Are You Spoiled Yet? It's Christmas!

Nearly 18 years ago, we were handed our first child. We were in our early 20's and not well to do. We knew that we wanted to be better parents than we were given, but that's the dream, right?

For me personally, there was an incredible amount of pressure. While Mary came from a home full of love, I was raised in a broken home with many examples of how to do "parenting" wrong. But Mary, in her eternal wisdom implored that I trust her and believe that we could do right by our kids.

There's no feeling quite like when the nurse gives you your new baby for the first time...

The person in our lives MOST excited to meet our first child Cadence, died just a month before she was born. My half brother, Josh, just 20 years old himself, had stolen a sports car from his step-fathers lot, and killed two of his friends while he was drunk driving. We were all crushed (but not really surprised) while attending the funeral, that he had met this end. Josh's mother was in a tranquilized haze and our father didn't even attend.

Like I said, the pressure to get "parenting" right is immense.

There's no feeling quite like when the nurse gives you your new baby for the first time... "Don't screw this up" was repeating over and over in my head. If humans learn largely by example, I had little to work with starting with these perfect (if not troublesome) little souls.

"If you wait to have enough money before you have kids, you will never have enough."

As the love of parenting moves on, and becomes very much the "job" of parenting, you're inevitably faced with the challenge of the holidays. And here we are again!

Many of you faithful readers know about my upbringing. Much of my childhood was spent in poverty, with powdered milk, and government cheese. When you start life with very little, it can be even more of a watermark for you to give your kids more than you had.

We buy presents, the kids open the presents, we exhale knowing that we accomplished our goal, but something always felt a little off...

Some of the best advice I've ever received came from my father in-law. "If you wait to have enough money before you have kids, you will never have enough." So while the kids were young (and Mary & I had relatively low income by Seattle standards), we were resourceful!

We caught amazing "buy one/get one" sales on the hot toys of the season, then sold the extra on Ebay to pay for the toy that we would keep. Another great trick we've used over the years is finding well loved playhouses, Power Wheels, and other super sized toys, and giving them a refresh to make them feel like new. We got early access to a Nintendo Wii and sold it to make our holiday work from the proceeds. Our making MAGIC out of so little knew no bounds!

We notified the kids that next Christmas/Yule/Solstice was going to be different. There would be NO store bought presents.

Even though we're not "Christian," celebrating the holiday of "American Christmas" was very much a tradition we observed. During the early years, we largely followed the traditional model. We buy presents, the kids open the presents, we exhale knowing that we accomplished our goal, but something always felt a little off...

As the kids grew older, we worried that we were sending the wrong message. The focus, in this game of "Christmas Parenting" inevitably becomes about stuff, things, who got what, and what they didn't get. Something didn't feel right about the expectations we were sending, the norms we were setting.

With the focus placed on the TIME we spend together, all of the pressure of materialism faded away.

We notified the kids that next Christmas/Yule/Solstice was going to be different. There would be NO store bought presents. We called it a "handmade Christmas." The rules were simple. Everyone had to make something for everyone else. The only store bought gifts would be in the form of materials, tools, supplies, etc. During this rendition, the focus quickly became about spending time together in various capacities. Some of the things we made were amazing. Among them:

• A set of 200+ wooden Minecraft blocks (that were the talk of our local game store)
• An 20 piece interchangeable set of laser blaster pieces cut from wood blocks and held together with rare earth magnets
• A 6-foot tall painted "flower shelf" crafted from 14" diameter drain pipe (that required 20 hours of working together with Cadence to complete it)

Of course what we generated through this process were memories and also had the product of our work to remind us what was really important.

Following years, we moved into "Experiential Christmas," where we didn't exchange gifts, but instead attended a line up of theatre shows, dinner on the Argosy Christmas Ship, and high tea at Salish Lodge.

The lessons that I've learned from raising our kids are ineffable, boundless, limitless...

With the focus placed on the TIME we spend together, all of the pressure of materialism faded away. No longer did we feel the "let down" or "crash" that is typical after a flurry of opening presents.

And we end, where we started, 18 years since the beginning of this story... THIS year, we're changing the game AGAIN (in true Arcade spirit). As many of you know, we're a household of gamers and incorporate this spirit into every day of our work. In light of the pandemic tying our hands from many options, we've crafted a holiday "Quest System" that is truly amazing for our 17 & 15 year old companions.

There are a series of quests in increasing levels of difficulty and completion of each quest comes with a reward. They all take time to complete and, by their nature, involve spending time together and actually DOing something during these trying times. (I've included our full quest list at the bottom of this article for those interested!)

The lessons that I've learned from raising our kids are ineffable, boundless, limitless... But I believe our parenting strategy has worked to accomplish our goal of raising smart, funny, and compassionate kids that focus on others more than they focus on themselves. And I believe a "non-zero" amount of their outcome is attributed to how we've addressed holidays, gift-giving, and the seductive allure of spoiling the hell out of your children.

I'd LOVE to hear your holiday traditions that are a little unusual! Feel free to comment and share!

(This article is written in the memory of Joshua Lloyd Bonnell 1982-2002).

Full Quest List Here:

• Read a Book!
• Create a Holiday Ornament
• Write a Christmas Krampus Story
• Family "Jack Box" Night
• Create a Holiday Themed Video Game
• Family Board Game Night
• "Mario Kart" Tournament
• Write, Perform, & Record a New Holiday Song
• Dungeons & Dragons Adventure - Holiday Vikings v. Santa Claws
• Solstice Movie Night
• Create & Record a Holiday Music Video

Want to know MORE about Arcade and our work? Check out www.ArcadeWayfinding.com