  Ironically, John and I were just talking about needing to redefine the ways our family celebrates Christmas before next year as we walked. Then, today I was catching up on Robin's blog, Speaking as a Parent, who also pondered the holiday. urlLink Speaking as a parent : "I don't like the idea of asking the chldn for wish lists. A careful parent will not ask a question of a child unless the answer is already known.
I feel more inclined to give them a list of what I want them to have. Simply to ask them to nominate an open ended list of junior consumer items seems a guaranteed way to generate either disappointment, broken promises or a short term cash flow crisis. I suppose it would be all right if they were banned from reading the Argos catalogue and watching television for the months of Nov and Dec, but the genie is already out of that particular bottle.
I would really like to imbue the season with a deeper meaning but it feels like I'm swimming upstream on this one. Trying to explain what pine trees and mince pies have to do with Palestine 1 AD has proved difficult. I was ready for questions like How can Father Christmass reindeer fly? (Why, magic, of course) but it's been questions like How many reindeer does Father Christmas's sleigh have? that have stumped me. " I'll ask Robin on his site how things ended up. I could use some advice here.
We were so grateful for all the presents our family got from our friends and family. But... I'm very aware of my power as a parent to shape the kids' impressions of Christmas for life, and the way that power will greatly diminish in about five or six years. This is my chance, now, to reshape things. I worry about the values celebrating with such abundance mistakenly imparts. I worry nearly equally about the danger of hurting the feelings of my relatives by asking them to curb their generosity. What to do? 
