Most of my readers are probably still sleeping now, but I’m one of the few working class hero’s strapped to my desk this morning. I’m taking one for the team. You’re welcome.

I didn’t really kill santa, but I got close. Last year Tonia and I thought Tanner had way too much of a whirlwind of presents and parties, and we had to change something. So this year we started the slow process of weaning ourselves from certain traditions that we’ve come accustomed to.

Tradition 1 — Santa Is Everywhere!
Every year we would spend the night at my parents house, and wake up and do Christmas. And then the next day we would do the same thing at Tonia’s parents house. For starters, this gets really confusing to Tanner as to where santa is, and was, and will be. Secondly, it really gives him no opportunity to thank the people that are showering him with gifts. So we have stopped spending the night anywhere, and now only wake up at our own house on Christmas day. This is so much more relaxing and easier to explain.

Tradition 2 — Santa’s Not Rich.
Besides both sets of grandparents, Tanner also has great grandparents and at least 5 sets of aunts and uncles living within 10 miles of us. All of that adds up to Tanner having a small ownership stake in Toys R Us. So Tonia and I have decided to scale back his expectations from Santa. This year his favorite gift cost us nothing—a set of Star Wars characters I collected in college.

Tradition 3 — Jesus Who?
Our church’s theme this Christmas was Radical Christmas. It was radical in that we were focusing on giving presents to Jesus this year. Our mission was to scale back our gifts to others, perhaps even making something with our hands to save money, and then use what we would have spent on a present to Jesus. We based our gift on the scripture that Jesus said if you give a gift of water in his name, you are giving it to him. So we partnered with Children with Hope, and 100% of our offerings will go toward building a well for an orphanage in Africa. This will become a tradition in our house. It might be some other way each year, but we will definitely be adding Jesus to the gift list each year.

Believe it or not, we took some slack for some of our ideas. Traditions can be deep rooted, and we understand that. We can’t expect everyone to change their ideas the same time we do. Shoot, it took us this long ourselves. But we hope to continue revising our focus, and hopefully shaking free from more consumer driven, and busy-body Christmas holidays.