Gift Giving

This Christmas season was fun because Vincent seemed to understand Christmas more than ever this year.  He was all on board with Jesus being the reason for the season, but he is 4 and he was very concerned about what he was getting for Christmas and there wasn't a catalog around that he didn't check out.  He wanted almost everything in every catalog that he saw this Christmas season.  It was starting to drive me nuts.  I tried to nicely remind him that he won't get everything that he circled and he would get really upset.  I started explaining that presents cost money.  With our current reward system he receives coins and can purchase things out of the prize box, so he has a very basic knowledge of how money works.

Vincent was my main gift wrap helper this season.  He liked to tape things for me.  While we were wrapping he asked what he was going to give Cecilia and Joel for Christmas.  I told him that he could use his coins to buy something from the prize box for Joel and Cecilia.  The normal price of an item is 20 coins, but I struck a deal with him that he could pick 2 things for 20 coins.  He was so excited to pick something for them and wrap it up.  He was so excited when they opened their gifts and liked them.  He was so proud of himself. 

After buying gifts for Cecilia and Joel Vincent became pretty concerned about what we were getting everyone else.  We had made chocolate pretzels for several people, his teachers included, but he wanted to give everyone more.  I had several tote bags in the closet to give as gifts and I let Vincent pick which ones were for which person.  He carefully looked at all the different bags and picked ones out for everyone on my list.  Although somewhere in the middle he decided that his teachers Mrs. W and Mrs. B would really like certain bags.  I didn't plan on giving them the bags but Vincent was insisting that they would really love them, so we wrapped them up and Vincent took them to school the next day.  I loved to see the excitement on his face as he gave them their gifts.