Giving to others is a gift to yourself

This time of year, we talk to Grayson a lot about the non-material gifts of the holiday season. He's still pretty young to connect all the dots, but every year I see him understand more of our lessons and even initiate acts of kindness for others. 

We had a teachable moment today when we donated a truckload of stuff to Goodwill. Gray had helped me fill a huge box with toys from his room that he has either outgrown or no longer plays with. Most are still in great shape, so we talked a lot about how the toys can bring happiness to other kids (thank you Toy Story 3 for illustrating this point as well). 

I was prepared to see a few tears during this purging process as in years past, but he surprised me with a wonderful, understanding attitude and even went above the amount of stuff I thought he would put in the box. 

When we got to Goodwill, I thought he might get upset by the physical act of handing everything over, but instead he jumped out of the truck and wanted to help us carry in all the boxes. I showed him the items mommy and daddy were donating as well, so he would see we weren't asking him to do anything we weren't doing ourselves. 

After everything was unloaded we were back in the truck and he said how happy donating the toys made him feel. We learned about joy this morning at church for Advent and he was happy because he knew those toys would bring joy to other kids. 

Little did he know that his generous spirit and feelings of happiness brought so much joy to his parents. It's these everyday moments I need to hold on to when he's asking to open the presents with his name on them under the tree for the 1,000th time.