Make a mutual decision about spending limits. Every family has limited resources when it comes to holiday spending. By making a mutual decision on spending limits, you will avoid conflicts in your relationship and minimize the post holiday hangover from excessive credit debt.
It's important to acknowledge our strengths as well as our weaknesses. All families have problems and challenges. It is not useful to over emphasize weaknesses and under emphasize strengths. Success is more the result of building on the strengths that it is eliminating all weaknesses.
Brooks encourages us all to be less self-serving and more attuned to the needs of those around us. Family life, when it is truly rewarding and worthwhile, is based on serving the needs of others. This is in contrast to the "me" generation in which service has been replaced by self-expression and self-indulgence. Life is most rewarding when consideration for others is the center that holds.
