Wow, Christmas is only a week away! In the West the momentum is building as people do last minute shopping to prepare for the big day. As most of you probably know, gift-giving is a big part of the Christmas holiday.  We buy gifts for family members such as our mom and dad, and brothers and sisters (or nieces and nephews as we get older.)  Of course, grandparents and grandchildren are high on the list for gifts too.  Christmas can be a time of over-indulging our children by showering them with more toys than they probably need.  However, it can also be a time when children learn lessons about thinking of others. When I was a child, my parents would take me out shopping for my aunts and uncles and grandparents.  We would buy a small gift such as a scarf for our aunts and some socks or a tie for our uncles.  They were usually small, inexpensive gifts, but this was a way to teach me to think of others,  not just myself.  We would take the gifts home and wrap them carefully and put them under our Christmas tree until Christmas day.  Then in the afternoon, after our own family opened our presents, we would all get dressed in our nicest holday clothes and go visit our grandparents, aunts and uncles and deliver our special gifts.  Of course, they always had a gift for us as well.  At times we had a large family dinner where all the relatives would gather at whoever’s house was biggest and eat traditional holiday food: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, pumpkin pie, and many other delectable goodies.  In that case, we would all gather together to share our special gifts.  My mom had strict rules about how we were to behave when opening gifts.  When visiting my friend’s families, each kid would tear into their pile of gifts oblivious to what others were doing, but my mom wouldn’t allow such behavior.  We had to open our gifts one person at a time so we could all appreciate each gift and the reciever could say thanks to the giver.  Showing gratitude was very important training for little ones.  Another important lesson that I learned as a child at Christmas  was to send a thank-you note to those who had given me a present.  Of  course I didn’t send one to my parents, but my mom would make me sit down after Christmas and dutifully write out a little note to Grandma McIntosh and Aunt Ella saying how much I appreciated their thoughtful gifts and how useful they were.  In this way, Christmas became a time, not just of indulgence but of appreciation for the people in our lives.