Herron Studios

Category: Holiday Ideas

  • A Giving Time of Year

    A Giving Time of Year

    It’s not unusual to think about gifts this time of year. We consider the gifts we plan to give family and friends or possibly receive. We may also consider other ways to give: donate to our favorite charity, pull a heart off a gift tree, or buy a present for someone who might not be able to buy one. There’s even “Giving Tuesday,” when many donations are matched or doubled, depending on the organization.

     It shouldn’t come as a surprise that one of my favorite ways to give involves Lego. Each year, Lego holds its #buildtogive campaign. Build a heart. It can be small and simple or complex and elaborate. Take a photo. Then, post that photo on social media with the #buildtogive. Every time someone does that, they donate a Lego building kit to a child in need of play. They recently shared a video of a couple of guys taking a van full of Lego to a children’s hospital. I can get behind that. 

  • Switchin’ it up OR ….why we need a guard turkey.

    Let’s say you have older children and Christmas is coming.  Let’s say some of those children start hinting really early at things they’d love to see under the tree (Heh.. and some of those things are pretty dang expensive).  Let’s say you also start to notice that those same children are arguing more and more.  What would you do?

    We decided to change things up a bit.  We switched up how Santa Claus works and divided the money out between those childrenwith instructions that they had to buy a present for each person in the family (except themselves, of course).  If they spent less on one, they’d have more for another.  To consider carefully as this was Christmas.

    It’s been SO much FUN!  Each of the children has tried to think what the other would really like to open Christmas morning.  They’ve thought about their interests and personalities.  G. pulled in some money from his paycheck so he could get a little more.  C. used money left over from his allowance to do the same.

    And yes, they stopped asking for things for themselves.  Did the arguing stop?  Hmmmmm…. not completely.  But hey, I’ll take an improvement!  I can’t wait for Christmas morning.  I can’t wait to see their reactions.

    In fact most of us can’t.

    Other years we wait to put ALL of the presents under the tree Christmas Eve.  Not this year.  We decided to taunt each other a bit with what was under the tree as well.  So meet Steve….

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    He’s our “Guard Turkey” (He can sing, too).  He’s making sure no one tries to peek at any of the presents under the tree before Christmas morning.  And I can personally attest that if someone examines and shakes a box or bag they will get absolutely NO clue as to what is inside.  We’re all about camouflage in this family!

    Sometimes change is good.