Sharing our blessings at Christmas

One Christmas “tradition” I’ll always remember, & keep close to my heart, is my mom picking a couple of “angels” from the tree at church and buying gifts for children in need. My mom would pick out the “angels” and we (my sisters & I) would get to help pick out toys & clothes to buy for them. (Without donations, these children would have nothing under their tree at Christmas.)

This tradition is one that I’ve continued at my house each Christmas since I’ve moved away from home.

This is also a tradition that I would like to continue with & involve my boys in. We are more than blessed with good jobs, a nice home, warm clothes & food on our table. I want to teach my boys that not everyone is as lucky as we are. I also want to show them the joy that comes with sharing our blessings with others less fortunate or in need.

This year, I chose one name from the Salvation Army tree we have up at work. Our daycare also “adopts” a few local families over the Christmas season and sends out a list of kids’ ages, sizes & interests, so we chose to buy for one of those children as well.

We have a 5 year old girl and a 2 year old boy to share our blessings with this year.

Last night, I picked up the boys from daycare and headed to Wal-Mart (Cory was taking my car in for some kind of recall repair that need to be done). Yes, the gifts are all due this Friday and I waited until the last minute to do our shopping – not the typical me!

I explained to them what we were doing & why we were buying gifts for them. They were both excited to help out. We picked out a dollhouse & princess Play-doh set for the little girl and a tow truck, semi-truck and “Little Blue Truck” book (one of our personal favorites!).

The boys were really excited to show daddy the gifts we had bought when we got home last night.

This morning, we took the little boy gifts into daycare and I let the boys put each of the presents into the big collection box. I’m not sure they have the full understanding of what we actually did or why we were doing it, but they definitely showed excitement about being involved in the whole process.

This is just one of the many “traditions” I look forward to doing with them for many years to come!