My daughter, at eight, has a slightly longer list. A few things that feel more substantial. But even with her, I can sense that tug toward more. More gifts. More boxes. More stuff to open. It’s hard not to feel that pull as a parent, too. We want to give our kids everything. We want to create magic.
But lately, I’ve been trying to slow myself down and ask a different question: What actually lasts? What do we really need?
A few mornings ago, over breakfast, I asked my daughter what she really wanted to do during Christmas break. Without hesitation, she said she wanted to see her cousins. Her Wisconsin cousins. The ones she doesn’t get to see nearly enough. She said she wished they could come to Austin for Christmas.
What she didn’t know was that, perhaps subliminally, I’d been planting that idea for weeks. That one of my sisters had already decided to plan their winter break trip down to Texas. So just a couple of days after Christmas, my daughter’s wish is coming true. Four cousins will be piling into our house, filling it with noise, laughter, and chaos. My kids and the cousins won’t find this out until Christmas morning, until they unwrap the gift from one another letting them know they’ll be seeing one another in two days <3.
My daughter had been working a full itinerary in her head since the last time her cousins visited, one that can’t be fit into five days. Zilker Park. Downtown adventures. Maybe the Hill Country. Enchanted Rock if we can swing it. And then, to top it off, a few nights near Fork Lake east of Dallas for New Year’s Eve, where the kids will run around, fish, play games, and stay up later than they should.
It’s a smaller version of what I experienced growing up. Christmas Eve at the farmhouse. Forty-plus relatives crammed into one place. Loud conversations. Kids everywhere. The kind of gatherings where you don’t remember who gave what gift, well other than those couple of years when stuffed pantyhose dolls were the craze and my grandma gifted one where you could very clearly see Santa’s butt crack.
But what did stick were the moments. The people. The feeling of being together and not the stuff. The thoughtfulness of the gifts. And definitely not which gifts were the most expensive or luxurious.
Thinking about the tension of kids wanting things, parents trying to balance joy with budgets, it reminds me of some of the work we’ve been doing this year with the Texas Forward Party around affordability in some of our campaigns. Polling from the University of Texas / Texas Politics Project has consistently shown that affordability is one of the top concerns on Texans’ minds right now (66% are very concerned about food and consumer prices). Not abstract policy debates, but everyday questions: groceries, rent, childcare, gas, and whether the math still works at the end of the month.
Standing there thinking about Pokémon cards and Christmas morning, it hit me that this isn’t just a parenting moment. It reminded me that it’s something families all across Texas are quietly navigating, trying to create meaningful moments without letting the pressure of “more stuff” crowd out what actually matters.
So on a hopeful holiday note, the most meaningful parts of the holidays aren’t the expensive ones. It’s time together. Shared meals. Being outside. Playing games. Making memories that don’t require a receipt.
As parents, it’s easy to get caught up in giving our kids everything they ask for. It’s harder, and more important, to help them see that Christmas is about more than what shows up under the tree. It’s about how it feels to be together. The memories you collect along the way.
Because years from now, I don’t think my kids will remember how many gifts they opened. But I’m sure they remember the time with family and friends, the days spent together, and the feeling that the holidays are something you experience. That it’s the memories collected, not the Pokémon cards, that really last.
Family first. Neighbors first. Humanity first.
Rooted in Wisconsin. Growing forward in Texas.
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