{"id":25787,"date":"2017-11-01T02:17:35","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T08:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?p=25787"},"modified":"2017-10-31T21:27:12","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T03:27:12","slug":"five-reasons-skip-christmas-eve-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/five-reasons-skip-christmas-eve-box\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Reasons to Skip the Christmas Eve Box"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ChristmasTrending over the past several years is the idea of giving kids a \u201cChristmas Eve Box\u201d top open on Christmas<\/a> Eve morning. The box can be filled with anything but typically they contain the kind of stuff you might find in a Christmas<\/a> stocking. But now the trend is starting to catch some flak.<\/p>\n

Some call it just an extension of the commercialization of Christmas<\/a> \u2013 and yet another way to spoil children over the holiday season. Other parents suggest it is \u201cjust one more thing\u201d to get done in creating the perfect Christmas<\/a> for their families.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did it for three years before I realized how much I hated doing it,\u201d says Melissa Gregory, 29-year old mother of three from Aberdeen, Maryland. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a tradition of mine growing up but I saw it on Pinterest and thought the idea was cute \u2013 until I realized it was like feeding my kids candy for breakfast. It killed nearly everything magical about Christmas<\/a>. Instead of building anticipation, it created anxiety and made the kids fussy to open more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experiences like Melissa\u2019s are being shared online more and more. Here are five reasons to re-think the Christmas<\/a> Eve Box idea:<\/p>\n

1. It distracts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christmas<\/a> Eve is a time of family togetherness.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter what you put in your Christmas<\/a> Eve Box \u2013 it can only put a child in a single-minded world.<\/p>\n

Just as the day after Christmas<\/a> is filled with enjoying the new toys, so too is the effect of whatever goes into the Christmas<\/a> Eve Box.<\/p>\n

Indeed, some parents sing the praises of what a great distraction the Christmas<\/a> Eve Box has become \u2013 as if their children are a burden to engage with on Christmas<\/a> Eve.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s your idea of the perfect family Christmas<\/a> Eve then maybe something is wrong with your take on Christmas<\/a> overall.<\/p>\n

2. It builds expectations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Harmony Bailey — mother of 3 from Billings, Montana \u2013 says her boys couldn\u2019t get enough of their Christmas<\/a> Eve Box. Her problem, she says, is that she got too clever.<\/p>\n

Filled with candy, hot wheels and little plastic army men her all-male recipients got the same things and were all happy with it. In fact, the Christmas<\/a> Eve Box was so good that Christmas<\/a> morning paled by comparison.<\/p>\n

And why shouldn\u2019t it? When Christmas<\/a> for boys includes sox and underwear the Christmas<\/a> Eve Box, though smaller and more modest, could be all the magic they really experience.<\/p>\n

Harmony said her eldest, who was 9 the first time she tried the box, expressed genuine remorse that Christmas<\/a> morning was nowhere near the surprise and the fun of Christmas<\/a> Eve.<\/p>\n

3. It divides. <\/strong><\/p>\n

No matter what you do kids compare things. In fact, the day-after-Christmas tradition of \u201cOh, yeah til you hear what I got from Santa<\/a>!\u201d is timeless.<\/p>\n

But the Christmas<\/a> Eve Box takes comparison and division to a whole new level. Felicia Knutsen of Duluth, Minnesota tells the sad story of two daughters \u2013 one 3 years of age and one 11 years of age. The contents of their boxes should not have mattered, right?<\/p>\n

Wrong.<\/p>\n

The 11 year old had candy the 3 year old envied (and could never have, due to choking hazards). But even more surprising was the disappointment the 11 year old expressed at not having more toys to play with like her little sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember Christmas<\/a> Eve being a selfless time, a time when we were doing our darndest to be good because Santa<\/a> was coming,\u201d Felicia said. \u201cBy the end of the Christmas<\/a> Box thing I was trying to seal off my chimney to prevent Santa<\/a> from coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. It creates competition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the problem with keeping up with the Joneses.<\/p>\n

The Christmas<\/a> Eve Box is such a hot trend for Christmas<\/a> in Europe that one Mom from the UK had to bow out because the competition was too great with just her neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they started putting i-Phones in those stupid boxes I knew we weren\u2019t ever doing that again,\u201d Melanie Golding, mom of 2 said. \u201cI didn\u2019t need my children comparing and contrasting with every child in the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. It kills the fires of imagination. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Some Dads have strong opinions about the Christmas<\/a> Eve Box trend, too. Greg Gregerson of Layton, Utah responded strongly to our inquiry about this new \u201ctradition\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf my kid cannot last until Christmas<\/a> morning to get the pay off from Santa<\/a> he doesn\u2019t deserve it,\u201d Greg said. \u201cChristmas is about dreaming and anticipating and feeling<\/a> that magic. There\u2019s no magic when you get desert before the main dish. That is just gluttony. There is a lot to be said of the delicious wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do not be surprised when you order online or you shop in stores to see a myriad of new things thrown at you for Christmas<\/a> Eve Boxes. It is, literally, just another creative way to throw money at Christmas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is not necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trending over the past several years is the idea of giving kids a \u201cChristmas Eve Box\u201d top open on Christmas Eve morning. The box can be filled with anything but typically they contain the kind of stuff you might find in a Christmas stocking. But now the trend is starting to catch some flak. Some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":25788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":30,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,20,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-news","category-christmas-opinion","category-christmas-trends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}