Mom Of 8 Gains Following For Revealing She No Longer Purchases Christmas Presents For Her Kids

Dec 08, 2022 by apost team

The holiday season is a joyous occasion for many reasons. It’s a time when families and friends can get together to spend some quality time and exchange great food and gifts with one another. Listening to festive music and dressing cozy are some other great moments that come along with the holiday season, leaving the reasons to celebrate endless.

Around Christmas time, most children expect to receive some sort of gift, whether it be a bunch of beautifully wrapped presents under a tree, a ticket for a new movie coming out or to go see their favorite band. Customs and traditions are different in every country, though many do celebrate this holiday by giving and receiving some type of present.

A mother of eight children has been going viral online for sharing her family’s holiday tradition. Surprisingly, the parents do not buy gifts for their children. The then-35-year-old mother by the name of Angie Wipf took to Instagram in September 2021 to share her own reasons as to why she decided to start this new tradition in the first place as well as how her kids have since reacted. It’s been going on for two years and has become the family’s new normal.

Many people have been blown away by this family’s different take on how to celebrate the holidays, as Wipf’s video has continued to make its way across several social media platforms, reaching people all over the world. Read on to find out more about how this Canadian family chooses to spend their holiday together.

According to The Sun, Wipf is a decluttering coach and social media influencer who has received some backlash for not buying her kids Christmas gifts. During the holiday season, she found herself buying upwards of 40 gifts to give to her eight children. Not only did it become extremely expensive to keep up with this task, but she also found herself struggling to figure out what exactly to buy her children every year.

So Wipf decided that it was time for a change. On Sept. 20, 2021, she went to Instagram and shared the holiday tradition her family had been following for two years. In her video, she said, “I don’t buy my kids Christmas gifts … but they still get super excited and can’t wait for Christmas, and they talk about it all year round. Past and future Christmases.”

In the video’s caption, Wipf went into further detail. She wrote:

“Two years ago I changed how our family does Christmas. Having many fall and winter birthdays plus two birthdays close to Christmas, I felt overwhelmed with the amount of stuff. Plus not being the best at gift giving. I decided to stop buying gifts.”

Wipf explained that she instead had each kid draw one of their siblings’ names and “buy” a gift for them. Wipf was still the one who bought the present, but she made her kids stick to a strict budget and gave them total control over what they picked out for their siblings. However, she explained that once they’re old enough to have their own money, she will probably make her kids chip in.

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Wipf continued, “They like what they get more because there’s less and they look forward and wonder throughout the year who will get who… Everyone likes this and it took a lot of my overwhelm away around the holidays.”

Speaking with The Sun, Wipf said, “I just noticed that when they would open a lot of presents they only noticed the one they really wanted and forget about the rest. They would forget about the stuff and not care about it, and it was kind of disappointing to see that.” The family sought out most of their gifts online, with each child sitting down with their parents to pick out the perfect gift. However, the family hopes to transition to in-person shopping in the future.

According to The Sun, this has saved the mom of eight about $700 a year, and she only spends about $75 on presents now. She’s been able to use that extra cash to pay for family outings to the museum or zoo sporadically throughout the year. “We have more time having experiences rather than stuff,” she said.

While the kids might not have as many presents to open as they once did, they have thoroughly embraced the change and genuinely enjoy the new tradition. Wrapping presents also a lot easier as Wipf gives each child a white sack on Christmas Eve that they are able to decorate with by using washable fabric pens.

Wipf told The Sun that her family has been focusing on creating memories, so they still bake cookies, watch festive films and drive around to see Christmas light displays.

What do you think about this family’s holiday tradition? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your family members and friends, too.