While visions of sugarplums dance in the heads of sleepy children, many parents find themselves on the night before Christmas frantically wrapping, assembling and remembering where they hid those pre-holiday purchases.

The idyllic view of families gathered peacefully around a warmly glowing fire on Christmas Eve often has turned into a frenzy of last-minute buying. The holiday hoopla, of course, really starts the day after Halloween when marketers begin to seduce consumers into trading a meaningful holiday season for a purely commercial venture.

Some families have had enough. They are rising up and rebelling to restore meaning and sanity to their holiday celebrations.

“I’ve had it,” said Karyn Stancy, an East Coast mother of four. “I refuse to make Christmas into one of the most stressful times of the year for me and my family.”

Stancy is joined by others who are looking for ways to simplify December with low-key decorating, a pared down social schedule and creative gift giving. She said she’s also committed to focusing her family’s celebration on the real reason for Christmas instead of being caught up only in the commercialism.

“It’s a continual challenge to keep the focus of gift giving at Christmas on Christ who gave us the greatest gift of all,” said Joni Mills, who lives in Portage with her husband, Dave, and four children. “Christmas means so much more than the things we get.”

Christmas originated more than 2,000 years ago with the birth of Christ. God made a way for us to receive the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, Mills explained. God sent Jesus to the earth to pay the penalty for our sins by dying on a cross and rising again. Receiving the gift of eternal life is open to all who believe.

“That’s what I want my children to remember at Christmas,” she said. Mills bakes a coffee cake on Christmas morning. She puts a candle in it and their family sings “Happy Birthday” to Jesus.

Another local family took a more radical approach to making Christmas more meaningful.

"Our girls were basically getting selfish and greedy,” said Vicky Jozwicki, who lives in Portage with her husband, Mark, and three daughters. “They were nit-picky about us spending the same amount of money on each of them. And they were disappointed if they didn’t get everything they wanted. I just lost it.”

She called Portage Community Outreach Center and arranged to adopt a needy family for Christmas. They purchased gifts for them instead of giving gifts to each other.

While protesting the idea at first, Jozwicki said her daughters were touched when they saw the 8-year-old boy’s ecstatic celebration when they gave him the goldfish he wanted.

“We have so much,” Jozwicki said. “To see someone appreciate the little things in life made a great impact on all of us.”

Children aren’t the only ones to struggle with materialism at Christmastime.

“So often as adults you can get caught up in all the stuff,” said Karen Mahrt, who’s an empty nester with her husband, Chuck, in Kalamazoo.

She has tried to maintain close family ties and focus on relationships with others to make Christmas more meaningful.

Her college-age daughter, Mandy, still looks forward to coming home and baking homemade cut-out sugar cookies with her friends. Mahrt awards prizes to each cookie decorator and snaps a Polaroid picture for them to take home.

“I want them to know I love them and to show them God’s love,” said Mahrt. “Christmas can be more special if you make traditions out of things your family looks forward to.”

Cheryl Wunderlich and her husband Greg have three children and reside in the Portage area. Cheryl also serves at Calvary as the Women’s Ministry Director.