Get Your Children Hooked on the Holiday Spirit!
In this generation of kids growing up, I like to call them Generation ME, it’s so very hard to keep things meaningful. As parents we want our kids to be happy and love to see their faces when they open a new gift or surprise, but how do we keep them from EXPECTING a gift every time they bat an eye?
I have been guilty on occasion to go a little overboard at Christmas time, I love seeing all the gifts under the tree and I love the Christmas morning reaction. I have found myself improving over the years and trying to focus more on the meaning of the holidays.
We now volunteer every Christmas to wrap and deliver gifts with our local toy drive, we bring and collect food for our local food bank and I try to explain to my children that even though we are blessed to be able to have the things we do, it is not a guarantee, and we are never above anyone else.
Our family motto is “Do unto others as you expect they should do unto you.” We truly try our best to live by that. The holidays are not about the gifts we receive but the gifts we give, and the most important of those gifts are not physical items!
Julie Howard, from Quebec, Canada