On Saturday we got this wonderful catalog in the mail from World Vision (worldvisiongifts.org). It is such a great idea. You are able to buy chickens and goats, among other things, for families in 3rd world countries. They are gifts that keep on giving. It cost $100 to buy one goat and 2 chickens so we decided that instead of doing stocking stuffers this year we will put the money towards this. When we sat down and told the boys about this, two of them were fine with it, but our son who is usually the most compassionate about things like this was like...NO WAY! He wanted his stocking! Maybe we shouldn't have presented it to them like they had a choice in the matter.
I have been wrestling with this in my mind all night about how to deal with this and then I read an excellent post on a blog that really helped me to put things into perspective Realistic Christmas Expectations. We have decided that we are going to retract the choice part of it so that this does not become a big deal. I don't think we explained it very well and it just went over their heads. We will gently lead them down this path of giving things up at Christmas. We have had our whole lives to get to where we are, so why do I expect his heart to be in the same place ours are.
Anyway, the other day we did our first Thanksgiving craft. We got it from The Ramblings of a Crazy Woman's blog. Her craft turned out 1000x better than ours did, but we had fun. Here is a picture of ours:
We have spent the weekend deep cleaning and organizing the garage. We also rearranged our house. I love it! I love the ambiance of our living room now. I will have to post pictures sometime this week.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Christmas dilemma and craft picture
at 12:20 AM
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3 comments:
It's always hard on kids to understand their parents position on giving back around Christmas. It's also hard when they are use to something happening every year. I know my brother (who is 13) is fighting my Mom tooth and nail over Thanksgiving this year. Instead of having at their house they are coming over to mine. Not to long ago my brother admitted defeat but said "but I'm NOT going their for Christmas"....it's going to be a long holiday season ;) I pray God gives you and your husband patience and helps you guide your boys through this holiday season!
It's fun to watch as kids begin to grasp or should I say open their grasp and start giving. It will happen as they see the delight in giving. I would practice with your neighbors or friends, so they have a tangable response to giving. I love the farm animal idea. They can name the animals and perhaps you can sneak away to a farm to take real pictures to share.
I think that is great ya'll want to give to ministries for Christmas. It is hard to get children to understand sometimes. We are going to do the VOM ministry thing this year. It's pretty neat!
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