merry christmas! we hope you are having a wonderful day with your family and friends celebrating!
we’ve been thinking a lot about christmas and what it means for our family in terms of traditions and what we will teach our children in the coming years about it. we love giving our kids gifts as much as any parent might, but we also want to show and teach them to give.
eleanor is at an age where she’s starting to really understand the concept of giving and sharing with friends and family. when we were in paris last month, we asked her if she’d like to bring home gifts for her little friends. she picked out the cutest tiny blue eiffel tower key chains and listed out all her friends (and a few friend’s parents names, even) that she wanted to give them to. it was amazing to see her face as she handed out her little keychains to her friends when we got back to new york. it was almost better than her face when she saw the eiffel tower for the first time! seeing her excitement over giving something small but meaningful to her, reminds us how sharing what we have and what we love with others makes us happy. she’s a good example to us, and our hope is that we can create a family culture of giving and sharing with others locally and abroad as our children get older.
and so this christmas, we are giving to heifer international. their mission, since 1944, is to end hunger and poverty by providing livestock, training, and other support to those who struggle with basic needs with a focus on empowering people to change their own lives and become self reliant.
we looked through their catalog with the littles and had them each pick out one animal they wanted to give. eleanor chose a pig and samson picked the sheep. while we really like many of their giving themes, like empowering women and basic needs, josh and i decided to “give where needed most” for our gift.
if you’d also like to give to heifer this season, you can browse their catalog of animals and programs here. and don’t forget that many employers have a matching program for donations.
have a wonderful christmas and remainder of the year!
