The Christmas Entitlement Issue

I mentioned in my previous post that our Christmas was spent alone this year.  This was a new experience for me.  We have spent Christmases away from family before, but we have always celebrated with friends.  It didn't work out to do that this year, and I can't pretend that I wasn't bothered by it, especially since both of our families were celebrating together in their respective places.

That being said, we got really lucky with Spiff's schedule.  He worked very little on Christmas Eve, had Christmas Day off, and then volunteered for a personal day on Boxing Day since they didn't have a ton going on at work.  We took advantage of that day, packed up the kids and drove north to see some friends, share leftovers together, and then took everyone tubing, which was super fun!

After it was all said and done, I both liked and disliked it.  I liked that our little celebration was so relaxed.  I wasn't stressed about how messy my house was.  We sort of did whatever we wanted.  We ate when and what we wanted to.  We did cheese fondue for Christmas Eve dinner, and it was a huge hit with the kids.  Gunner loved it!  He especially liked the part whenever he dropped food into the fondue pot and got to run around the table to give me a kiss.

I always prefer to play games late into the night on Christmas Eve, and we never seem to do that when it's just us.  We put the tired kids to bed, set the rest of Christmas up for them, and then pass out.  Our Christmas morning was fun, then kids enjoyed opening presents.  But then, and here's the issue, the rest of the day was madness!  My children were nuts!  This is the very first Christmas Day that I have not had a chance to sit down for even a moment.  The kids didn't have anyone else to play with, so Spiff and I spent the entire day assembling toys that the boys would then play with for five minutes before scattering pieces all over the floor and moving on to the next one.  "Mom!  Will you open this?!  Mom, will you open that?!?!"  Instead of enjoying one new toy, they had to enjoy all of their new things nownownow!  All. Day. Long.

I got so tired of their 5-minute attention spans and the mess they were making that I eventually threw their snow clothes on them and kicked them out of the house!  I was very grateful at that moment for the new snow that fell overnight so they would have something to play with outside.  The whole day was actually very frustrating.  Instead of feeling peaceful and grateful, I ended up feeling irritable and grumpy, and I felt like mine were the world's most spoiled and entitled kids!

It has since settled down.  I have found places to put new toys away, and they have fallen into a routine of sorts and found games to play with all of their things.  It did take a week or so until that happened.  They spent an entire week fighting over new things and making gigantic messes, and I spent an entire week wishing that all the presents were wrapped back up and put back up under the tree.  It was kind of horrible.

So, here's my question:  How do I fix that "After-Present Effect"?

There have got to be ways of lessening the madness that entered my house on Christmas Day.  Less presents given to the kids?  Less of a certain kind of present?  A rigidly-formulaic approach to present-giving?  It's hard to control because we are so fortunate to receive so much love from aunts, grandmas and grandpas, etc.  And I do want my children to have fun and feel special.  I can't see how having more of a focus on giving would be helpful since they are so young.  Really, I can't see a good way of fixing this problem.

But there has got to be a better way.  What do you think?!