The Giving Tree
It is Christmas time, and there isn't money for a lot of gifts, but we still want to celebrate happily.
But the happy thing for the children is the fun of Christmas shopping at the supermarket. They talk and wait for weeks, asking each other and their grandparents what they want for Christmas.
The big day arrive and we go out early. I give each of the four children twenty dollars and ask them to look for gifts about four dollars each.
Back in the car driving home, everyone is very happy. My little daughter, Kate, an eight-year-old girl, is quiet, but usually she is noisy. I see she has only candies: fifty-cent candies! I am so angry, but I don't say anything. After we get home, I call her into my bedroom and ask her what she does with the money. Then she tells me:
"I am looking around, thinking of what to buy, and I stop to read the little cards on one' Giving Tree'. One of the cards is for a little four-year-old girl, and all she wants for Christmas is a doll with clothes. So I take the card down from the tree and buy the doll for her. I only have a little money left to buy candies for us. But we have so much and she doesn't have anything."
I feel very happy that day.
