The Spirit of Giving

We are awash in toy catalogs here and that has lead to the "I wants". Anything that he sees that is not "for girls", he wants. When asked what he wants, the answer is "lots and lots and lots". Unfortunatly for him, he is getting maybe, one lot. With all this in mind, I thought this would be a good year to start some lessons on charity. I selected a child from the Salvation Army Angel Tree. I decided it would be more meaningful to him if we got a boy about the same age. We bought gifts for Diego, a three year old boy. We set out to Target to buy the gifts. I tried to explain to him that we are buying gifts to help children who don't have as much as we do. He asked, "But won't Santa Claus bring Diego presents?"....hmm. Okay, yes so Santa is bringing him gifts, but we are helping. Hollis brought one dollar from his piggy bank and spent 20 minutes in the Matchbox aisle picking out the perfect truck. After picking out that and the remote control truck Diego asked for, Hollis came up with a great idea - When we take these presents to Diego's house , I can help him open them and then we can play with his new truck. Ummmm, yeah, We aren't going to be taking these gifts to Diego's house. So I tried to explain that we were taking them to the Salvation Army where Diego's parent's would get them. "So we are going to the Army? Will they have on their Army shirts?" Yes absolutely.

Yesterday, we dropped the bag of gifts off (don't tell Hollis - I threw in a baseball glove, ball and book that he had duplicates of) and it was another series of questions about the army, Santa and who has enough toys. I think he was disappointed that no one had on their "army shirts" and there were not any cars for him to play with. I am not sure he grasped the spirit of giving.