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As part of Barry family, we always look forward to, and yet, at the same time, dreaded Christmas season.  

We love to see our families and we treasure the get-togethers, but the thought of Christmas presents for our kids and the extended Barry family can be intimidating and always put a damper on our cheerful spirit.

We dread the thought of piles of presents every Christmas - we used to fly to see grandparents every Christmas and you should see  the luggage we had to haul on the Christmas trips (a lot more after Christmas) - luckily, airlines were not charging arms and legs to ship them at the time.  

The house will be littered with toys afterward.  We are not even talking about the  huge budget for presents and we really hate to just receive and not give!

To be fair, not that we are not grateful that our in-laws just LOVE to give Christmas presents to everybody and would have been totally lost if we don't 'let' him.  However, we cringe on the thoughts of the kids becoming too materialistic and expect presents rather appreciate the spirit of giving. 

As it must be for a lot of families. this Christmas Giving has become a big problem with the family; and I believe we are not the only ones who feel that way.

After many years of agony, I finally announced to my Barry side of family (yes, the American side) that we will adopt the Chinese (my side) way of giving presents. 

Our parents, relatives and/or friends will give us RED ENVELOPS for New Year's present.  They will put brand new, crisp cash in the Red Envelop with some Lucky words (good luck, Long Life, Happiness, Wealth) on the envelop and that will be our present.  We loved those. 

Since we adopted this new concept, the kids still receive a couple small presents while we give them the red envelop with cash/check for the year. 

Luckily, our kids are not big on shopping nor are they big on brand name items; they save their money for important things which they actually use a lot, such as music instruments, iPOD, upgrade of cell phones; and save the rest in their account for future.

With the way the economy is, I have a feeling that most of us will be a lot more cautions while shopping for Christmas presents.  The best thing to teach our kids now is how to be mindful while spending money, and at the same time, only buy essentials and save the rest.    

And the RED ENVELOP is a great, festive way to do just so - Celebrating true Christmas spirit of sharing, love, apprecication, learning how to be grateful for what we have while at the same time, save for the future!