A gift to be simple

I remember very distinctly getting Christmas presents for my father. There was the year I got him the post-it-note paint brush. I went through a phase of chocolate-covered Cherries – the kind you get in the super market. My sister and I thought soap-on-a-rope to be the utmost in paternal gift-giving.

My husband has gone for about a week for a work conference that has kept him very busy. On my last night home alone with the boys, I figured it was a great time to pick up some Christmas presents for daddy from his boys, and to pick up a book for Grey’s class book swap, so I swung by The Book Oasis and told the boys to pick out a book for their father. (Sorry for ruining the surprise love! They’re both books. The only reason you will not know within minutes of seeing Thane exactly which books is because he can’t remember the name.)

We then stopped by the grocery store, where the boys begged for *their own* wrapping paper. In a moment of parental weakness, straight off the “yes you will eat fish for dinner” battle in the meat section, I bowed to popular sentiment.

When we got home, Grey set right to wrapping. Eschewing lame things like “advice” he set about wrapping his gift to his father. His eyes lit up with the thought of placing this little package under the tree, of what his dad would look like when he opened the package. All of a sudden, one measly package to his dad wasn’t nearly enough. He locked himself in his room and yelled at the top of his voice, “NO ONE COME IN HERE! I’M DOING SOMETHING SECRET!” Several packages were added to the tree before bedtime hit with full force. I had to put my down on “just one more present!” and tell him to get his rear into bed.

As it was, he presented me with an “early Christmas present” – a Lego tree with Data and Tiberius under it. Thane, meanwhile, was desperately casting around the house for anything that might be put into his father’s stocking: pieces of gum, random bits of candy, half-used notepads.

The moment when you realize that giving good gifts is possibly even better than getting good gifts is an awesome moment. Generosity, especially when you get to bask in the recipient’s enjoyment and approval, feels *really good*. For the little ones the fun of Christmas morning is getting to open presents. But for me, the great pleasure is watching them open their gifts. It is a fantastic thing to see my sons learn the joy of generosity.