Season of Giving

This is the time of year to think about giving to others...that's how we present Christmas in our house. We don't go to church, we don't tell the Christmas story, so I guess you could say we don't REALLY celebrate Christmas. But I do believe that this is a fantastic time to teach my children about the importance of giving and thinking of others. What you want for Christmas is only so others can GIVE. I take each of the kids out separately and have them pick out gifts for the other ones. It's funny to see how my son gravitates to the "boy" aisle of the toy store when looking for a gift for his sister. What YOU want and what someone ELSE wants are kind of hard to differentiate at an early age...but they're getting better! SO, in the spirit of giving, I'm going to share a website that my mom found (she actually got the catalog, I don't want anyone who knows my mom to keel over thinking she was surfing the internet and happened upon this.) It's call Heifer International. It's an organization that helps starving people around the world by giving them, not food, but the means to make their own food. So for example through Heifer, you could gift a goat to a needy family, thereby giving them milk, cheese, and (if they have another goat...which would need to be the opposite ...do I really need to go into this?) more goats which they could then eat, sell, or use to make more goats, milk...you get the picture. I went to their website and got this video clip, which explains it better than I can. I don't really know that I'll be using this for anyone on my Christmas list, but I really feel like it's a PERFECT "green" gift and is very much in the true spirit of Christmas giving.