With each Christmas come many dreams and many wishes. It’s the time of glitz and glitter and merriment. From baking cookies to home made fudge and peanut brittle, ovens are working over time across the land in our homes in preparation for that very special day. Everyone is busy decking the halls and trimming the tree, and then there is shopping till we all drop in our tracks. Parents are frazzled and worn out, but doing their best to put those toys under that tree by Christmas morning. Christmas represents many things, but one thing is for sure, Christmas will always be about the love of a child.
Maybe you are new parents of an infant. He’s crying, he’s wet again, and you feel like you will never sleep again. You find yourself laying awake at night with your eyes wide open trying to invent a new recipe for diaper rash. You have bags under your eyes big enough to hold groceries. And what about parents of toddlers who are getting into everything? He’s crawling and climbing now and you can’t take your eyes off of him for a minute because if you do, he’s going to hurt himself on something, everything. You’ve got every kind of band-aid in the medicine cabinet from Batman to Barbie because you know at any given moment, here goes yet another boo boo despite your efforts. It’s exhausting.
Then there are those terrible twos, who if I didn’t know better really last for the next 20 odd years or so. Those two-year-old tantrums in public are enough to make you tear your hair out. Just how many parents out there really had to give up and leave the mall early because little Johnny continually threw himself down in Sears kicking and screaming? Everyone in the place is wondering what kind of parent you are because your little darling is clearly running your show. And when school time rolls around the teacher is calling us yet again, complaining that your precious little child won’t do his homework, won’t participate in class work, but is going to receive a great big “A” at recess yet again. And how about those little pre-teen girls that insist on wearing jeans cut so low and plastering on enough make up for Halloween; “But mom, everyone does it;” So you are faced with the decision of letting her be like the rest of the girls or not giving in and risk her being shunned with the in crowd.
Now some of us have kids that are all grown up and boy, we are surely proud of them. They never stole a buck out of your purse. They never talked back to you. They came home at curfew. They were good students, studied hard, went to college, have good jobs, and made you grandparents. They never caused you a minutes’ worry. They were never a problem.
On the other hand, some of us have kids that turned us grey at every corner. There was “that mouth,” and enough trips to the Principals office to qualify you for frequent flyer miles. There’s the kid that won’t wipe his feet at the door and drags mud in all over the house, the one that wouldn’t listen to you if you were the last person on earth, the one that won’t quit piercing himself, blasting that nasty music, or the one that keeps coming in late.
But at the end of the day, it’s still all about the love of that child. No matter what your kid does, good or bad, he has to know he is loved by his parents. There’s so many ways to show it; sometimes a note in his backpack, an extra hug for nothing in particular, an unscheduled trip for ice cream, buying their favorite cereal without them begging you, are all extra ways of telling your child how much you love him. The really bad thing is that parent’s don’t come with instructions. If they did, it surely would help because parent’s make mistakes and always will. In the grand scheme of things, parent’s and their kids are just not ever going to be perfect no matter how you both try and you may butt heads forever with them. But no matter how you look at it, you don’t have to buy expensive things to show a child how much he is treasured.
This Christmas when you find yourself completely frazzled, tangled up in lights, burnt the cookies, went over your shopping budget, just stop for a second. Go find that kid of yours and remind him again and say those three special little words “I love you,” because Christmas will always be about the love a child
Maybe you are new parents of an infant. He’s crying, he’s wet again, and you feel like you will never sleep again. You find yourself laying awake at night with your eyes wide open trying to invent a new recipe for diaper rash. You have bags under your eyes big enough to hold groceries. And what about parents of toddlers who are getting into everything? He’s crawling and climbing now and you can’t take your eyes off of him for a minute because if you do, he’s going to hurt himself on something, everything. You’ve got every kind of band-aid in the medicine cabinet from Batman to Barbie because you know at any given moment, here goes yet another boo boo despite your efforts. It’s exhausting.
Then there are those terrible twos, who if I didn’t know better really last for the next 20 odd years or so. Those two-year-old tantrums in public are enough to make you tear your hair out. Just how many parents out there really had to give up and leave the mall early because little Johnny continually threw himself down in Sears kicking and screaming? Everyone in the place is wondering what kind of parent you are because your little darling is clearly running your show. And when school time rolls around the teacher is calling us yet again, complaining that your precious little child won’t do his homework, won’t participate in class work, but is going to receive a great big “A” at recess yet again. And how about those little pre-teen girls that insist on wearing jeans cut so low and plastering on enough make up for Halloween; “But mom, everyone does it;” So you are faced with the decision of letting her be like the rest of the girls or not giving in and risk her being shunned with the in crowd.
Now some of us have kids that are all grown up and boy, we are surely proud of them. They never stole a buck out of your purse. They never talked back to you. They came home at curfew. They were good students, studied hard, went to college, have good jobs, and made you grandparents. They never caused you a minutes’ worry. They were never a problem.
On the other hand, some of us have kids that turned us grey at every corner. There was “that mouth,” and enough trips to the Principals office to qualify you for frequent flyer miles. There’s the kid that won’t wipe his feet at the door and drags mud in all over the house, the one that wouldn’t listen to you if you were the last person on earth, the one that won’t quit piercing himself, blasting that nasty music, or the one that keeps coming in late.
But at the end of the day, it’s still all about the love of that child. No matter what your kid does, good or bad, he has to know he is loved by his parents. There’s so many ways to show it; sometimes a note in his backpack, an extra hug for nothing in particular, an unscheduled trip for ice cream, buying their favorite cereal without them begging you, are all extra ways of telling your child how much you love him. The really bad thing is that parent’s don’t come with instructions. If they did, it surely would help because parent’s make mistakes and always will. In the grand scheme of things, parent’s and their kids are just not ever going to be perfect no matter how you both try and you may butt heads forever with them. But no matter how you look at it, you don’t have to buy expensive things to show a child how much he is treasured.
This Christmas when you find yourself completely frazzled, tangled up in lights, burnt the cookies, went over your shopping budget, just stop for a second. Go find that kid of yours and remind him again and say those three special little words “I love you,” because Christmas will always be about the love a child
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