[GCS]

We're in a bit of a different situation this year. Last year my FIL died right before Christmas. He was Mr. Santa and there were always so many gifts for the kids we begged him to do less (seriously, one year each kid had more than 30 gifts - each one!)

Last year Christmas was hard and this year we're going into the one year anniversary and its going to be tough again.

My family does very little in the way of gift giving at Christmas. The kids will each get two maybe three small items there. My siblings are older and a few of them are already grandparents so the extended family is big and we do not buy for one another at all.

DH's family has changed now that his dad is gone. There will likely be three or four presents top there. Not the 30+ they had seen in the past.

DH feels there should be many packages, even its just small things so we are going to be going all out this year again. He feels that the kids are small for such a short time and that they should have that overwhelming feeling he had with his dad. I get where he's coming from but tend to feel more like less is more around the holidays. Its a hard time for him right now and this is important to him so I am going along but hope that as the years pass we can start to wind down on the gift giving.

Like with Bella, I held some of Buttercup's bday gifts back and have them put away for her. Her bday party was before her actual birthday and she got so much stuff I held back most of what we had bought for her and it is already wrapped for Christmas morning. Her bday was in June but I had a good hiding place so my secret is safe!