The Powerful Gift of Giving For Young Children

This morning I wasn’t feeling great. I had gone to bed with prayers of not catching my youngest son’s terrible cold and pink eye. After a decent night’s sleep, I still woke up exhausted. So when I had gotten my youngest and the young boy I nanny to sleep at the same time, I decided I would lay on my older son’s bed while he played.

As I closed my eyes, the room got darker. I peeked through my closed eyes and saw him turn off the lights and then climb onto the bed to close the curtains. He walked over to me, kissed my cheek and said “I hope you feel better. You can sleep and I will go watch a show in the other room.”

While I know there were ulterier motives to his sweet gesture, I couldn’t help but feel loved by his gift. I mean, he didn’t have to kiss me and wish me well. He could have just said “See ya. I’m going to watch TV.”

What Christmas Has Become

It’s Christmas time. The time of giving. Somehow in America, though, we have turned it into the gift of giving STUFF. Not exactly what the Christmas spirit is all about.

Everyone has a different ways of showing love. Ever heard of the Five Love Languages? Many people are great at picking out gifts for those they love and enjoy doing so. Others, like myself, find it stressful. I love giving presents when it is something I know they will love but I’m sad to say that most years my presents have just been items that I could check off the list.

Being so far from family these days, the gift of presence means the most to me. While I know it costs a lot of money for family and friends to visit us and us to visit them, I am happy to have FaceTime and the ability to hang out virtually. Last year, my whole side of the family was together so we made time to FaceTime each other that morning and that meant the world to me.

Is your family near or far? If they are near, cherish that time! I sure do miss it!

Over the past few years, every Christmas I keep seeing articles popping up all over Facebook about giving children experiences instead of gifts. Or how adults should stop giving adults gifts.

I certainly love the idea of giving my children experiences. For my son’s fifth birthday next month we’ve decided to not do a party with friends but to take him to a hotel and indoor water park. Honestly, the hotel is all he wants so we’re going above and beyond. Ha!

This year, once again, my children have too much under the tree. I even made a list and I’m pretty sure each child is only getting four things from us. You know, the want, wear, need, read. Or something along those lines. But once all the gifts from grandparents and aunts and uncles start rolling in, our tree is filled with gifts just for them!

Side note: Have you read about how we get our Christmas trees here in Montana? There’s no tree farms here!

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Let’s Go Shopping

Last year I knew how my oldest was going to be getting, getting, getting. So, we had a little chat. We talked about who all was getting him presents. We talked about WHY they were getting him presents. And we talked about the feelings involved in giving and receiving gifts.

We talked about how sometimes when people receive a gift they feel cared for. So then we talked about who he cared about and could get a gift for. And we made a list that mainly included family. I explained that I was going to take him to Dollar Tree (where he LOVES to go spend money sent to him by grandparents) and he was going to get to shop the whole store for presents for each person.

All the way there he looked at his list and we talked about what each person may like. Poppy loves clean cars. And Uncle Grayson likes to be funny. Grandma likes books and Nonnie likes coffee.

Listening to him think about each person was heartwarming especially since we live so far away from all of them.

Make a List and Check It Twice

He walked around the store carrying his list as proud as could be. The list was simply pictures of those he wanted to buy for. And he enjoyed putting an X on each picture as he picked out their present.

You can get your own FREE editable list here if you would like to give it a try this year!

Now, let me tell you that the gifts he picked out were quite hilarious. First, it’s the Dollar Tree. There’s only so much there. But he went up and down the aisles looking. Some gifts were pretty good like the cookies cookbook for my sister. Others were thought out, like the color necklace beads he got my mom, but just not something that would actually be used. I remember he gave my brother-in-law some toy boats for the bathtub. I’m laughing now remembering him picking that out. I told him he needed to put those back and get something that was ‘more Uncle Grayson’ but he said, “Uncle Grayson likes to fish in boats.” He had a point and so Uncle Grayson got a some toys for the bathtub!

He also helped to wrap each and every gift he picked out. And this year he’ll be making a handmade card to go with each one.

The Best Gift of Giving is GIVING

While he loved picking out the gifts for everyone, his favorite part was GIVING it to them. He could hardly contain himself. My in-laws were in town so they had the joy of opening their gift with him.

All of my family was back in NC. Luckily they were all together so he got to watch them each open their gift on FaceTime.

He couldn’t sit still as they opened them and then would jump and yell when they saw what it was.

He enjoyed GIVING to them.

Make It and Take It

I’m not an advocate that everything needs to be bought. Homemade is great too. I’ve got a few homemade Christmas gift ideas that I’m toying with for friends and neighbors. And who doesn’t love getting a plate full of cookies or brownies anyway?

As he gets older I have no doubt that we’ll make some homemade gifts. But for his age and the amount of people he wants to give gifts to, a trip to Dollar Tree and wrapping the presents and making the cards himself is serving the purpose that I’m trying to teach him.

He will help me make cookies and treats for our friends and neighbors and help me deliver those. And I have no doubt that he’ll enjoy delivering those as much as he enjoys watching his family open his presents.

Don’t Just Act…Talk

I feel it’s so important that when my children are making gifts, picking out gifts or delivering gifts that we have a conversation. It doesn’t have to be a formal ‘sit down and listen to me’ conversation but just a casual chat.

After we FaceTimed my family last Christmas, Liam said to me, “Did you see GiGi’s big smile? Uncle Grayson laughed so hard.” He saw their reactions. And we talked about how they may have felt getting a gift from him. The conversation lasted no more than a minute but I knew that part of him understands that giving to others is a nice, generous thing to do.

And as he gets older, our conversations will become deeper. And the gifts will become more meaningful.

But for now, he’ll bring us joy with his cookbooks, puzzles, toy boats and car cleaning supplies. Because they were picked out for each of us with love.

Ready to shop? Grab your FREE editable list here!