Our new tradition has three parts, giving, service, and family. They are not getting any gifts from us.....maybe a few very small items but nothing major will be under the tree for them. We have already completed our first year of utilizing this new tradition and I'm very proud of it and plan to keep it going.
First, giving. We let the boys pick an angel tree child at our church to purchase gifts for. Wyatt picked a three year old boy who wanted musical instruments, we bought him a keyboard, and Owen picked a six year old boy who wanted k'nex sets, which we picked out two sets for him. It was important to tell the boys why we were doing this, giving gifts to children who otherwise may not get anything at all for Christmas. Naturally Owen kept bringing up the fact that Santa can just get them whatever they want, so I had to keep telling him that we need to help these kids too, and since we are so blessed it was an opportunity to give back to others in our own community.
Second, service. My dad volunteers to ring the bell for the Salvation Army every year. Every day of the week at night until Christmas. I've always admired him for this and this year I thought it would be a perfect service project for my little family. It is quite a sacrifice standing out in the freezing cold weather accompanied by strong winds that leave you chilled to the bone. But my boys were troopers (for the most part). They did take a couple of breaks to walk around the store to warm up but I couldn't have asked for them to be better considering what was required of them. We received a lot of money and know that the money that they got while ringing the bell is used to help families in our community who need everyday essentials. We rang the bell twice this year with my dad and hope that next year, since the boys will be even older, that we can volunteer as a family.
Thirdly, family. Instead of an over abundance of gifts we had some good old fashioned quality family time. This year we went to splash village and let the boys do whatever they wanted. We had an awesome time in the waterpark, rented a pay-per-view movie in our hotel room (turbo) ate out at good restaurants, took them to a cool arcade for the night and got them whatever they wanted in the gift shop (they each picked out stuffed animals. Owen got a TY big orange fish named bubbles, and wy got the TY teenage mutant ninja turtle Rafael.) we were blessed to have good company this year, my brother and his two boys made the trip with us and we upgraded our room to a loft suite. It was a great trip!!
I'm so in love with my boys and so proud of them! They have amazing manners and are polite little boys. I'm really hoping that by following through with this new tradition year after year we will be encouraging them to be selfless, Christ like boys everyday.
Merry early Christmas! 6 days!
Thanks for stopping by!
Jill
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