One Dollar of Christmas Spirit

After a morning at the playground, I stopped by the store with my sons to pick up a couple groceries. My head was filled with things. All the things I needed to get done. The holidays are a busy time – I need to mail out cards, wrap gifts, decorate the house…

We parked, and my 4 year old son asked for the backpack he takes to preschool. He said he wanted the dollar we’d put in there the day before. The dollar was for show and share at school. He needed to bring a rectangle, so I’d put the dollar in his backpack. I reminded him, but he persisted. He wanted that dollar.

At 4, it is time that he learns about money. That it is finite. That a dollar can only stretch so far. I let him take the dollar so that he could buy something in the store with it.

But he didn’t take it into the store. He stopped before we got to the door. He walked up to the Salvation Army bell ringer and her red kettle, folded up the dollar, and put it in the slot.

Then he looked at me and said, “See, that’s how you do it.”

Yes, darling boy, that is how you do it.