• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Kristen Welch

We are THAT Family

  • Home
  • About
    • Meet Kristen
    • FAQ
      • Privacy/Disclosure Policy
      • Giveaways, Reviews & Sponsored Posts
  • Blog
  • Mercy House Global
    • Learn more
    • Mercy House Global Marketplace
  • Books
    • Raising World Changers in a Changing World
    • Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World
    • Rhinestone Jesus
    • Don’t Make Me Come Up There
  • Podcast
    • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • Nav Social Menu

You are here: Home / Archives for Holidays

Holidays

4 Ways to Beat Entitlement & Stir Up Gratitude This Christmas

December 11, 2016 by Kristen

I’ll never forget the year I told my husband not to get me anything for Christmas.

It was the year he got me exactly what I’d asked for.

Nothing.

I watched my kids open their gifts, snapped pictures of their excited faces, made a big breakfast feast and I waited. I knew he was going to pull out a surprise gift.

But he didn’t. And I was disappointed.

img_3934

Inwardly, I felt like such an ungrateful brat. He was doing exactly what I told him, but the problem was I still had expectations. I still wanted…something.

A couple of days after Christmas, he brought home a belated gift and I said thank you, but I’d missed the point of Christmas and we both knew it.

A few months later, I traveled to Africa for the first time and my life–and my expectations– wrecked me.

There are expectations with Christmas. And with expectations, comes disappointment. And disappointment is the breeding ground for ingratitude.

We’ve had our fair share of all of the above in our house.

My youngest is a fourth grader this year. She came home the other day and we had this conversation:

“Mom, my friends and I were talking about Christmas presents. Everyone was telling how many presents they each open on Christmas morning. I told them I get three gifts. The other kids couldn’t believe it. Did you know other kids get 10 or even 20? I think they felt sorry for me,” she said. I could hear the longing for more in her voice. It was a good opportunity to talk about expectations and how gratitude turns what we have into enough.

We all know how hard parenting is… we question our kid’s behavior along with our decisions on how to handle it regularly. But if I’ve learned anything in this parenting journey, I’ve discovered that entitled kids start with parents who entitle them.

I spent the first few years as a mother giving my kids everything I wanted them to have whether they needed it or not and I failed to see that I was creating an atmosphere that I would later try and change.

We live in a culture that thrives on getting what we want and our children are a natural result of that. And let’s face it, we are entitled ourselves. We may not always throw a fit like I did a few years ago, but we live with expectations.

GratefulKidsBook

Here are 4 ways to battle entitlement this Christmas season:

1. Give back on Christmas Day | Look for a way to do something tangible for someone else on Christmas Day. For 6-7 years, we’ve taken treats to the local hospitals that took care of our youngest when she was born premature. It’s always a great way to stop in the middle of celebrating and remember someone else. Invite a single person over for Christmas dinner or visit someone who might feel forgotten…

2. Don’t forget to create opportunities for hard work | Grace and salvation are free, but stuff we want isn’t. Sometimes this is more obvious at Christmas (especially if we don’t get what we hoped for). Typically this time of year, we put up a job list up and give our kids opportunities to earn money to buy Christmas gifts. Two of my kids actually argued over who got to do the job that topped the list: SCOOP DOG POOP. It’s these kind of moments in parenting, that we treasure in our hearts.  Here are 15 ways to teach kids about hard work. (Christmas break is a great time to start).

3. Look for the lesson -When entitlement rears its head, look beyond the demand. | When my kids expect more than I give them, my first reaction isn’t to look for the teachable moment. But I’m learning that’s often what I need to do. I understand I’ve created some of the problem and it’s to be expected in our culture in certain situations. Offering perspective is often a great way to remind kids how much they already have.

4. Make gratitude a way of life all year long | When we make gratitude and thankfulness a priority all the time, kids are more apt to show thankfulness when they get what they want and when they don’t.

Christmas and kids go together. And in our culture, entitlement right along with them. My family will be opening gifts on Christmas morning probably like yours.  Everyone might get exactly what they want or maybe they won’t. But we can start teaching our kids the true meaning of Christmas by making entitled moments teachable ones and thanking them for grateful ones.

3 Comments Filed Under: entitlement, Holidays, Parenting

We Can Support Persecuted Christians This Christmas

December 2, 2015 by Kristen

Nearly 7 years ago, I chased my toddler daughter right into the arms of another mother at the park around the corner from my house. When I scooped her up, I apologized to the stranger who had caught my running tot. She looked down shyly and spoke softy in a thick foreign accent I couldn't place. I was immediately drawn to her. "Where are you from?" I asked. Uzbekistan. Immediately, I had chills. I was a Sunday School teacher and we had been praying for this very country. When I ... Read More

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Faith, family, Holidays

Fair Trade Gift Guide: Shopping You Can Feel Really Good About

November 4, 2015 by Kristen

I can't believe I get to be a part of Fair Trade Friday.  (What? You haven't heard about this monthly subscription club, a ministry of Mercy House, that is changing the world for oppressed and impoverished women in 20 countries?) Click here to join the club. I'm really excited about the first ever Fair Trade Holiday Gift Guide. I get a lot of emails from conscientious shoppers asking for fair trade recommendations. We asked some of our Fair Trade Friday partners to share their favorite ... Read More

5 Comments Filed Under: fair trade friday, Holidays

Memorable Gifts Kids Won’t Forget

December 15, 2014 by Kristen

I'll never forget the Christmas we gave too many gifts. My kids were around 4 and 6 years old and it was like a marathon of toy-opening and we needed water breaks to get thru it. I'm not even kidding. Most of the gifts were sale or clearance items I'd bought all year and tucked away. It was the season of my life I refer to as "Quantity not Quality." It was all about more--more for me, more for them. It left us with a lot of stuff, including emptiness. As I encouraged my weary kids to ... Read More

14 Comments Filed Under: Holidays

Don’t Make Me Take Away the Nativity and Other Things Moms Say In December

December 3, 2014 by Kristen

I met Cindy at Walgreens. She recognized me from the back cover of my book, Rhinestone Jesus. That happens all the time. #firsttime We stood in front of the store and talked for 20 minutes. Two weeks later she showed up for our monthly Fair Trade Friday packing party. Someone asked her how she met me. She said Amazon recommended my book to her. “I bought it because years before, I’d read Kristen’s first book, Don't Make Me Come Up There! . Do you know what my favorite ... Read More

48 Comments Filed Under: Holidays, Parenting

The Beauty of Unwrapping Christmas Every Day (Even the Ugly Ones)

December 1, 2014 by Kristen

I had grand plans for the first night of Advent. Just imagine the setting with me: Holy Christmas music in the background, my family breaking bread together over a lovely home cooked meal, while we politely asked about each other's day and write down a long list of our blessings. We would listen intently to the daily reading, reflect quietly as we pondered the truth and then gather around our Jesse tree to place the first ornament on it together. But somehow on the first night of Advent, ... Read More

9 Comments Filed Under: Faith, family, Holidays, review

An Advent Roundup

November 19, 2014 by Kristen

I'll never forget eight December's ago when I had my youngest child seven weeks early. Gifts weren't bought or wrapped, stockings weren't hung with care. I wasn't prepared. That year changed Christmas for me.  Most of my adult life, I had overdone Christmas-bought too many gifts, spent too much money, focused on the temporal and not the eternal. But that year, I had to let so much go and focus all my energy and strength on what really mattered. Christmas has never been the same. It's ... Read More

14 Comments Filed Under: Faith, Holidays

How to Have a Stable Home This Christmas

December 8, 2013 by Kristen

It's strange to return from November on the Equator to December in full swing in the Lone Star. To an unlit house, undecorated tree, unwrapped gifts. And six days of unturned Advent pages. Motherhood and Christmas go together. It's mostly up to Mom to hang the stockings over the mantle with care, to make the house happy and bright, to play Santa if she so chooses, to handle the wrapping and coordinate the baking and to keep Christ in Christmas.... It's a pleasure and pressure pot, all this ... Read More

23 Comments Filed Under: Holidays, My Life

Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

You know the ones …

Order Today:

Subscribe to My Newsletter

Footer

Search

Recent Posts

  • Are We Still In 2020?
  • Surprise! I Wrote A Children’s Book
  • Mercy House Global is a True Story
  • Living a Paradox: The Truth About A Contradictory Life

Categories

Copyright © 2008-2018 Kristen Welch, We are THAT Family · Site by Design by Insight · Family Portrait Artwork by Marry Me in Spring

Copyright © 2021 · Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in