Heidi: No.
Me: Well what if there was a little girl that wasn't going to get any presents. Could you give her one of yours?
Heidi: Well we could just buy her something from the store.
Me: Why not just pick one of your own presents to give to her. Could you do that?
Heidi: We could play with her with our toys.
Me: Wouldn't you give the Baby Jesus your best present? Wouldn't you want to do that for the girl?
Heidi: Well, I could give her the present I don't like. (At that point we were laughing and I gave up with Heidi. I turned to Kaylee.)
Me: Kaylee, could you give a little girl one of your presents?
Kaylee: I could give her Dad's present.
All in all I have decided that my kids are too involved with the getting and not the giving of Christmas. I know that they are young but I want to teach them that Christmas is not about the presents at all. But of course this is hard to teach a child when all they hear at Christmas time is "What did you ask Santa for?" "What do you want for Christmas this year?" "Did you tell Santa what you wanted for Christmas?" "Hey Heidi, what should I tell Grammy that you want for Christmas?" You get my point? How do you keep the Christmas spirit in your home? What ways do you remember the reason for the season. We definitely need help in this area. Any ideas?
PS-My favorite picture was #4. That was a pretty close vote though.
5 comments:
I have been struggling with that same thing this year. I really want my boys to remember the real meaning of Christmas. So this is what I came up with. I am going to have our own 12 days of service/giving. Once I came up with that idea I found an good story in the (Dec.) friend that fits into that perfectly. It's called The Secret Giver. So here's what we're going to do. Everyday as a family we are going to do one act of service or giving. Here's what I came up with so far. Shovel snow for our elderly neighbors, take food to the food bank, buy some toys for toys for tots, go get an angel from the angel tree at the hospital, take cookies to our neighbors and friends, ask our bishop about a family that needs help and take them something. Those are a few I thought of so far. You should do it to, then we can compare notes!! Good Luck!!
THat is what we had our enrichment on. When we talk next, I'll give you all the ideas that people had. They were pretty good ones.
I've made it a point everyday to remind the kids why we have Christmas and i'm just glad that their answer has changed from getting presents from Santa, to something about Jesus. It's not always about his birth, but his name is in there somewhere. :)
Like Grammy, Like grandchildren...way to go Heidi and Kaylee!!! You guys are a chip off the old block. I always love your diologues with the kids. Kaylee sounds so much like her namesake. It is so funny to hear stories about her because that is just how Kaylee was...is.
I haven't commented sooner because I really had and wanted to think about it, and then I realized. My mom, who is amazing, has always had two things that we do that I totally didn't realize helped us kids out in remembering what Christmas is about.
One- We do the twelve days of Christmas for a family. We always do it in secret and wrap gifts and place it on thier door in the middle of the night with a little poem to go a long with it. It was so much fun as a child. I think if you make giving to others fun they will want to do it, and then as they get older they will start to learn that giving is divine. It's all about the attitude you present it in. I mean they are still so little that of course they aren't going to get it right away.
The other thing that my Mom had us do is kind of long, so call me later and I'll tell you. Anyway, I think that your family home evening was on the right path to helping your girls remember what it is really about. You are doing a fantastic job!
Hey, by the way. I typed that so fast I hope it makes sense.
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