Because my grandmother was a painter, she took charge of decorating the Christmas presents for us, and did so elegantly. As hyper-organized as my mother, Grammy had the gifts ready and arranged around the base of the tree long before Christmas day. The presents made an odd picture gallery of boxes collaged with old Christmas cards or bright tissues, finished with paintings of fairy creatures, snowy towns and eccentric Santas.

The four of us kids were greedy little beasts, mainly drawn to dismantling the arrangement of gifts, counting how many each of us was getting, guessing the contents, then putting everything back carefully so no one suspected what we’d been up to.

One year a huge present appeared, a marvel some 4 feet high, wrapped in colorful tissue and painted with a nearly life-sized girl whose skirt swirled as she danced. We were sure this was a life-changing present. But my youngest sister, Susie, was most smitten, because at last, here was a box big enough for the monkey she had wanted for as long as any of us could remember. We all lay on our tummies worshiping at the shrine of the gifts, bickering over what was in the huge box addressed to all of us. Susie could see the package move. She knew exactly how the monkey was being fed and cared for. She tried to get us involved in picking out monkey names.

My mother had the maddening habit of wrapping up every little purchase she’d made in the late fall and putting it under the tree. We always forgot she could disappoint us with ordinary socks or underwear, things that would have gone directly into a dresser drawer if purchased in May. She watched our growing excitement with growing alarm, and hinted that the gift was not such a big deal. But the box was too magical even for me, the oldest, to believe it wouldn’t be at least fairly thrilling.

On Christmas morning we ripped that package open with no care whatever for the pretty dancing girl — consumers in heat. It was pillows. Surely it can’t just be pillows. We pulled them out thinking they were the padding for the wonder that really was in there. But no. It was pillows. Howls of betrayal wrecked the day.

But frankly, our early Christmases were always driven by consumer lust, and the reality never lived up to the expectations. I think we wanted the presents to make us feel adored, cherished in some storybook way. But the stuff itself — the dolls, the clothes, the games — somehow got in the way of that.

As a young mom, my poor mother had fallen into the all-too-common trap of giving presents like she was filling a factory order, with a checklist. It wasn’t the thought that counted, just the goods. Most years I remember her being surprised and put out that we didn’t shower her with the gratitude she craved.

Once, a woman seeking advice about her wayward adolescent told me, “I was a good mom. No, I was a great mom. I gave her absolutely everything she wanted, until what she wanted was finally just too much. She was completely unreasonable!”

We obsess about training the kids’ heads, but so often do a wretched job of training their hearts.

Spoiling children is a lot of fun, but only when it’s a rare or seasonal pleasure. Because spoiled kids are no fun at all. What were once rare treats have for many kids become entitlements. Kids expect to have fancy cell phones. They expect to have sugar sodas at dinner, and not just at birthday parties. They expect absurdly priced sneakers, and they expect to be wowed into the stratosphere by the Christmas haul. We train them to be like that.

Hour after hour, TV teaches children to associate feeling fabulous — adored, cherished — with the stuff from stores. This is training plain and simple, just like using flash cards to teach children the multiplication tables.

Posters adorn school hallways with dramatic graphs demonstrating that if you get more and more education, you’ll get more and more money, for all that stuff you want. It’s all about the money.

In her column a few days ago, financial writer Michelle Singletary urged parents to sit down with their children and come clean. There will be no presents this year, because presents cost money that we don’t have. Be bold. Don’t go further into hock for Christmas. Singletary has children herself, so she knows what a drag it would be to deliver this speech.

But I would go further. Think harder about how to connect with the kid. A brief love note pinned to a cool T-shirt is more in the spirit of the season than just announcing that the consumer-goods factory is closed. In survey after research study, kids express that they are lonely for adults. They want and need more wise companionship. We want them to expect to have adult companions in their lives. It’s fun to have money to spend on stuff, but it’s not necessary for making a seasonal love-fuss over a kid.

My sister Susie was drowning among us squabbling siblings, and really did need a companion all of her own. As we got older, my mother got wiser about getting one really thoughtful present to make a connection to each of us. My parents were no animal lovers, but they finally relented and got Susie a dog. She loved the dog, and the dog lived for her. Most importantly, Susie knew they’d made sacrifice for her, and it did make her feel like she was the apple of their eye.

To this day my mother tells that story of those “awful” pillows, with ever-fresh chagrin.

Julia Steiny, a former member of the Providence School Board, consults for government agencies and schools; she is co-director of Information Works!, Rhode Island’s school-accountability project. She can be reached at juliasteiny@cox.net , or c/o EdWatch, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, RI 02902.