Giving expensive presents

I give my kids pretty expensive presents, presents that they enjoy using to enhance their ability and learn a new skill. Adora asked for a digital camera this year and I was happy to get her one. She was thrilled to have it and take pictures any chance she gets. I have observed that she actually is picking up some new set of skills in terms of picture taking. I believe in learning through doing. Many skills are acquired through the actual experimenting, through doing it, you become more intuitive and observant, you learn from the mistakes and success as well. It's a great feeling to be good with your hands, creating and make things.

Buying Presents

I don't have the statistics to back up my claim, but I have observed that more and more products produced during Christmas time are solely for the purpose for people to buy them as presents. Most people won't buy such products for themselves, but they can always find somebody else who may enjoy them, or they find that the products present well and impress lots of people. When products are given out as presents, the utilitarian characteristics are not as important, the statement such presents can make is more important. If you browse Costco or any other retail stores, you will find endless items that make impressive presentations when you give them as gifts, but you find little practical use.

Buying and giving presents in today's world has expanded its meaning, or has it? We give presents to show our love and to fulfill our obligations, to show our respect, to express our gratitude, to make sure that we are following tradition, to avoid feeling embarrassed in case presents are given to us, but we don’t have anything to give back; to connect with people so we won’t be forgotten.

The problem here is most of us already have too many material goods, personally, I’d rather buy my own presents if I really needed something. I’d rather people who spend their time shopping for me to spend time for themselves. Time is more precious than any material goods anybody can get for me. Show your love with a focused and sincere ear; show your respect with a promise you made; show your desire to connect with thoughtful words; you don’t have to do things because of tradition or expectations.

Wrapping Paper

It's the time of year when many people buy wrapping paper for the traditional gift wrapping ritual. I am never fond of spending money on buying things that are not meant to last. I can never understand, or more accurately speaking, I refuse to understand, the purpose of spending money and time wrapping presents to hope to get few seconds of anticipation and excitement from the receiver. The receiver of the present often has to prentend his/her excitement when the present itself doesn't meet his/her expectations.

Are a few seconds of excitement (seemingly) really worth the trouble, furthermore considering the effect on the environment? This type of short lived euphoria doesn't have a long lasting effect on our overall happiness, does it? Shouldn't we spend more energy and time on creating more sustainable happines in our lives?

Sharing friends with your children

Although my parents didn't conciously think that their adult friends would have any significant influences in my upbringing, thinking back on my childhood I distinctively remember a friend of my parents who enjoyed playing card games through the night--his reasoning: life is too short, if I spend time in sleeping, I will shorten my life, I'd better play as hard as possible to extend my life. I was quite young and thought the idea was very revolutionary. It made me think about life and death. I am sure that my parents had no idea their friend had influenced me in any way. This brings me to the topic I want to talk about. How many parents really realize the impact their friends have on their children? We have always tried to introduce our friends to our children as equals. Our friends, in turn, talk to them as they would talk with us. They don't patronize them just because they are smaller in physical stature. Both my husband and I are both homebound, we don't know many people and the few friends we have are all pretty unique and special in their own way. One of our friends is very active in participating in protecting the environment movement and he uses vegi oil to run his used bus, my kids were fascinated by his endeaver and learned a great environmental lesson from him. We also know a fair number of people who are from other countries, introducing them to our children opened up their eyes to diffirent culture. Letting your children know your friends is a great way to help your children to know about you. You may be surprised how much your children actually want to know about you-- we often neglect the task of helping our children to know about us.

When the kids don't want bigger and better house

I have been thinking about whether I should buy a new, bigger house, or not. I discussed the possibility with Adrianna and Adora. I initially imagined that they would jump up and down and applaud the decision to have a bigger and better house. To my surprise, or perhaps to some extent not to my surprise, they did not want to have a bigger and better house--in fact, they wanted a cozy, small house. The house we are living in currently is extremely spacious. I am very proud of my children for their conscientious effort to conserve and live a simpler life.When my children are so proactive in conserving natural resources by wanting less luxurious living environment even when it's provided to them, what should we do as parents?

Happy being a "lazy" parent

I am extremely happy with our visit to Europe this fall, we visited London, Paris and Florence. I thought that I would be motivated to write something down about our trip, but between being too tired and being lazy, I hardly wrote anything down. Fortunately, I have two beautiful daughters who have a better recollection of the trip and write better than myself. I have been enjoying reading their reports of our europe trip with great interest and joy. It's interesting to see their prospective of the same trip. Their detailed and humorous recount of the trip stir up lots of fun memory of our shared experience. It's not a bad thing to be a "lazy" parent.

beautiful Family Walk

The best part of the day is our family evening walk after dinner. The trees are so green and flowers are blooming. The beautiful sunset makes the sky pink and orange. The air is filled with the smell of flowers or freshly cut grass. It seems that we are the only few families who come out to enjoy the peaceful evening sunset.
Watching your children and husband laughing, chasing and enjoying each other is the most beautiful sight and sound there is. Family is the most practical and ideal arrangement to raise offspring.

Sudden change of weather

Weather really plays a major role in terms of influencing our moods. Every morning, when I open my eyes and see the sunshine,subconcsiously, I know that I will have a good day. If it looks gloomy, I have to struggle to warn myself not to be influenced by it. It's middle of the May, rain is just pouring in. How odd.