Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Best Idea Ever

Best idea ever, I have to share it with you.
It's not my idea.
It's a gift idea for your child.
I'll share the link with you from where I got it but I'm warning you it's a challenging post to read.
Might make you mad - just saying. Click here to read the entire post.

We teach our kids to give in so many ways.
We do it differently all year long.
Two weeks ago we pulled up to a light and a homeless man was sitting there.
It was after school so we had after school snacks with us in the van.
The kids saw him and said, "Mom give him our snacks."
So I rolled down my window and gave him a bag of cheetos, a sunny D drink and a slim jim and said, "These are from my kids." He was appreciative and said "Tell your kids thank you so much."
It was touching to say the least.

Fast forward a week and we were at the same light.
No homeless man.
All of a sudden Coleson popped up quick and said with such enthusiasm, "Mommy that homeless man got a home; he's gone." He was full of so much excitement for that man.
How I wish it was that simple.
It made for a great conversation.

Sorry, I got side tracked.

Here's the idea:
You give your child money as a Christmas gift that they get to GIVE away to someone in need, to someone that Jesus would want them to help.
They get to choose how to do it.
They get to decide where.
How cool is that?
They get to be apart of showing God's love to someone.
I get teary thinking about it.

I love the idea of creating that giving experience for my kids.
I don't know about you but when I give something happens within me and I want them to experience that as much as possible.

I don't know how we'll do it yet or how much.
You could do $10 or $100.
You could warn them ahead of time that the gift they are about to open is a gift they will give away.
You could let them brainstorm places they'd want to give the money too.
We (I) might be surprised what they think of.
They might respond sort of weird because it's a unique gift; not like the normal gift.

I LOVE giving gifts so this gift has me so excited and anticipating Christmas.

How do you teach your kids to give?
I'd love to hear ideas.
Photobucket

3 comments:

Cindy Bartel said...

We did this last Christmas with our adult kids. We sent them money at least a month before Christmas. They were to choose a way to bless someone with it. Then when we got together for our family Christmas they all shared how they chose to give the money away! It was so interesting to see how they had each used it.

Lisa said...

Great idea! Pam Voth shared in SS a few weeks ago that they do this with their grandkids each year. It got me thinking about my own kids. We do several things with them at Christmas as far as giving, but we've never actually let them come up with the idea of where to give it completely on their own. I would love to see what Addison would choose to do with it! Thanks for sharing a great idea!

Kimberlee Jost said...

GREAT idea. I am forwarding your post to Bruce. :)

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