So my son will be turning three at the end of the month and we are in full swing planning his birthday.

Traditionally, we have parties at home because we are old-fashioned that way. My wife and I remember playing the silly games like whistling with a mouth full of crackers or pin the tail on the donkey, and we want to make sure our kids have the same memories.

So Piers is having a trucks and digger party and my wife is just amazing at coming up with games and decorations, it will be a lot of fun. With our older child, Hope, we kind of backed into a rule where she invites as many people to her party as she is years old. When she turned three was the first time she wanted to have friends over and she invited three, the next year she just assumed she could invite only four kids and we just agreed with her. It has acutally turned out to be a perfect match as the number of children at the house is controllable and Hope still has the freedom to choose who she wants at her party. I figure the parents of the other children in her Kindergarten class appreciate it too as that is one less party they have to attend (except of course for the ones Hope invites).

Piers doesn’t seem to be as socially outgoing yet so getting him to choose who to come to his party was a little more diffcult, but he finally told us, the invites are out, and the decorations have come in. Now we just have to wait.

For me, one of the best things about Christmas or a birthday party is that I can buy presents for my children. Gift-giving is my primary love language (for more on love languages, I strongly recommend Gary Chapman’s book the Five Love Languages), so I look at all the different toys and think “Piers would want this.” “Hope would love to have that.” I think a lot about the toys the kids like to play with and what they would want more of. And then, it hits me. In any given week, my kids probably play with 10% of the toys they have. Now that 10% shifts from week to week, but the end result is we have a lot of toys that are just collecting dust. Heck I have toys and games I haven’t played with for years. And here I am wanting to buy more toys for them.

Now don’t get me wrong, what is a birthday without presents, but the point is that the kids need some presents, not a lot of presents. I want my kids to have the joy that getting wrapped presents brings, but after the third, or fifth, or eighth toy, the excitement wanes.

So this thought is at war with my desire to shower my kids with all of these cool toys, but instead of letting it limit me, I instead allow it to motivate me to find just the perfect gifts rather than a bunch of decent gifts. I need to keep in balance my desire to show my children the love I have for them, with the financial reality that I cannot buy them everything they want, and the responsiblity I have to teaching my children to be thankful for the things they have and not encourage a sense of entitlement.

Christmas time is even worse for me, because every one is in on the feeding frenzy. The toys companies push out the majority of their new products at this time, everyone is thinking about gifts, the kids respond to the TV ads with “I want that,” and there is me in the middle of it. Luckily my wife and I are very controlled when it comes to our budget these days (although not in the past, a topic to be covered at a later date) so when we finally go Christmas shopping, we already know what we want to buy and how much we are spending. Knowing this removes so much of the stress of Christmas shopping, not to mention the fact that we don’t dread the January credit card bill, since all of that stuff is already paid for. By doing a little pre-planning and exercising some control, our holidays are much more stress free than before.

So the final preparations for Piers’ big 3 party are underway (you should see the cake that Amy is going to make, it is fantastic). I’m sure the little guy will have fun at his party and I know he’ll enjoy what we get him.

Now, if only he’ll actually remember all this work we’ve done when he is 20.