Blogging Roller

We had a very nice Christmas eve dinner in Chapel Hill with my parents, known as G'ma and P'pa by the kids, and my brother Dan.  We had dinner and dessert and opened presents.  This year the kids received lots of Lego sets and lots of Rescue Hero toys.  They were unbelievably excited!  It was interesting how they reacted to the toys.  Alex had a pretty good idea of what he would get, he knew what he wanted, and he was really happy to finally get what he had asked for.  Linus, on the other hand, did not remember what he had asked for, enjoyed the act of opening presents, and was very disappointed when the flow of presents stopped.  He seemed disappointed with his presents and said, this was a "horrible Christmas, all I got were Rescue Heroes."  He was just whining of course, because ten minutes later he was saying that Resue Heroes were the best presents in the world.  I think that Alex reacted the same way last year, so I guess it is just a "phase."

We tried something new this year.  We asked the boys to select and purchase with their own money presents for all of the family members who would be at Christmas.  Being only 4 and 6 years old, they do not have a lot of money and so, they did their shopping at the one-dollar store where each and every item costs only one dollar.  This was Andi's idea and it was a great idea.  

I took Alex to the dollar store.  Everything was going fine until it was time to buy Linus' present.  Alex did not want to buy Linus something nice.  I guess he was trying to preempt jealousy.  I would say "Alex, how about this cool motorcycle" and he would answer "no Dad, he would like these little gray balls."  Even the lady who was stocking the shelves noticed that he did not want to get his brother anything nice. Finally, I had to pick something for Linus.  Money was the next problem.  I asked Alex for his money, his lifetime savings of eighteen dollars.  He was so shocked and disappointed that he would have to use his own money to pay for the presents that he wanted to drop the shopping basket and return home.  I convinced him not to do that by telling him that he could also use his money to buy something for himself.  He picked up a bag of 300 tiny toy soldiers and went to the register to pay.

Andi took Linus to the dollar store and he was more than happy to buy Alex a present, in fact he wanted to buy Alex lots of presents.  Alex and Linus are so different!  Alex is independent, a bit of a loner, and a little selfish.  Linus is more dependent, outgoing, very sharing, and generous.  I don't think this is just a phase.

At Chrismas, the boys were very excited to see everybody open up the presents that they had chosen.  They did a great job of chosing presents to suit the different people in their live.  The one dollar presents turned out to be the most meaningful presents of the day.