Wonderful Christmas

Surprisingly Christmas went really well today. Not a meltdown or even the hint of one. We don't do a lot of gifts for Christmas and try to keep things really simple. This year she got a toy horse, a coloring book and a music box. Since they were all really small I put them way under the tree behind the wrapped presents. This morning she didn't even ask if Santa had been here. She was too excited to give G & I our presents. She gave me mine first (she even kept it a secret!) and it was a Paula Deen cookbook and a beautiful Christmas ornament. I was so proud of her for finding something that she knew "I" would like instead of what "she" would like! She did just as well with gifts for Daddy G, Papa, Monya & Big Mama.

J does chores daily all year long. Some are considered family chores (chores that are necessary to live as a family such as cleaning her room) then she has chores for which she is paid such as taking out the trash, washing dishes, cleaning, etc. As soon as she is paid for each chore she dumps the money into a Christmas cookie tin. Every weekend she'll count all the money she made and divide it up into 4 bags. Then she puts part of her money in one labeled Tithes, another one for Saving, one for Christmas gifts and one for Spending. All the gifts were purchased with money that she earned doing chores. Today she was extra proud of that fact. Not to mention that she separated her money out and deduced how much to budget on each person, went to the store and picked out just the right present for each person with the amount of allotted money for that person. When she went with Daddy G she went over budget by one cent so Daddy G charged her one cent interest.

This is her third year of budgeting and she's really getting the hang of it. It's really neat to watch the growth in her management skills with each passing year. Lots of life lessons, planning for a year, delayed gratification, joy in giving without expecting, budgeting, shopping within a budget and interest.

We received a wonderful Christmas surprise today. Chrissi called from Germany!!!! It was so great to hear from her! I don't know who's face lit up more when we heard her voice. Life is improving for Chrissi and I think she's started to get settled back into her home life. We still miss her terribly. She has to come back to America soon because her English is slipping. ;-) We'll be waiting on her....

This afternoon J remarked that this was the best Christmas ever!!!

I haven't forgotten about the post on rubbing...more on that later.

Hoping all of you had a peaceful Christmas!