Christmas Cheer

I've been meaning to post a couple of things, which I will now roll into one. Just before Thanksgiving the boys and I went to a discount grocery store, then on to Krogers to get the remaining items we needed. Ian was asking me some questions about why we went to the two stores - about money - who has it, who has to shop at discount stores, trying to categorize our family somehow. I asked him if he had ever gone hungry - no of course not. I explained that there are some families out there that don't have nearly as much as we do. Some go hungry, don't have a safe or warm place to live, aren't healthy, etc. I said we need to be thankful for what we have.

A few minutes of silence from the back seat (thinking) and then he says, "Mommy, sometimes I feel like the special-est boy in the world."

A short week or two later, we were back at the store again and we passed by the Salvation Army bell-ringer on our way out. I gave the boys some change to put in the bucket, they got a sucker, and we went on our way. Ian wanted to know more about what that red bucket was for, so I explained.

Remember the lemonade stand he did last summer, during Caleb's potty party?

Well sometime mid-December he pulled out the tray table again, and made this sign:


He taped on his Polar Express bell, got an empty ice tea mix container from me and asked for a hole in the lid.



He put a flashlight up to himself and sat in the window, ringing his bell. I had to explain that people weren't going to come up to the door in the ice and snow the same way they came over when he was at the end of the driveway with his lemonade stand. But, his daddy and I put some coins in there, and left it at that.

Well the next week at preschool one of his teachers, Miss Julie, did a lesson on the Roman census. She gave each child a coin and had them come down the hallway to her, to "Bethlehem", to pay their "tax" and be counted in the census. Because of the coins, the story came up about Ian's salvation army bucket. Miss Julie was impressed with him, and started telling the other teachers about what he was doing. She asked him to bring his bucket in. So, the next time we went he made an announcement to all the teachers at the morning meeting (this was a sacrifice for him - sometimes he acts like he wants to be the center of attention, but that was more than he had bargained for!) and put his bucket in the lunch area.

For a couple of weeks he was telling everyone he visited with about his "salvation army" that he had set up.

The other day he decided that the bucket was getting pretty heavy, and that it was time to take it in. He wanted to put every coin and dollar in individually -

$31.99 of coins and dollars later - he shook Sandra's hand and rang the big bell himself, and we came home.Regardless of whether he started out his project with a full understanding of what it meant (I doubt it) it was heart-warming for us to watch him, with help*, stumble onto the secret of "giving is more fun than receiving". We hope that he will always remember the way he felt when he made his donation, and that he'll come to understand even more as he grows. I just wanted to share this story to hopefully warm some other hearts as well. I hope that you all are able to rest and enjoy the true meaning of Christmas this season!

*Thank you Julie, Sandra, Grandma Nancy, and everyone else who contributed!