Teaching the Joy of Giving

This Christmas we worked really hard to teach Nicholas about the joy of giving gifts, and we were marginally successful. Our first step was to have him help pick out gifts for the neighbors. He loved picking out wrapping paper to give them and tying the card on it. He even picked out a special doggy toy and treat for our next door neighbor's dog Ozzie. He worked really hard at making a very colorful Christmas card for Ozzie and was so excited. However, things didn't go as smoothly when it came to giving the gifts to the neighbors.

At the first neighbor's house, Nicholas broke down in tears when he handed her the wrapping paper. He was a little better giving the second neighbor her gift, mostly because he was distracted by her dog Toy. At the third neighbor's house, we gave the wrapping paper to them and Nicholas gave the gift for Ozzie. He was so upset that Ozzie didn't come to the door that he had a second breakdown.

Later that month, we took Nicholas to Dollar Tree and had him buy a gift for Papa, Mama, and Lexi. Papa helped him shop for me. Nicholas decided that I really needed a spatula and a turkey baster. Papa also helped Nicholas shop for Lexi. Nicholas insisted that Lexi needed a princess. He looked through all the Barbie dolls and found the perfect one for her. It was really sweet. Then I took him to shop for Papa. He bought Papa two badminton racquets and a bug catcher. When we got home, he helped wrap by being in charge of the tape. He also made cards for each of the presents.

On Christmas, he was very excited for us all to open our gifts. However, he didn't really get the concept that he had purchased and wrapped the gifts for us. He was only excited for us to open our gifts so he could adopt the presents back. It seems like Nicholas learned to enjoy the shopping and wrapping part of gift giving but not the actual giving part. Oh, well. We have something to work on for next year:)