I am going to preface this by saying: I am grateful for my husband, children and the many, many blessings we are given daily including the fact that my husband's Bell's Palsy is over 60% improved!!! Despite the gimmes, today was a fabulous gift of a day! More times than I can count out of the blue my son said, "Mommy, I love you." While coming over arms stretched out, he kept my bulging heart melting all day long.
I am trying - really trying here to give my children a spirit of giving. Maybe I'm trying too hard and not doing enough. Maybe we just went to too many stores today for all of our tolerance level, whatever the case I am tired of I want. For the record we bought nothing.
Maybe the fact that since Adam works at the mall and since we sold my car this week (bye bye car payment!) I drop him off in the mornings. Today I wanted to see if there was anything on my Christmas lists that I could have him buy on black Friday, you know since he'll have to go there to work and I can stay home by the fire with Grandma and the kids watching Wall*E or something!
We walked through plenty of stores this morning (carrying the baby in arms - hello - the carrier was in the car this time but I thought I would be quick!) including the Disney store which was the downfall for all of us. The baby girl quickly found phones just like Mommy's to play with and chew on and my wonderful boy having just seen the movie was ALL over everything Wall*E not to mention beloved Tow Mater.
I want this one and this one and this one... in utter desperation I told him to just calm down and that he didn't need every toy! He did mention however pleading his case that Wally and Eve (he says Eva) love each other very much and are best friends. I (this is where I get desperate) say, "Well maybe if you want them you can ask Santa for them." Now he's wanting to go talk to Santa today. I may have lied when I said he wasn't at the mall yet, I don't really know for sure but I was not going to lug the kids all the way down to find out. Huh, this from a boy who last week at the mention of Santa immediately stated he was not going to sit on his lap this year.
I know I'm planting seeds for giving, last year we started the tradition of giving away three of his toys to someone who needs them more. We will do this again after Thanksgiving and this year we've collected a shoebox full of things for a boy his age through Operation Christmas Child. We are dropping it off tomorrow but you have until Monday if you meant to do it! He's really enjoyed picking out toys for that little boy so I know that the seeds are there.
My frustration is also at our "material world" because really possessions are not what it is about.
Christmas after all is about Jesus, a baby in a manger, born to set us free!
3 comments:
I remember shops and kids being a bad mix in the run up to Christmas too! Great that they are learning to give too, Heidi - the seeds you plant now will grow into something special as they get bigger.
Oh, I so know what you mean. This has been such a huge thing for me lately. We are shaking things up even more here with the way that we celebrate CHRISTmas and unfortunately, some family member don't quite understand...and it's ruffling a few feathers. *sigh* Anyway, I could write a whole blog post myself on this! :)
We did Operation Christmas Child too. Our church youth group headed it up. Emma helped me pick out the gifts too. In fact, we went to Target, and I had a TON of stuff to get, but I made the decision that we would only buy gifts for the shoebox so Emma wouldn't miss what we were doing. I think she got it, and she had lots of fun picking out every possible princess themed gift we could fit in that box. Of course, now she wants everything we bought our little girl. We can only do our best and hope they catch on! After all, we are grown adults and we still struggle with the "I wants " ourselves!
I like the toy giveaway idea too. I think we may have to consider that for this year!
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