I will never forget the first Christmas I shared with my little boy. He was only 11 months old sitting in the middle of the living room floor surrounded by more presents than any one child should ever need. I wanted so badly to give the world to him, dump Santa’s sleigh at his feet. The next year we had our baby girl and I remember thinking of future Christmas’s and the traditions we would have in our little family.
Well my son is nearly three now and I have been so excited, feeling he is to an age that he will understand some of the meaning of Christmas. I have envisioned visits to Santa, going to see the live nativity, touring the local festival of lights, making cookies and hot cocoa, and mostly Christmas morning when I can once again savor the look on his face when he runs down to the tree in the wee hours of the morning.
In all of my planning I realized I was failing to teach him one important lesson…The Gift of Giving
The manner of giving is worth more than the gift. ~Pierre Corneille, Le Menteur
How do you instill the joy of giving in a three year old? How do you teach him that the feeling you have when you give is far better than when you receive? How do you convince them to put that present in the donation box and walk away feeling good about it? I am not sure I know the answers to these questions, especially the latter. What I do know is that you have to start somewhere. So I thought it over and decided our twelve days of Christmas would be focused on giving, and the pleasure even a three year old can gain from it.
We are doing an advent calendar of sorts, but only doing twelve days, as I’m sure that is where I will find his attention span limit. I have wrapped up 12 little presents that he will get to open on each given day. Inside there will either be an item pertaining to the days event, or the money needed for the days event.
Our Twelve Days of Gift Giving
- Take cat and dog food to the local animal shelter
- Wrap a present and put in the mailbox for our mail carrier
- Take dollar bills and let him put in various Salvation Army buckets around town
- Take hot cocoa and cookies out to the garbage man when he comes
- Deliver presents to our neighbors
- Make a craft and take to a widowed elderly women who adopted him this last Halloween
- Take our coats that no longer fit to the local homeless shelter
- Let him pick and deliver a gift to the Toys for Tots donation box
- Buy breakfast from Mcdonald’s and take to the homeless man on the corner at Wal-mart
- Wrap and take a present to his best friend
- Take a pair of shoes to our credit union for their annual shoe drive for the homeless
- Deliver gifts to a family in need we found through our church
As my kids get older I will add more days with some gifts of service as well, and I am sure it will be fun to see what acts of kindness they can come up with over the years.
I have a feeling this year will be more fun for me than the little one, but I know I will have planted a seed for next year, and in the years to come it may very well be our favorite family tradition.
What tradition of giving does your family have?
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
WOW! That is so inspirational! I’m on it!
Kristi, I wanted to include something for a letter to a soldier, any suggestions?
Destri,
This was spectacular. I am so excited to tell my kids about this.
Thank you for sharing this idea with us today, for writing this beautiful, inspiring post on my behalf, and above all for being such a good friend.
I love you!
I tell ya, I had some pretty big shoes to fill….Luvs!
Very inspiring Destri!! I love it. I will tell you one quick little story about when Victoria was about 4 years old. We were driving getting off the interstate and we had just went to the thrift bakery bread store and bought a bunch of groceries. Well there was a homeless guy standing there asking for help so I grabbed a loaf of bread and handed it to him out the window. He was grateful and thanked me. Then little Victoria said “that was really nice of you mom”. That was payment enough to me, little ones do notice your good deeds. She is doing good things now, ie. we feed the missionaries at church each month and Victoria always invites this old man in our church that doesn’t have a family. She doesn’t even ask me first she just goes and tells him that we are eating after church and to join us. So you are planting some very good seeds there and the rewards will be many!
I love that. That right there is my goal. I realized we were focusing so much on what he wanted, what was he going to get for Christmas. At some point you have to teach them there is a world around them, sometimes a needy one right? thanks for sharing the story. And good for Victoria, she is really looking more like a lady these days….
This is so important to teach our kids…year round! I try to give whatever I have (a couple dollars or a loaf of bread) whenever I see a homeless person. I teach my kids that the Lord taught us to “suffer not the beggar to put up his petition in vain” and we should always err on the side of generosity.
One thing you could do is go to the food bank…I am pretty sure they love volunteer help.
We tried to take our family to help at a soup kitchen for Thanksgiving and they were all full and didn’t need any more volunteers…which is a great problem to have! ; )
I agree Rebecca. Thank you for the suggestion, I have even heard of people volunteering on Christmas day, to really learn the importance of appreciating what you have.
Destri, this is just wonderful! I love that you got me thinking about how I can do Christmas better, and that “better” doesn’t mean more presents for my kiddos. Thank you!