Was when my youngest child was 12 years old. He is 20 now so that was about eight years ago.
I'm not very good at telling stories, I'll do the best I can.
It started the week before Thanksgiving that year when I'd locked the keys inside my truck and didn't have a spare set. My purse was locked inside the truck. I called the locksmith and was waiting for him to show up and told my son "this is going to cost $35 dollars and that's exactly the amount of money I have in my wallet!". The locksmith came, unlocked the truck and I payed him. I didn't think anything else of it.
A few days later, around six oclock or so while my son and I were having dinner the doorbell rang. It was the mother and father of my daughters best friend. The mother was a teacher at the school that my son attended and the father is a pastor at a charismatic church. They had a HUGE box of food. We are talking like over a weeks worth of food. Apparently the teacher had asked at school if there were any families that didn't have money for Thanksgiving dinner. My son raised his hand and told them that we didn't because we had spent it on the locksmith. When I told him that the 35 dollars I had was all that was in my wallet he thought that I had NO other money. After trying to get them to take the food back and trying to explain that there had been a misunderstanding and after alot of embarassment they persuaded me to keep the box of food. Just to name a few items that were in the box was a turkey, boxed stuffing, bottled juice, rice, canned goods, beans and lots of other stuff. We always went to my folks house for Thanksgiving and Christmas so we didn't even cook. Our cupboards were overflowing after putting the groceries away. My son couldn't apologize enough, he really thought we had no money for anything.
In December I found out that a young girl that worked at one of my stores had been living in her car with her three year old as she could not afford to rent a place on her own only making minimum wage. To make a long story short I found someone at one of the stores who agreed to take them in as room mates. I would pick up my son everyday from school and take him back to the stores with me until I got off work. He overheard us talking about Christmas and how she did not have money for Christmas dinner or presents for her daughter. On the way home that evening he suggested that we use the money that we would have spent on each other for gifts to buy the young girl and her daughter presents. (I'd already thought of this but didn't quite know how to approach him about it) It ended up that we did exactly that and gave her all of the food that we'd recieved at Thanksgiving also. My son had such fun picking out gifts for the little girl and he ended up buying her a 3 foot stocking and stuffing it full of coloring books, socks, crayons and many other items. I've never seen anyone as grateful as the young girl was and my son and even myself learned a great lesson that year. As it turned out with the other gifts we received you really couldn't even tell that we did not buy each other anything. We recieved many gifts from everyone else.
My son still is a very generous and loving person. I'm very proud of him.
I did learn one other lesson....to watch what I say around kids!
One Of The Best Christmases Ever
December 27th, 2011 at 08:15 pm
December 27th, 2011 at 08:21 pm 1325017304
December 27th, 2011 at 08:23 pm 1325017439
December 27th, 2011 at 08:25 pm 1325017516
December 27th, 2011 at 08:26 pm 1325017568
December 27th, 2011 at 09:56 pm 1325022990
December 27th, 2011 at 10:17 pm 1325024230
December 27th, 2011 at 10:25 pm 1325024704
December 27th, 2011 at 11:24 pm 1325028276
December 28th, 2011 at 12:50 am 1325033455
December 28th, 2011 at 03:06 am 1325041578
That is an awsome story. And what Christmas SHOULD be about. You have every right to be proud of your son.
December 28th, 2011 at 09:14 pm 1325106878
January 1st, 2012 at 07:30 pm 1325446250
January 3rd, 2012 at 02:37 pm 1325601433