The Joy of Giving

I love to give.

And I’m trying to foster the same in my children. So this year since we’re in a country that has a wonderful thing called The Dollar Tree, I split up our family members, gave each of the kids a list and took them shopping on separate occasions. They could buy anything in the store, ha!

It was a joy.

Seriously.

We poured over the list and talked about what each person on their list might like, or what they like to do, their job, etc. Both of the (big) kids did awesome at picking things out. I was so proud.

Then I would set them up with a little gift wrapping station in my bedroom. Being in Mommy’s bedroom is extra special because they are normally not allowed in there. So that was double the fun…

H went to town. He wrapped his pile of gifts in NO time, wrote his own tags, hauled them to the Christmas tree and declared he was done all by himself in a MUCH shorter time than I expected!

And he did a good job.  Proud. Again.

Girlie needed some help wrapping, She was so excited to do it herself, but alas, she needed help with the whole getting-the-paper-around-the-gift-and-taping-it part.

It’s a bit challenging, I admit. She’s great with tape though. She had no problem doing the tape part. She has a passion for tape, frankly.

I wrote the ‘TO’ name on the tags and she wrote her name on the ‘FROM’ line. She’s really good at writing her name for being three years old.  That also makes me proud.

I hope you family members enjoy opening the gifts that were picked out and wrapped for you by my little kiddos/ I think they are learning the joy of giving!

And P.S., someone else also spent time in Mommy’s room

Oh my.

And while I’m at it, I may as well show you that we did manage to fit all suitcases, children, adults AND gifts into our minivan several mornings ago (5:30am to be exact!).

Two days it took us to make it safely to Ohio and since then, lil’ A has still been busy with gifts…

Mostly climbing on them and eating them.

The rest of us decorated the tree.

Or we got held so that we didn’t get caught in the trample.

 

And there has been another type of Christmas tree decoration.

Some finger lickin’, of course.

And also some pizza judging (no joke). For those of you from our parts, we sent delegates to the three Longbranch Pizza locations to decide who makes it best.

We came to a unanimous decision at the conclusion of the blind taste test. So now we have the answer for ourselves, once and for all. No more wondering people, I feel so relieved.

Merry Christmas Eve’s Eve!!

My heart is overflowing.