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Home > Blogs > Adventures in Motherhood > Archives > 2009 > December > 17 > Entry
Trying to give kids a sense of giving at Christmas
Christmas is a little different around our house this year, with the kids getting older and illusions dropping like heavy snow off Evergreen branches.
Thud. … Thud.
However, as I continue to fan the glow of this magical season, it is good that the kids are learning that Santa has limited finances — especially as their interest in smaller, more expensive gifts grows.
(It is so nice when evolution dovetails so well with our modern society.)
But, while the path to the presents the kids might receive becomes clearer, the kids’ sense of giving is getting more hazy. And it is making me as grumbly as the Grinch.
When my sons were really little, I wanted them to learn to give to extended family members. I had them draw pictures to send to their aunts and uncles for presents.
I even framed some of them; not that I deluded myself into believing the creations were works of art, but I wanted to make them a little more grand than a crinkled piece of paper.
As the years went on, the drawings tapered off and I started sending presents to relatives with the kids’ pictures on them — mugs, shirts, ornaments, etc.
The presents were supposedly from the kids, but they really didn’t involve any consideration on their part.
After a year or so, that fell by the wayside and evolved into just making sure the boys sent very nice thank-you notes after the holidays.
In addition to these meager efforts, my husband and I have made it a point each year to participate as a family in The Giving Tree program, in which you take an ornament off the tree and buy for a child in need.
We would ask the boys to put themselves in that child’s shoes and help pick a present that would be most loved.
But this year, due to time restraints, my husband shopped for our Giving Tree girl on his own. So, the kids weren’t being asked to buy for anyone — not even someone who needed a present.
And, lately, I could tell that their giving muscles were beginning to atrophy.
One morning this week on the way to school, my 10-year-old said he was concerned about Christmas.
“I’m worried I won’t get very much stuff because I didn’t put much on my Christmas list,” he said. In my head, I could picture at least 10 things he had written down.
Then his 8-year-old brother chimed in: “Well, I’m worried I won’t get my No. 1 thing!”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“A trampoline!”
So, I started to think that probably the best thing I could give them this year is some much-needed perspective on the holiday.
Then, as fate would have it, a friend forwarded me an e-mail about some of the items that Daybreak has on its Christmas wish list.
Daybreak, the Miami Valley’s emergency youth shelter, is asking for disposable razors, soup, peanut butter and the like — things the kids need.
There isn’t a trampoline or video game in sight.
So, I printed out the list and I’m going to take the boys shopping for some of these items. And I am going to ask them to help me pay for some presents as well.
I hope it helps them see that they are lucky to get fun presents under the Christmas tree, even if it’s not their “No. 1 thing.”
Because, despite a culture that sometimes speaks to the contrary, they need to understand that Christmas should be about giving more than receiving.
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