And so the savings began.
She picked up every coin she found and squirreled it away in her piggy bank. She bagged leaves like a champ in exchange for a few dollars. She stashed away her birthday money. A few weeks ago she asked if she could start doing chores for allowance. Soon, she’d saved $36 and change.
Then late last week I told the kids we were going to go out to pick out some presents for a couple of kids whose parents weren’t able to cover Christmas for them this year.
“Mommy,” Poppy said, just before my heart exploded into a million proud and happy pieces, “I don’t need an American Girl doll. I’d like to use my money to buy those kids some presents.”
And so she did. And Pete did, too. We emptied out their piggy banks, and we took them to the store. They knew how much they had to spend, and they oh-so-carefully scoured the stores for good prices, so they could buy those kids as much as possible. On the way home they talked about how much fun they’d had and about saving their money all year long so we could do it again next year.
(Poppy did ask me a few days ago how she’s going to get the money for her doll now. Maybe we’ll get a separate bank to serve as the Christmas Gifting fund.)
I think this may be the birth of a holiday tradition. I can’t think of a much better way to kick off the Christmas season.
