It’s easy to lean into resentful feelings, especially over the holidays. You can look up all of your family members, old college friends, and unimportant acquaintances on Facebook and easily feel that you’re not doing enough for your kids. After all, don’t they deserve a perfect Christmas with expensive presents much more than the bratty neighbor kids? 

While these feelings are valid, you don’t want to fester in them. Constantly comparing your salary to others and beating yourself up over your ability to provide extravagant things won’t make you or your family any happier. It’s much more productive to be proud of the things you can do for your kids and leave it at that. Additionally, it’s crucial to be grateful for the people in your life who help out along the way. One daughter-in-law recently went viral for biting the hand that feeds her, which is the same hand that bought Christmas presents for her kids.