Mission Tradition: It is also about giving...

This tradition is more of a lesson. My kids are incredibly incredibly lucky. They only know holidays and birthdays full of great food and plenty of presents. Their tummies never go hungry and their stockings are always full on Christmas morning. However, not every child is this lucky and we are aware of this. Teaching this lesson to an almost four year old is difficult. Difficult, but not impossible. Mallory and I cleaned out our kitchen pantry and found some food and baby formula to bring to the food shelf. We talked about what the food shelf was and she asked a lot of questions "Why do we need food shelves if we have grocery stores?" We gave some of her favorite food to the shelter all with the hope that we teach the lesson that because we are able to, we can give to those who are not as fortunate.

The second part of this mission was to teach Mallory that Christmas is not just about circling as many toys in this weeks advertisement that you can find, and wishing and hoping that you get them all. Nope. That was not going to fly with me. So I set out on my mission. My mission to teach Mallory that Christmas is also about giving not just receiving. This lesson will go unexplained as you don't need this mom's version of "its not all about the presents yadda yadda yadda". And don't think I am some mean ol' mom. You can bet she took the Toys R Us ad and circled damn near everything in the book...



I just leave you with one of the steps in the process of Mallory taking pride and ownership in the gifts that she is giving to her family this year. I was able to give up complete control of the wrapping of those few special gifts. I gave her the paper, her scissors, and plenty of tape. Let me tell you, she is proud. She cannot wait until each person (or animal, we couldn't forget Lucy) gets to open their "surprise" present. She is doing such a great job in not telling anyone what she picked out for them. And ya know what? Today I caught her counting all of the presents that she is giving to other people and then she squealed to herself "6 presents!!"

Mission Completed.

And she wouldn't be typical if she didn't then come and ask me if she could open 'just one' of the presents that are for her that are under the tree...