My family celebrates Birthmasgiving, a mashup of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and all our birthdays. We spend only $10 on gifts.
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- To save money, my family celebrates Thanksgiving, Christmas, and our birthdays all together.
- For Birthmasgiving we go to Five Below and each spend $10 on one family member, Secret Santa style.
- Back at the house, we guess who bought which gift for whom.
Holidays are a special time to come together and see family. Some people reunite for Christmas. Others celebrate at Thanksgiving. Normally, everyone celebrates their birthday individually. But my family? We mash it all into one glorious day of festivities.
With six kids and little money to go around, Quimsey, my single mother, found a creative way for us to enjoy all the holiday spirit without breaking the bank. Enter Birthmasgiving, a mashup of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and all our birthdays.
Birthmasgiving has a complicated but fun shopping component
When we were kids, our mother would shop at the dollar store for Christmas presents. That's where the idea for Birthmasgiving was born, and it evolved each year.
These days, we celebrate Birthmasgiving on Thanksgiving weekend. The day before Thanksgiving, when everyone in our family is usually home, everyone draws a name from a hat. Then we head to a local Five Below with $10 each to buy presents.
Chaos ensues. We run around the store shopping for our person, throwing red herrings in our basket along with items we think our person would actually like. The goal is to find out who everyone else has without giving away who you're shopping for. We do this by swapping clues and snooping around each other's baskets.
We also follow the time-honored tradition of the buddy system. When we were kids, each of us was granted a buddy, usually for doing chores: Keith and Solstice, Everett and Haven, Logan and me. So if a sibling can't make it, their buddy does the shopping for them and calls them on FaceTime while doing it. It's a great way to engage the whole family and not sweat the distance.
Birthmasgiving is a game of allegiances and lies. You don't know who to trust, and people's alliances change every year. One year, for example, we ganged up on our most obnoxious brother, Everett, and found out who he had by process of elimination. He was crushed when we unanimously announced his person: Solstice. It was priceless.
When we're done shopping, we pile into our cars and head back to the house
Back at the house, it's time for the best part of Birthmasgiving: revealing who bought what and for whom.
To keep the magic flowing, we do this a bit differently each year. My favorite is when Quimsey reads us a story and we pass gifts left and right along with the story. (For example, if the story says "Santa went right back when he left his bag," we'd pass the gifts to the right and then to the left.)
We've also done Secret Santa and left items in stockings. We've swapped gifts one at a time while guessing who had which person; that's what we did when we lampooned Everett. I still remember his face that Birthmasgiving.
Birthmasgiving has become a tradition in our family
The mashup holiday is a source of reverence and pride. What was once a necessity is now a delight. That's the beauty of family traditions; they hold weight because they're honored.
We might spend only $10 every Birthmasgiving, but we treasure it because we make memories and share stories. For my family, that's better than being stressed and stretching our wallets the entire holiday season.