I really want to give massive kudos to my daughter. A few years ago, she started to feel really overwhelmed at Christmas — as an only child, she was getting a little spoiled and even though she’s not an only grandchild, she gets a lot from grandparents and extended family too.
As a remedy, she started looking for other ways to get around getting Stuff under the tree. What she came up with, in discussion with one grandparent, was to go shopping for others. She and my Mother (and now also my Aunt) take her shopping at the CFAX Santa’s Anonymous stall in the mall. Kiddo spends time going through the other kids’ wishes and selects those she wants to fill then she picks out the gifts and my Mom pays for them. Thus it becomes my Mom’s gift to Kiddo.
This year, there was a hiccup in that the volunteer for the desk at one of the malls didn’t show up for their shift. She found this frustrating so I have now pledged that next year, she and I will volunteer to staff a table for a few shifts and that will become part of my gift to her.
Kiddo does not remember that the first few years of her life we were barely making it from paycheque to paycheque. There were months where we had to be very creative financially in order to be sure that all our household needs were met. She doesn’t recall how much of a challenge it was to be sure that she had stuff in her stocking and under the tree and yet, she totally gets it.
I hope she holds on to this understanding as she gets older because right now, it’s an amazing thing to me.
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