Christmas 2011 and lessons learned

Christmas is officially over, it is 12:01am on the 26Th! I am sitting here looking at a trashed house and so so many toys. We had an incredibly blessed Christmas and the boys were spoiled rotten by their Elf On a Shelf all month, various activities with friends throughout December, Christmas with my family Thursday, John's Dad Friday, we exchanged our family gifts Saturday, and then of course Santa Sunday. We had a such a great Christmas but the boys excitement this morning isn't what I had hoped. I think we did so much before, they got so much before, it affected it! I am really quite sad about it, as I don't know if this will be Parker's last Christmas believing. (he's 9 in March, although a bit behind on these types of things so there is hope), but all I can do is live and learn and make the changes next year to prevent this sick feeling I have in my stomach.

My plans:
- No Elf on a Shelf. Now this is fully my fault, as I gave the boys a treat each day with their elf, so they were receiving stuff all December. It was WAY to much but I don't feel like there's any going back, so we're just not going to do it. I also think if Parker does still believe, the Elf will inch him closer to not.
- Spread out the family get togethers better
- I'm going to shot for 7 gifts each instead of 10 and a family gift
- Not worry about having big gifts money wise, but just what they will love. Parker's favorite thing was a plant I got him because he thinks it's a jungle tree. I knew it would be, but it felt wrong to me that that would be his "big" gift so I spent $100 on a smartglobe that I probably didn't need too. Now, he will absolutely use and love that globe, but I probably didn't "need" to buy it to make his Christmas any better.
- Don't start shopping until December and quite it with all the buying and returns and going crazy!
- Don't do Amazon lightning deals and purchase less online
- Allow more oppurtunities to get the boys new things aside from Birthdays, Easter, and Christmas. It creates to big of a list and build up!

That all said, I feel like I am making it sound like we didn't have a good Christmas and we did. The boys were up at 6:30am and thrilled and happy, so I don't know if I have the post holiday blues or what. Maybe my expectations aren't reasonable and I'm basing it off the amount of work I put into everything. I just regret not going with my original plans of less toys, a game table, and calling it a day! Writing all this out will remind me for next year though, and that's what I want. At the end of the day I am upset with myself for going overboard once again because of "deals". I had gotten away from doing that and somehow found my way back. Lessons learned...I will continue to be reminded of it as I find homes for all this crap and clean it up throughout the year!

I plan to post a few pics once I get them all loaded. We really did have a great holiday! Cooper's big hit was the socker boppers and gumball machine. Parker the jungle tree and Animal Planet dolphin play sets. The video rockers are being put to good use. By the far the biggest hit for both has been the Super Mario Brother's game for their DS's though! We have it on the Wii, so I really wasn't expecting that.