The holiday season can be full of joy—but it can also come with pressure, busyness, and financial stress. In this episode, we talk about how to shift our focus back to what truly matters: celebrating the birth of Jesus. We share practical, budget-friendly ways to approach Christmas with intention, reduce overspending, and create meaningful traditions that don’t revolve around gifts or money. If you’re longing for a simpler, more peaceful season rooted in faith, this conversation is for you. (00:00) Intro (01:55) Parents Overspending, why you don't have to! (07:43) Budget Friendly Decorating (12:53) The Real Focus of Christmas- the Gospel of Jesus (18:37) Christmas Traditions (23:07) Gift Giving (37:30) Tradition Ideas (43:41) BREATHE (45:36) Giftcard Give away! (47:55) Simple Swaps --- Transcript: Welcome to Sisters Unwind, the podcast where real life meets real. Talk with a sisterly twist. We're your hosts, Rebecca and Ruth, two sisters, on a mission to explore life's greatest Fs from faith to family and fitness, and yes, even finances. We're diving into the moments that make us laugh, cry, grow, and everything in between. No filters. No facades. Just two sisters. Keeping it real and keeping it fun. So grab your favorite drink, get comfy, take off your bra and come unwind with us. Welcome back to Sisters Unwin, i'm Rebecca, and I'm Ruth. And today's episode is focused around the most wonderful time of the year, Christmas, . We're talking all about how we can be intentional with our time and money around the holidays, what the Christmas season is all about, and how you can make lasting memories with your families without breaking the bank. We know that this season can be full of fun, magical memories, but it can also be overwhelming and stressful. How many gifts need to be bought for who and where exactly is the cutoff or who you need to buy a gift for? Where is the cutoff? I don't even know where it is. When does gift giving become an obligation rather than a joyful sign of love? We're talking about all of that and more on today's episode. Wherever you are in that spectrum of emotion, we hope you leave this episode feeling inspired, refreshed, and excited for the celebration of our savior Jesus Christ, coming to earth in human form. And BONUS ALERT! Bonus alert. We have another, I said another gift card giveaway for the holidays, so stick around until the end to hear how you can win. So let's jump in. So gifts around the holidays and spending money for your kids in particular can be overwhelming, right? Mm-hmm. I think a lot of parents struggle with wanting to give their children a very nice Christmas, maybe a better Christmas than they had. And I think at the end of the day, most parents are just doing the best that they can. And you wanna do something right by your kids. You wanna have, your kids have this awesome, amazing experience. You wake up on Christmas morning, it's this magical time. And so I think families can struggle with how much to spend on kids. Mm-hmm. And I think a lot of families. I don't wanna say do it wrong, and we'll get to it later about what the actual meaning of Christmas is, but I think a lot of parents overdo it on Christmas. Yeah. And back in 2024, there was a news article in which, 2,500 parents were surveyed on their spending around their children at Christmas time, and the survey found that parents expected to spend $461 per child. And this is on average for Christmas. Yeah. And on the high end, 9% of those parents said that they were gonna spend $1,000 or more per child. That's insane. And on the low end, it says 4% said that they'll keep it around or under a $100. Nearly half. So around 49% of parents said they expected to go into debt to pay for Christmas this year by way of credit cards of buy now, pay later services. Dang. And in Illinois, the average that parents were expecting to spend was about $641. The fact that half of parents said that they were willing to go into some form of debt to pay for Christmas. Yeah. I don't know. I think that seems like stupid. Yeah. Yeah. I, I just wanna be like, but why? Right. Why? And mean, I'm sure there's many reasons, I said it before I think a lot of parents might try to do better by their children, then maybe they grew up with nothing. Right. Right. Maybe, you know, our parents came from, well our mom, she came from like a family where she didn't have a lot. Mm-hmm. She literally didn't have a lot, so she always wanted to give us the best of everything. Yeah. , And I don't think she ever went into debt for it and would finance our Christmas experience for it. Yeah. But definitely wanted to give us a better experience with things than she had because she had very little. Yeah. So maybe that's it. I just can't imagine like the average middle class family going into debt. Over my kids' Christmas. Ever. Not now. Not later. I, yeah. I told my husband like, I don't think I'm buying the baby anything for Christmas. Yeah. What does he need? He doesn't need anything and he's never gonna remember it. Never gonna remember, to be honest with you. My 2-year-old probably won't remember Christmas, yeah. Maybe I won't buy her anything either. No, I'm kidding. Oh my gosh. It makes me think of this, uh, have you heard Nate Parkett? Yes. Yes. He's a media, and he was talking about families that take their kids to Disney World and they're like, can you believe that? They're taking a two or three year olds Disney World, they're not gonna remember it. Why? And he was like, yeah, you should just lock 'em in the closet. They're not gonna remember it. You should lack your, because that's actually the traumatizing Yeah. They'll, they'll remember it later lasting in Oh my gosh, on their subconscious. Yeah. For years. Yeah. But I think in our culture of consumerism, it's. It's the keeping up with the Jones' mentality. And I think it used to be like before social media and all that, it used to be you saw the neighbor down the street, had all the cool toys, or you went over to your friend's house I remember growing up, it was the, Wii remember like your band had the Wii. Oh yeah, yeah. And I was like, well, I want a Wii. But now you see these influencers online and they probably make millions of dollars. Well, guess what? The average person's not making millions. And so you see all the things that they have and they're like, well, I wanna buy that from my kid. And it's like, your kid doesn't, they don't need it. No. Absolutely does not. They don't. No. So any of our listeners, if you're planning on going into debt over. Yeah. Over Christmas, please don't do it for the love of God. Don't. Yeah. Your kids will love you or dislike you, whether you buy them stuff or you don't. And it's all about making memories. And later in our episode we're gonna talk about, budget friendly or even free things that you can be doing with your kids that are better than a gift because when they look back on Christmases growing up, honestly, I can tell you maybe a handful of gifts that I remember getting growing up. Yeah, that's true. I more so remember like Christmas breakfast or just the traditions we had. And so don't stress about, oh, I need to get my kid the perfect gift. Yeah. Because first off, they're gonna like it for two seconds and then they're gonna be like, okay, I want something different anyways. Yeah. But they're gonna cherish the memories that you have with them. Baking cookies or going to see lights, spoilers alert, those are some of the ideas. But they're gonna remember those things versus, the physical items that you give them. And maybe if you have kids that are old enough to remember different things that they may have gotten, maybe this is your opportunity to survey them when you have a moment. Like, Hey, what's your favorite Christmas gift you've ever gotten? Mm-hmm. Just to see if they actually remember things they have gotten in the past. And if they are having trouble coming up with one or two things, then know that what you're buying for them. Maybe, you're spending a lot of money for them to forget that's a good idea. You know, they even got it. Or their favorite gift is like, something that was inexpensive, but really meaningful. Yes. That's good. Like, oh good, I'm glad. Like, grandma admitted me this sweater. Yeah. Like, grandma, I'm sure it was really ugly, but No, but yeah, but I mean, even sitting here, I'm like trying to think of, a Christmas gift that I've gotten that I've really cherished or was so excited about. I could name a few, but it would take me like a second to remember what my favorite one was. Yeah. Gift giving is probably a central aspect of Christmas, whether you're getting gifts or your giving gifts. But there's other things around the holiday season that are exciting and fun. So, Bekah, what are like some different things that you like to do to get ready for the holidays? Well, I feel like this is the first year that I'm like, okay, I'm gonna start liking, decorating and doing the things for the holidays b ecause my oldest is now at the age that she's able to remember things and have fun. And so I think doing things like putting up the Christmas tree, putting decorations on our walls, I didn't do it, PJ did, but he hung Christmas lights on the house. Reading Advent books, I'm actually very proud of myself because I already started wrapping gifs. I have like, oh dang, 10 gifs wrapped. Wow. Are they under your tree? They are. Oh, that's so cute. My oldest hasn't even discovered them yet. And so they're still wrapped. Hopefully she doesn't find them and unwrapped them. But even just putting some more time into actually nicely wrapping presents instead of Christmas Eve being like, oh, shoot, I forgot all of these. Do we have any wrapping paper anywhere? Do we have any gift bags? Or, I think one year my stuff was wrapped in like pink sparkly butterflies or trees or
