A Good Laugh

 I won't be able to type it out with as much gusto as my daughter delivered it....

....but she found a small stash of wrapped presents in the basement.

To her credit, they aren't hidden, and they are wrapped and labeled. If she ran across them, I wouldn't mind and I wonder what she might do.

This morning, she came in to the room for a morning snuggle. Still a blessed, loved occurrence even if she's almost 10. We chat about things while she wakes up and often think about big things. Today's topic: do you want one large (expensive) Christmas gift that will cover your birthday and Christmas...because you're getting to that age where that's totally fine. Or, do you want to skip that- save up your own money and end up getting a few more things under the tree or by your cake.

You could see the wheels turning.

She still waffles about volume vs value. And this is totally expected. It's hard at that age.

Which is why I have been insanely careful to be purposeful about gifts, numbers, value, etc. All good learning lessons developed over time.

She couldn't make up her mind.

Which is probably half the reason I had some presents already wrapped. Just because you're going to get one big thing if you go that route doesn't mean that you won't get a few extra smaller things - and you've got loads of family who still want to help you check things off your list.

But when you can't see things, it's hard when you're 9.

Alas, on her own, about an hour after we chatted - she found the small pile. Just four each per kid - jammies, socks, hair ties, etc. Nothing glamorous, but still fun. Except one larger box. That's really heavy. It's a ginormous blow up llama to play on at Grandma's lake. It's 5 feet tall and the box weighs a good 4lbs. 

Up she comes.... I SEE PRESENTS!!! AND THERE'S A BIG ONE.

AND.

IT'S.

FOR.

MEEEEEE!

Loud and proud. I just laughed. I shrugged and said "we'll see!"

Trust me when I say we are going to get to the reason for the season, God's faithfulness through this crappy pandemic, giving to others, being grateful for what we have, etc. 

I've got a long list of bubblegum mindset skills to work on in the next 30ish days.

But today - when you find you're still getting a big, heavy box and your heart is full of joy. Go ahead and do the fist pump touchdown dance of joy.

Knock yourself out, kid.