Dear Gramps,
I am 9 years old. I haven’t been a very good girl this year.  I am afraid that I might get a lump of coal in my stocking. What should I do?
Sad in Georgia

Dear Sad,
Perhaps you could make up a bit for not being a very good girl. It’s perfectly natural for 9 year olds to have high anticipation of what they might get for Christmas. But when children get gifts for Christmas, the real joy associated with the gift is the anticipation of receiving it. When it’s time to open the gifts, after the surprise is gone, not much is left. Kids usually play with the gifts for a time and then forget all about them. So let’s try to measure the joy and happiness that the gift brings to the kid who receives it against the joy and happiness that the person feels who gives the gift. To do something nice for someone else brings a lot more happiness than having something nice done for you.
So what you might do, is to try to forget about receiving anything for Christmas and concentrate your efforts on what you might do for those that you love. You probably don’t have a lot of money with which to buy presents, but presents are not the best gifts anyway. The very best gift is to give something of yourself. For instance, you could give your mother the gift of doing a particular household chore for her for all the coming year. Now that would be quite a gift! And when you see how happy it would make your mother, you will feel even more happiness for making her feel good.. Then, because you will be doing this particular chore for your mother she will think that you’re great! And both her happiness and your own will increase. The real joy in Christmas is not in the receiving but in the giving,—

For God so loved the world, that he GAVE his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John  3:16).

Gramps