The Twelve Days of Giving!

The holiday season is upon us!  And no matter what your spiritual, religious or personal beliefs might be, this time of year presents an opportunity to teach our young children about the joys of giving.  As I explained in my previous post, generosity is a wonderful quality to encourage in our children.  And while the recipient of our child's generosity will benefit, the research shows that our child will benefit immeasurably as well.  It seems that the most generous among us are often the happiest!

Therefore, knowing that my children will be showered with a plethora of gifts from our families on Christmas morning, (and knowing how easily this can become the sole focus for young ones during the holiday season), I set out to create a tradition that would balance this experience with an understanding of the joys giving.

Now don't get me wrong, Dear Readers!  I have nothing against receiving!  I would be lying if I said that I wasn't looking forward to seeing my kiddos' little faces light up as they open their gifts!  Heck!  I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't looking forward to opening a gift or two myself!  But with the traditional focus on making a Christmas list, visiting with Santa to ask for a coveted toy, and the ripped-wrapping-paper frenzy of Christmas morning, this is my attempt to give my children some hands-on experience with the other side of the holiday craziness!

So I will now introduce you to the Twelve Days of Giving;  The positive psychology-informed exercise I created to teach my children about generosity and fostering the holiday spirit.  The idea is to give your child assignments that will help create a desire to "give back" during the holiday season.  This can be incorporated into whatever holiday you recognize within your family.  As we celebrate Christmas in my household, I have created this in conjunction with our Advent calendar.  Instead of receiving the traditional chocolates and cheap plastic toys, my children are waking up to holiday-themed missions that are geared toward experiencing the joys of Christmas.  While most of these missions incorporate some aspect of positive psychology, (mindfulness, savoring, relationship building, etc...), twelve of my children's holiday missions are focused specifically on giving.  

What You Need:

• List of 12 Missions Focused on Giving, (For suggestions, see below!)
• Method of Presenting the Missions to Your Child - We used popsicle sticks, a gold marker, and an Advent calendar with pockets.  You could use slips of paper and a grab bag, a sign taped to your child's bedroom door each morning, or any number of creative, fun ways to present this exercise!

Giving Missions:

Here is the list of preschool appropriate missions I created for my children:

1. Pick out a toy to donate to a child in need.
2. Make Christmas cookies to deliver to our friends.
3. Have a gift making day to create Christmas presents for our family and friends.
4. Bake doggie treats for Duncan.
5. Do something nice for someone.
6. Make and send a Christmas Card.
7. Bring food items to the food pantry.
8. Make an ornament to give to a friend. 
9. Bring Daddy breakfast in bed.
10. Call someone and sing a Christmas carol.
11. Help make a special dinner for Auntie.
12. Draw a picture to give to your sibling.

My goal was to provide structure, introduce our family's holiday traditions, and provide opportunities for my children to make choices about what and to whom they might want to give. Thus, the 12 Days of Giving incorporates recipients who are family, friends, animals, peers and strangers.  We will be giving gifts that we buy in stores, that we create ourselves, and that already belong to us.  Equally importantly, we will be giving of our time, effort, attention and energy. 

When my children have completed their missions and the Twelve Days of Giving have been counted down, I hope that they see the riches of Christmas morning as a wonderful reward for their efforts.  But more than this, my hope is that their experience of giving enhances the joy they feel this holiday season and sets the course for a generous and happy life for years to come!  So, Dear Reader, from my family to yours I wish you a very happy holiday season!  

From Thanks to Giving: An Addendum

Well, Dear Readers, here is the proof that our efforts were not in vain!  While it seems clear that some furry woodland creature must have preceded the visit from Mr. Blue Jay, (as evidenced by the knocked over drip tray and now formless bird seed goodies), we did successfully witness and capture photographic evidence of the fruits of our labor. Mission Accomplished!   :-)

From Thanks to Giving!

My little Viking serving up his treats!

So, Dear Readers...  Now that another gratitude-focused feast has been consumed and the leftover turkey is (almost) a thing of the past, I've decided that it's time to take a little break from the "Thanks" and move on to the "Giving."  What follows, is a little project I concocted to help my munchkins take some of the focus off of the vast piles of presents that are in their futures, so that they can start to learn a little something about giving.

But first, a few words about the research that has been done about happiness and generosity...  Here's the bottom line:  People who live generous lives also live happier lives.  There are literally hundreds of studies that document the relationship between giving to others and happiness.  People who orient themselves toward the happiness of others as opposed to focusing on their own pleasure are more satisfied with life over the long term.  Giving, it seems, is incredibly good for us and an important mindset to instill in our children.

So with the purpose of teaching my children the joys of generosity in mind, (served with a side dish of appreciation for nature), we embarked on a project to give our local birds a Thanksgiving feast of their own.  On one of my late night Pinterest frenzies, I came across the instructions for making heart-shaped, bird seed wedding favors.  You can find the original article here that linked to the instructions that I followed, and ultimately adapted below.  My vision was for my kids to make bird seed ornaments, using holiday shaped cookie cutters, which they would then use to decorate a tree in the front of our house.  This process would be used as a vehicle for promoting within them a spirit of giving.  

Bird Seed "Ornaments"

What You Need:

• 4 Cups of Birdseed
• 3/4 Cup Flour
• 3 Tbsp Corn Syrup, (Add more if you need more "stick")
• 1/2 Cup Water
• 1 Packet (2.5 Tsp), of Unflavored Gelatin
• Large Mixing Bowl
• Cookie Cutters
• Nonstick Spray, (or oil and paper towels)
• Chopstick, Pencil or other hole poking object
• Wax or Parchment Paper
• Jute, Raffia, String or Pipe Cleaner for Hanging.  (Note:  If you run into issues like I did, a Plate, or a Drip Pan for a Plant works in a pinch!)

Instructions:

Before we get to the instructions, I just want to give one quick word of warning.  Please refrain from the temptation of asking overtired, overstimulated, hungry children to engage in a project that requires enough focus to follow step-by-step instructions immediately before dinner...  Just trust me on this one!

Liam preparing for our project...

1.  Using the large bowl, mix together the flour, corn syrup, gelatin, and water.

This picture shows the potential origin of my failure to produce Martha Stewart-worthy results...  Note the Bird seed is already in the mix!

2.  Then add the bird seed and mix well!  The mixture should be sticky.  (In hindsight, my mixture was not sticky enough.  This may be due to my failure to follow step-by-step instructions as evidenced above.  Or, there may need to be more corn syrup in the mix to begin with.  Or, perhaps, I just should have added some nut butter in at this point.  Regardless, this is where things started to go wrong!)

The siblings unhappily taking turns with the mixing...  Much whining and redirection was had!

3.  Grease the inside of the cookie cutters using cooking spray or oil.

4.  On a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, firmly press the mixture into the cookie cutter.  

And here's the sensory part of our project...  My kiddos needed help figuring out how much pressure was enough but not too much.

5.  Using the "poking object," create a hole.  (I struggled with this for our "gingerbread" men.  Do you put the hole through the chest or right between the eyes?  Not a lot of good options, there!)  

6.  Gently remove the cookie cutter and allow at least 6-8 hours to dry.  We let ours dry over night which gave us a supplemental exercise in patience and delaying gratification.

7.  So here's the part where I'm supposed to talk about stringing up the ornaments so they can be hung on trees.  I am still in love with this idea in theory, and direction-wise it's pretty self explanatory.  My plan had been to use pipe cleaners and allow Liam to put them through himself.  I also had decided on pipe cleaners as they would allow me to easily find the "hangers" after the bird seed had been consumed.  However, when I did a trial run with several different mediums, the ornaments broke.  So...  We served ours up on plant drip catchers instead...

Would Martha Stewart poke a hole through the "gingerbread" man's heart?  I think not!

Both kids ceremoniously carried their plates and left them on our back and front porches.  They were so excited to be giving the birds, (or other local wildlife), a feast, and it was wonderful to see them enjoy their good deed.  

Feeding the Birds!

I had fully resolved myself to the fact that the local rodents, and possibly our dog, would be the primary consumers of our gifts.  However, the following morning, I was surprised to be interrupted during my shower...  Wait...  Let me try that again...  The following morning I was surprised with the news that there were eight blue jays feasting on the kids' "ornaments" in the back yard.  By the time I had dried off, dressed and joined everyone with my camera in hand, the feeding frenzy had ended and the blue jays were hanging out in the trees behind our house.  Sadly, I lack photographic proof of this magnificent event, but the smiles on my children's faces were priceless.  

So despite the whining, the botched end result, and the murderous acts committed on my "gingerbread" men, the intended lesson about giving was not lost.  My children enjoy checking their "feeders" every day and I am thrilled to have started a tradition that I hope to continue for years to come!