Curious How To Teach Kids Meaning Of Holiday Season
NEEDHAM (CBS) - The holidays can be magical for kids, but they can also be distorted.
What's really important - the lights, the shopping, the gifts, or something else?
Katie from Gardner Declared her Curiosity asking:
"How can I get my kids to appreciate how lucky they really are this holiday season?"
We learned how one family is doing that and how you can, too.
WBZ-TV's David Wade reports.
"We're going to give presents away so homeless people can have birthdays," says 7-year-old Chloe Glazer of Needham.
She's giving up one of her Hanukkah gifts and so are her two younger brothers.
It's part of an event called "Fifth Night" that her parents, Rachel and Robert Glazer helped start last year.
On Sunday, December 5th, about a hundred kids will donate the gift they would have received on the fifth night of Hanukkah.
The presents will go to "Birthday Wishes," an organization that throws birthday parties for homeless children all year long.
"I wanted them to feel what it felt like to give a present to someone who wasn't going to be able to get one," says Chloe's mom, Rachel Glazer.
"In today's society, they learn that what they have is not what people have everywhere. And it's hard for them to see that sometimes," says Robert Glazer.
Just donating that one toy or doing some other act of charity can really teach a kid one of the higher meanings of the holiday season.
And that lesson will last.
"These are things they will take with them as they get older," says Karley Ausiello of the United Way of Mass. Bay.
She says you don't have to make a huge commitment to have an effect.
"Go to a nursing home in your area and drop off holiday cards for them. Go to a food pantry once and drop off some food. Maybe use some of their own allowance money to have them actually feel they're a part of it," says Ausiello.
Perhaps you're thinking, I'd like to get my family involved, but I don't know where to go.
Here's a resource where you can enter your zip code and find a ton of volunteer opportunities close to home:
supportunitedway.org/volunteer
You can learn about volunteering as a family here:
