My family has started a new Christmas tradition to teach our 2 kids about the importance of giving. Our community every year does a charity called "Spirit of Christmas", which collects toys and gives them to children who come from families that cannot afford Christmas gifts for their children. Our family decided that we will pick 2 children that are the same age or close to the same age of our kids.
My daughter is 6 years old and she chose a little girl that is 5, and my son is 1 and we chose a 2 year old boy for him to give gifts too. My daughter and I shopped online together so she could pick out the gifts for the children for "Spirit of Christmas". After we received and dropped off the gifts to the charity drop-off location, she told me she felt good about giving those gifts away to children who are not as fortunate as her. I am so proud of her.
Sincerely,
Mike
P. S. I also want to let you know that this new tradition is also my chance to "pay-it-forward". When I was a baby, my Mother was a single Mother to 2 boys, and struggled financially to support us. She could afford the essentials such as food, shelter, and clothing for us. She worked double and sometimes triple shifts as a nurse to provide for us. During one Christmas, my Mother was talking to her co-workers, and said that she doesn't have enough money to buy Christmas presents for her kids. A few days later, just around Christmas Day, my Mother came home and there were presents for my Mother, Brother, and I under our Christmas tree. No name or note was left on the presents letting us know where they came from, but they had to have come from the group of nurses my mother worked with. Thank you to the group of nurses that gave us those presents so long ago, even though I was a baby and I don't remember it, my Mother would often tell us that story around Christmas time when my brother and I were older, and how thankful she was for that group of special people who gave her and her boys presents for Christmas.