The Season of Giving

I love this time of year.

I love planning out gifts for family and friends, I love that people make more of an effort to come together and enjoy the company, and where we live take the time to enjoy the outdoors that for the rest of the winter we insist on pretending to hate. While I wish with my whole heart that these were practices for the whole year, but I will take what I can get.

One of the things we have been talking about is instilling a "giving spirit" in our first born. He is just over one now, and so often we give money to charities but lack the action side of things. I don't know if I heard about this somewhere, or what exactly inspired me, but we have now decided that every time we go grocery shopping (which is at least once a week) we will pick up a minimum of $5 in goods and on our way out drop them in the food donation box.

This doesn't mean that we are cutting down on our financial donations, because let's face it: I cannot spend money in the same way that the food bank can, and I cannot give them the perishable items (or get them for the bulk price) they need when they need them. There is no perfect solution to giving when there are so many different places that need support, but we hope that by choosing out items every time we shop for ourselves,that we will be able to show our son the importance of supporting our community.