My gifts

My kids were funny this morning! The boys and Maddi needed new tennis shoes, so late last night I hit Payless and picked up each of them a pair. (Didn't think to get a picture before they ran off to school to get them dirty. Oh well.) But I had bought Kylee a pair of American Eagle black ballet shoes and me the matching brown ones as well. When I opened up my box to put them on this morning (they didn't see mine when I brought them home because I hid them in the garage so Geoff wouldn't see. :)), Maddi said "Is that one of your Christmas presents?" Then the older kids starting chiming in about how Mom and Dad don't believe in Santa and so they don't get Christmas presents. And how they spend ALL their money on us, so they don't get Christmas presents for each other either. I let it go for a bit but then I had to interject. I set them straight by telling them: First of all - YES we do believe in Santa!! What's our family's motto? If you don't believe, you don't receive! Then I proceeded to:
See that piano in the front room? That really nice, beautiful dream that your Mom has always wanted? Your daddy bought that for me last Christmas but it cost so much that I told him we could count it for this year too!

And see that nice arrangement on the mantel? Didn't cost a lot but I really liked those things and your Dad just bought them for me a week before Christmas! It was an early gift to me. And I got to pick it out!

And last but certainly not least, I told your Dad that I wanted to get some more nice arrangements for the house and he told me at Christmas that I could get a few and pick what I wanted. I bought the one on the table just the other day and I love it! Even though he didn't pick it out - I consider it from him!

We talked about how Mom's and Dad's do things for each other all the time - gifts of the physical and spiritual and emotional kind. And sometimes for reason at all, but because they care. Just like how I am going to buy Dad some new work boots because he needs them, not because it was a holiday. They asked if they could have something like that - I had to remind them to all look down at their feet!