Giving

So I started one of those Advent countdown calendars where you have an envelope with a special activity for each day.

I was good about doing the activity every day for the first three days! Go me!

It seemed like a good idea. She liked unpacking the Christmas decorations and playing with the mini snowglobe...

Trying to blow on the glitter in the snowglobe.

One of the first events in the countdown was this:

Teaching generosity?

Upon seeing that I planned to include this as an activity, Jonathan said, "I see this ending poorly." But I was committed to it. We don't do nearly enough giving/volunteering/donating at our house, and I wanted to at least do this for the holidays. So we got all excited, opened the envelope with the kids, and then Evelyn and I took a special trip to Target to get some toys. She was all about it. "Get koys for other kids who no have koys?" "Yes, Evelyn, some kids don't have nearly as many toys as you do. Let's see what they might like and we can give the toys to them!" She was happy in the car on the way to Target. She was happy while we chose toys and talked about giving them to other kids. She was happy in the car on the way home.

Then, I thought it would be good to document this event with a picture. It was the fatal flaw. I could have ushered us inside after Target, done some painting, had lunch and a nap... and forgotten all about these toys that we weren't going to play with. But no, I said, "Let's take a picture."