during the past few days I have had several of my friends giving me gifts and being extremely kind to me, not that they are already always kind to me since Luca died, but they have been trying to do extra special nice things for me. I love that they care about me and want me to be happy, giving me little gifts and watch my kids for me so I can take care of last minute preparations for our trip.
I am so thankful to have these great people in my life. I love to give too and will give them what I would like to give them not this year but as soon as my life becomes a bit more sorted out and hopefully next year around this time I can return their kindness because I love to give and recently I have been mostly only on the receiving end.
We went to church yesterday and the topic was Christmas and the gifts. It was said that it is much more important to do meaningful things over Christmas time than just get gifts and get more gifts. This is hard to explain to children, but now I am trying to make sure that my kids learn how important and joyful it is to give a gift and watch another person unwrap it and see the smile on their face, just to feel good about giving. I think my kids are mostly focused on getting gifts and getting as much as they can, which makes me sad. I think I should have started a long time ago to teach them that giving is more fun than receiving. That great feeling you get when someone loves your gift you picked for them, the "just perfect" thing, but even if it is not the perfect gift, just the gesture of giving and sharing and thinking of another over yourself and your own wants and desires, is important to teach our kids.
I am hoping I will teach them to be more thoughtful during gift GIVING time and pay attention to the joy of giving, not just the quantity of packages they get to unwrap.
Let's hope they get it... or at least a taste of it....
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