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| January 4, 2025 1:00 AM
The bicycle: A true classic of Christmas gift giving.
My 11-year-old son needed a new bike this season. My wife and I had gifted bikes on birthdays and scooters on Christmas, but as far as I can recall, this was our first opportunity to park a new bicycle under the tree.
Executing that magic moment is more challenging than one might think, especially if you have three other kids to make happy on Christmas morning.
For all of December, we remind our kids that presents shouldn’t predominate the Christmas conversation. Then we promptly undermine those discussions with demands for Christmas wish lists, as well as the prospect of Santa Claus sneaking into our house to deliver even more prizes in exchange for a couple of stale sugar cookies.Let’s be honest: Kids love Christmas because presents. Just be a good American and support our capitalist ideals!The conversation about presents in our house then becomes a constant tutorial on fairness and equity. We work tirelessly to ensure that the kids get the same “value” of presents. A kid who asks for a big present (like a bike) won’t get as many smaller gifts. This risks turmoil on Christmas morning in two different directions:1) “Everybody has more presents than me!”2) “How come I don’t get a new bike?”My wife and I prepare for these scenarios as best we can and try to address them before the big day. We also mitigate the risks in […]
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