Christmas is over. It was quite the experience, and I learned a lot.

I recently read an article about Sandra Bullock and the presents she buys for her son.

When it comes to going overboard with the holiday shopping, Sandra Bullock is not immune. When Matt Lauer asked her on TODAY about buying presents for her 2-year-old son, Louis, Sandra replied, “I don’t know if I’ve stopped buying!”

I’m not really a shopaholic but frequently the holiday draws me to buy things that I don’t need. It seems like all kids, even my little girl, love going to the mall. As I do my errands and groceries she can’t stop grabbing at everything. Doesn’t matter if it’s food, toys, or books, anything she could get her hands on. I have to remind myself often that I don’t really have to buy her everything she wants.

Perhaps she took our TODAY Moms/Parenting.com survey and is part of the 10 percent of moms who plan to spend more than $500 on their child this holiday! Or the 4 percent of moms who say they’ll do ANYTHING to get their kid the perfect gift.

There is something about buying presents and parenting. Somehow they’re connected to each other. We love to buy things that actually our children don’t care much about. You give a toddler a present, and they are wide eyed and excited at first. But after three days, they’ve completely moved on. I think it’s ourselves that we want to satisfy. We think that the more gifts we give, and the more expensive it is, the more it shows we love love our children.

It’s sad how we measure love, happiness of our children and success in parenting on the things we buy for them. When our children don’t read love that way. If you asked my little girl, “Honey, what makes you happy?” she’d say, “When mommy and daddy play with me.”

It’s one thing to provide our family with the best we can yet it’s another thing to pamper them with material things and measure our success on the amount of things we provide for them. When all they actually need is US.