I told them they could each pick out one thing as a gift. As you can imagine, they were very excited to see EVERYTHING that was available.
Every time something interested them, they were sure THAT was the PERFECT one. Finally they each decided on their gift.
Now, here's the catch. They are never going to open this gift. In fact, they will never touch or even see this present. It is not one they will receive, it is one they are giving. The glossy catalogue is from World Vision and here are their selections:
Honey really liked the idea of providing a family with trees that they could use for food for themselves and to sell to earn income. She is giving 5 fruit trees.
I thought the "shopping" went quite well, they were interested in how it all worked, and had lots of questions about how the people would get their gifts. We are so blessed to live as we do and I want them to understand that not everyone has what they have. They were surprised to see a soccer ball in the catalogue and scoffed that it couldn't "make anyone's life better". We have at least 3 soccer balls around here & despite our good intentions in enrolling them in the summer soccer program, they apparently do not feel enriched by it! Once they heard that in some villages, the children don't have anything to play with, they were pretty surprised. Every year I try to think of a way to make Christmas about more than just the presents we open. I think that helping others is a great way to teach them to appreciate our lives and to have compassion. When I told them they sortof be like Santa to someone else their eyes got quite wide and their smiles were huge. Hopefully this will be something we can do each year and be excited about!
Since it's Friday and all, Grammie came with her bag of tricks and they all got mini mani & pedi's. Lovey was the event photographer for this portion of the day! We were using the kids' camera and they love taking pictures with it. Poor Grammie was caught in mid bite of her fajita but I decided not to post that one.... yet. (filed under: blackmail!)
Honey really liked the idea of providing a family with trees that they could use for food for themselves and to sell to earn income. She is giving 5 fruit trees.
While going through the catalogue, we read about malaria. Every 30 seconds, an African child dies of this. To try and give them some concept of that time span, I set the timer on my watch and every thirty seconds the kids heard a beep. I also explained that during the time they sit in time out, 10 children die. Lovey decided was concerned about this and almost bought mosquito nets but then decided that protecting kids from other diseases was important and is giving antibiotics instead.
Sweetie didn't even really need to look at the catalogue. She overheard the word "bunnies" as I was reading one of the items to Lovey and she settled on that right away. She poked her head out from behind the easel to say "They could eat them! like rabbit stew right?" and that was that. She still looked through the pages but her decision was made. I was a little nervous to tell her the rabbits could be for consumption and tried to focus on the how quickly you can raise a whole bunch of bunnies to sell. I was afraid she'd have a big meltdown if she knew people were going to eat them. When she piped up about the stew, I was relieved!
Sweetie didn't even really need to look at the catalogue. She overheard the word "bunnies" as I was reading one of the items to Lovey and she settled on that right away. She poked her head out from behind the easel to say "They could eat them! like rabbit stew right?" and that was that. She still looked through the pages but her decision was made. I was a little nervous to tell her the rabbits could be for consumption and tried to focus on the how quickly you can raise a whole bunch of bunnies to sell. I was afraid she'd have a big meltdown if she knew people were going to eat them. When she piped up about the stew, I was relieved!I thought the "shopping" went quite well, they were interested in how it all worked, and had lots of questions about how the people would get their gifts. We are so blessed to live as we do and I want them to understand that not everyone has what they have. They were surprised to see a soccer ball in the catalogue and scoffed that it couldn't "make anyone's life better". We have at least 3 soccer balls around here & despite our good intentions in enrolling them in the summer soccer program, they apparently do not feel enriched by it! Once they heard that in some villages, the children don't have anything to play with, they were pretty surprised. Every year I try to think of a way to make Christmas about more than just the presents we open. I think that helping others is a great way to teach them to appreciate our lives and to have compassion. When I told them they sortof be like Santa to someone else their eyes got quite wide and their smiles were huge. Hopefully this will be something we can do each year and be excited about!
Since it's Friday and all, Grammie came with her bag of tricks and they all got mini mani & pedi's. Lovey was the event photographer for this portion of the day! We were using the kids' camera and they love taking pictures with it. Poor Grammie was caught in mid bite of her fajita but I decided not to post that one.... yet. (filed under: blackmail!)
After supper we went out to a party at the gym I go to. There was free bowling, pizza, pop, cake, video games and lots of other fun stuff and we all won door prizes! I was hoping for the grand prize which included a free membership for a year, a facial, a massage & a few other goodies but winning anything at all was pretty nice! Murray got an MP3 player which is a nice upgrade from the one he bought 9-10 years ago. The girls enjoyed their evening out and after playing the games were able to cash in a bunch of tickets for some COF goodies (that would be my acronym for Crap On Floor).
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