A woman on social media said she had no idea what Christmas gifts to get for her young son, so she waited until the last minute to go shopping, still trying to figure out what to buy. All he wanted was a red cup and slime. That’s it.
“Christmas isn’t the same anymore,” she said. “Kids get things all year long so what do you get them?”
What she said made sense because I’ve been feeling it too…that something about Christmas feels different now, especially for kids. Of course, our family still celebrates the birth of Christ as we always do, and that’s priority. But when I looked at our son’s Christmas list this year, something felt off. The items on it weren’t meaningful or exciting. They felt random.
Last year, he wanted a phone, and that made sense because he’d been wanting a phone for a while. This year didn’t carry that same sense of longing or excitement. Maybe it’s because he’s older now.
But that thought stuck with me after I saw another video where a parent asked their kids, “Do you remember what you got for Christmas last year?”
They couldn’t remember a single thing.
So I asked my son the same question. He paused, thought for a moment, and then remembered his phone. And that’s because he’d been looking forward to it. We didn’t get him a phone until he was 16. He had to wait.
And that’s the point.
Kids don’t have anything to look forward to at Christmas anymore because we live in a right now culture. Whatever they want, they get now. Parents rarely say, “Put it on your Christmas list.” We just buy it.
When I was growing up, Christmas catalogs were everything. We waited for them. We lived for them. The entire season revolved around those catalogs. We flipped through the pages over and over again, circling things, folding corners, imagining what it would feel like to open that gift on Christmas morning.
“Ooooh, I want that!”
“I hope I get this!”
Looking through the catalog was almost as exciting as Christmas morning itself.
And when we wanted something big, our parents didn’t immediately buy it. They told us to put it on our Christmas list. And then we waited. We hoped. We imagined. There was a buildup. There was excitement. There was anticipation. And anticipation matters.
Waiting taught us something important…that longing can be joyful, that good things are worth hoping for. It gave Christmas emotional weight. It made the day feel special, set apart from the rest of the year.
When there’s no waiting and no anticipation, children don’t just lose excitement; they lose the opportunity to learn how to wait. And waiting is a virtue. It teaches patience, endurance, and the understanding that meaningful things take time. When everything arrives immediately, it teaches the opposite lesson–that if you want something, you’re supposed to have it now.
That expectation follows us into adulthood. If success doesn’t come quickly, we assume something is wrong. If a business doesn’t take off right away, we give up. We’re less equipped to persevere because we were never taught, in small, ordinary ways, that waiting is part of the process.
That’s what kids are missing now.
Today, if a child wants new expensive sneakers, they get them now. There’s no waiting until a special day, like a birthday or as a reward for getting good grades. If they want a bike, they get a bike. If they outgrow it, a new one appears.
Today, expensive purchases are framed as necessities instead of wants. They need an ebike to get to school. They need a phone to call home. Because it’s a necessity, they get it now. There’s no pause, no waiting, no hoping.
Kids are no longer understanding the bigness of Christmas; the idea that it’s the one day you ask for something special, something you’ve been dreaming about. Without waiting, there’s no anticipation. And without anticipation, Christmas becomes flat. The idea of getting something you’ve longed for is non-existent.
Let’s bring the catalogs back.
If not literally, then in spirit. Bring back the tradition of telling kids to put things on their Christmas list. Bring back the excitement of counting down the days. Bring back Christmas mornings where kids wake up before the sun, bursting with anticipation, dragging sleepy parents out of bed.
We need to help kids look forward to Christmas again.
Because without that buildup, Christmas starts to resemble Thanksgiving: food, family, and togetherness. Those things are good and meaningful, but Christmas has always been more than that.
For Christians, it’s the celebration of Christ’s birth. That meaning remains unchanged. But for kids, Christmas has also always been about joy, wonder, and the thrill of receiving something you’ve hoped for all year.
When gift-giving loses meaning, it doesn’t disappear, it becomes thoughtless. Just more stuff. Easily forgotten.
There’s nothing quite like watching a child open a gift they’ve been anticipating for months. That moment doesn’t come from excess. It comes from waiting.
Technology has played a role in this shift too. Kids play games on apps now, and no one puts an app on a Christmas list.
Television used to contribute to the magic as well. Kids don’t really watch TV anymore. There’s YouTube, streaming, and endless on-demand content. Christmas television commercials were part of the season. The closer it got to Christmas, the more toy commercials you saw, each one building excitement, planting ideas and fueling imagination.
Anticipation.
Excitement.
Buildup.
That’s what’s missing from Christmas now. And kids feel it too. Even if they don’t know what it is they’re missing.
Photo by Monika Stawowy on Unsplash