, I respected my parents for showing restraint, resisting the marketing of glossy magazines and toy commercials that pleaded with them to give us everything. Because there is magic in gifts that must be scrimped and scraped and saved for. That is what I want my children to understand this Christmas. Perhaps the best gift I could give them in the end.
by Jennifer Vail 
by Meghan Mattson 
by Megan Hanlon 
