Skip to main content

My Christmas gift plan

Over the past year, I noticed an increasing trend amongst my children: they were getting greedier and greedier.  I wonder if I should just show them the movie The Grinch and say, this is what you look like.  The greed has proliferated every area of our lives.  I see it when I'm making breakfast and my child didn't want to eat scrambled eggs and bacon.  I see it when we're purchasing gifts for family or friends when my child complains how they don't have this toy or that toy.  I see it when we're talking about doing something special and the activity isn't special enough.

My children are not happy with the everyday.

This is a problem.  I do not want my children growing up thinking that they can have everything they want. I want them to know that they are blessed to have the things that they have.  I want them to be compassionate to others who don't have basic needs.  I want my children to understand that they can make a difference to other people who are hurting...but they cannot do this with greed and envy in their hearts.

So, this year for Christmas my family and I are instituting a new gift-giving plan.  Each member within our family will be getting four gifts...and four gifts only:
  1. Something  we want
  2. Something we need
  3. Something spiritual
  4. Something to read
Something we want will be one item that we have specifically asked for - most likely something fun.  Something we need will be an item of basic need - for my children this means clothing.  Something spiritual will be an item that allows my children to understand something beyond themselves and the true meaning of Christmas: a Bible, nativity, gift in their name to a ministry, or something similar.  Something to read will be...something to read!  A book or magazine subscription that they will enjoy, but will also be educational.

This will all be happening within our immediate family.  We have told grandparents about it and some are choosing to join in to this theme with their own gift giving, but we are not requiring it because we feel that grandparents are there for a different reason than parents...they should be allowed more flexibility with their gift giving to their grandchildren.

We will also still be doing Santa gifts because we believe that Santa provides a great story in gift giving from which our children can learn.  But, we will not be going crazy with Santa gifts.  He will leave a stocking filled with the typical items we fit in them: socks, lip gloss, nail polish, Matchbox cars, etc.  Nothing too fancy.  Santa will also leave one item for each person as well as a family gift.  This will be something that we can enjoy together as an entire family; such as, a game or outing to a local attraction.

During this Christmas season, we want out children to enjoy many of the traditions they'll hear their friends tell about, but we also want to allow our children's hearts to grow when considering how much greater it truly is to give rather than receive.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Leadership Mom: SWOT Analysis

In business, leaders often analyze our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats through a SWOT analysis.  So, if we are going to look at our role as moms as being the greatest leadership opportunity to us, let's start with analyzing ourselves and our kids.  Here's the SWOT I developed for my family: Family SWOT Analysis As a doting mother, there are hundreds of strengths that I could put up here for my kids.  Their hugs, kisses, bedtime stories and prayers, the fact that they come to me when they're seeking healing from an injury (physical or emotional), the notes and drawings they make for me, their precious hearts when they try to help me or that they've learned how to use the Keurig to bring me coffee in the morning...I could go on and on. Now, here's the part where we get honest with ourselves.  Yes, we love our kids and we love our family (or, hopefully, most of the time), but we are not perfect.  Nor should we be perfect.  As we analy...
3 comments
Read more

Cybersecurity 101

One of the things that continually amazes me as a parent of young(er) children is their ability to quickly understand technology and its uses.  Not only have my children learned the art of swiping to use different devices, but they've also learned how to access apps, take pictures, answer calls (both phone and Skype), and more.  My children could teach their grandparents a lesson or two on how to use technology. But, as a student of cybersecurity, I have seen a greater need to educate my children - as well as so many others - on the cybersecurity.  This goes beyond posting inappropriate pictures and unfriendly words on social media (although these lessons must also be taught).  This goes into the nature of understanding the benefits and risks of using technology and the privacy lost to it.  The major premise that must be understood in regards to cybersecurity is that information/data is money.  It's value is continually increasing.  We need to secure...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why can't they just be friends?

Why can't my kids just be friends?  I must ask myself this question hundreds of times during the week.  I thought that having kids relatively close together was going to be great.  They'd have a playmate and an automatic friend.  However, the truth is that - most of the time - they don't get along.  It's not that they're enemies...it's that they drive each other crazy.  They each want the other one to do what they want to do.  Then, when the other one does what they want, they get mad at them because they wanted to do it themselves. They don't want to share their toys.  Then, they play together only to then get mad and purposefully break the other sibling's toys. They want to get the other one in trouble so that they look like the "good" child and get more rewards.  Then they get upset that the other sibling got them in trouble when they *tattled* on them. At mealtimes, they want to sit where the other one is sitting.  They wan...
Post a Comment
Read more