(Don’t feel too bad, I’m not that on top of things: it’s December, and also, I just bought the stuff the day before.)

And then, like an idiot, I left ALL the presents in the middle of the family room. The kids got up before me the next day and found the gifts. Oy.

I asked my mom what to do and she recommended I tell them how we were planning on donating some toys to charity (and, of course, actually doing so—just not with those particular toys).

I like this idea a lot because it kills two birds—or some less violent cliché. I want Christmas to be about giving (you know, after being about Jesus), especially giving to those in need, and I want to involve my kids in that. And of course, I want them to still be surprised on Christmas day. (That might be three birds.)

Since the kids are getting new toys for Christmas, I really want them to pick at least a few toys of theirs that they don’t really play with anymore that we can donate to other kids. (This also helps to make room for our incoming toys.) It’s a little hard to find places that want used toys, but I’m thinking a local women’s shelter and possibly the food bank (they take used toys for only their waiting room, but still).

A few useful links:
Kids’ Health article on getting your kids to donate their toys
And a fun lesson to help emphasize Jesus at Christmastime when Santa offer stiff competition: Santa as a type of Christ (seriously!)

So today, we have up to three Christmas music CDs to give away! Win a copy of Kidz Bop Christmas Party!

The CD includes, among other Christmas favorites:

• It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
• Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree
• Silver Bells
• White Christmas
• Winter Wonderland
• And, according to the press release, “fun ‘Sounds of Christmas!’ music which provides ideal background for baking cookies, decorating the tree, wrapping presents or simply staying warm inside!” And I’m down with all that.

I’ll be receiving a review copy as well, and I’ll let you know what we think!

To enter to win, all you have to do is comment on this post any time through Sunday, December 12. Winners will be chosen at random. Really want to win? Tweet about the contest or mention it on Facebook, and leave me a link in the comments so I can see it for another entry!

Don’t forget about the adorable baby clothes giveaway or the Heber Valley Railroad Discount!

One place that I found great opportunities in our community was the local United Way website. in the volunteering section, you could even search for opportunities by age group—as young as 5. (Five is like three, right?)

I found one that I particularly liked—preparing stockings for underprivileged and homeless families in our area. We bought the stuff and Hayden helped me stuff the stockings. I made sure to take him with me when we dropped them off. We also took some other things they needed for homeless families being placed into housing.

Now, you know I’m not normally one to pass these along, but a few days ago, I got a press release in my email. They pretty much had me the subject line: “Five ways for parents to teach children the true spirit of the holidays.” Here are their suggestions:

1. As a family, select a charitable organization you’d like to support. Use online tools like Charity Navigator to find an organization that you trust. Give your children a budget and encourage them to decide how your family will donate to that organization this holiday.

2. Cherish the stories of your family. Have your children talk to their grandparents and write down the stories of their past. Create a book to share with the entire family or record it online through Story Corps.

3. Consider do-it-yourself gifts, like no-sew fleece blankets, that you can make with your children. Donate those blankets to a local homeless shelter. Find other homemade gift ideas at About.com’s Family Crafts page.

4. Work with your children to create a coupon book for your neighbors that might need an extra hand this year. Coupons could include shoveling their sidewalk, watching their children, or providing a meal.

5. Bake cookies or sweets with your children and deliver them to your local nursing home or school-in-need. Get started with this list of holiday recipes.

(It feels like cheating if I don’t mention the company the press release was supposed to be touting: World Vision’s Gift Catalog, which lets you make a gift purchase—in the name of a friend/family member/whoever—ranging from clothing, shelter and food to education for families in the US and abroad.)

Finally, if you’re looking to make an impact, one non-profit I can recommend is SainTerre. I know it’s not glamorous to discuss, basic sanitation (yeah, potties) is something 2.6 million people live without—not even pit latrines. SainTerre is working to provide the people of West Africa with environmentally-friendly composting toilets, through its non-profit (okay, the business structure is a lot more complicated than that, but you can just stick to that side of it). My cousin was one of the founders, and you can contact him, Ammon Franklin, for information on how to donate.

How have you gotten you children into the spirit of giving this Christmas season?

Photo credits: toddler hands—McBeth; giving rice—Kris

This year, Hayden and Rebecca got pajamas that match all their cousins’ (thanks Aunt Toria!). You can see Hayden’s beloved monkey pajamas with his bike on Christmas morning.

Keeping with the animal theme, my mom got us reindeer pajamas!

Here’s our happy family in front of my in-laws’ Christmas tree:

I especially like Rebecca’s “what up” expression.

But Rebecca seemed to like her PJs very much:

Hayden and his gift from Santa: a bike!

Baby’s first Christmas (with Aunt Jess):

Hayden the reindeer:

These are from our ward Christmas party:

Hayden saw that Santa was giving other children small bags of candy. So while we were in line, I asked Hayden what he was going to ask Santa for and he wisely chose “Nanee!”

Rebecca wasn’t too impressed with Santa.

But she’s Santa Baby!

We never had money to spend on each other, but we had caught early in our lives a sort of contusion [the story says contagion, but I think this misreading is where we got off track] from our mother. She loved to give, and her anticipation of the joy that a just-right gift would bring to someone infected the whole household. We were swept up in breathless waiting to see how others would like what we had to give.

Secrecy ruled—open, exaggerated secrecy, as we made and hid our gifts. The only one whose hiding places we discovered [sic] was my grandmother’s. Her gifts seemed to appear by magic on Christmas morning and were always more expensive than they should have been. She was a drug dealer. She had a plot of fifty marijuana plants out back—

[Ryan had to stop for several minutes while I sputtered, choked and, yes, cried with laughter. We then discussed whether or not those were the real printed words.]

That Christmas I was glowing because Mother had been so happy with the parchment lampshade I’d made in the fourth grade. Father had raved over the clay jewelry case I had molded and baked for him. (“Baked?” Grandma said.) Gill and Emma Lou had been pleased with the figures I’d whittled out of clothespins [Mother less so, I'm sure], and Homer had like the scout pin I’d bargained for with my flint. Then Grandma started to pass out her presents.

Mine was heavy and square. It’s a brick of cocaine!

“You’ll have to cut and deal it yourself, dear. I’m getting too old for that kind of thing.”

I’d been in the hospital with an overdose that year and then on crutches after one of Grandma’s rivals broke my leg with a baseball bat. And I’d wondered how it would be to have an erector set to build with. Grandma had a knack at reading boys’ minds and I was sure that’s what it was. But it wasn’t. It was a pair of boots, brown tangy-smelling leather boots. I turned them upside down and out tumbled—

[The End]

And then there are all those other songs. Some of them are fun to sing, some of them are really obnoxious. Some of them make you want to scream.

And some of them just don’t make any sense. Here’s my favorite example of a line from a Christmas song that makes no sense whatsoever, in or out of context:

Christmas comes this time each year.

Um, yeah. . . . And Thursday comes this time each week. Thanks for the lesson immemorial about . . . the calendar.

What’s your favorite dumb line from a Christmas song?