Our Holiday Tradition

Every Holiday season, we take the kids and their friends carol singing in the neighborhood, and collect food/money for a local food bank. It is fun for the kids, it adds to the holiday cheer in the neighborhood, and hopefully, the kids learn something about adversity and charity in the process.

As parents, we want our children to learn generosity, kindness, and charity. We also want our children to learn about poverty, war, and adversity. In America, where poor people live in a different part of town, where wars are fought on foreign lands, where charity donations are often made online, it is hard for kids to learn these.

At the very least, we hope our carol fund raiser shifts some of the focus off gifts and on generosity and holiday spirit.

What is your holiday tradition?

Trick or Treating

Would you rather trick or treat with your kids in your own neighborhood, among familiar people, where you can pretty much predict the decoration? Or would you rather go to a known halloween hangout where there is a lot of candy, there is a lot of decoration, and there are a lot of people in different costumes, but none who you know?

What about the reverse? Would you rather live in a neighborhood where the Halloween spirit is brimming, and people come from far away? Or would you rather live in a neighborhood where you know the names of kids who knock on your door for candy?

Teenagers

The other day, I saw a teenager driving a car slowly, with two others on skateboards, hanging on to the car window and rolling along.