The Best Gifts for Your Kids and Grands (episode 43)

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Today, you can learn what I think are the best gifts for your children or your grandchildren.

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right

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here at the When You Love a Prodigal podcast.

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But you will also find help and hope for your own life journey.

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I am sure that last week's conversation with Dina Yoie was so encouraging, filled with

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ideas to make it through the holidays with your prodigal.

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Both Dina and I believe one of your most important efforts with a prodigal is to maintain relationship.

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Today we're not going to focus on prodigals so much, but rather keeping connection with

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any child or loved one.

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Be assured, giving gifts, especially the right kinds of gifts, is a great way to win their

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hearts and gather the connection to make it last.

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As we look at the very best gifts, I want again to ask you to jot down ideas that spark

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your imagination.

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When I talk about one kind, say, oh, that would be great for this child or this grandchild.

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And I'd love to hear which ones you really like or what you think will work best.

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So we are now in a several-part series on Christmas-related things.

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This one is about gifts.

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I love December.

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I like the decorations, the family together.

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Well, not last year, but food, giving and receiving gifts, celebrating the redemptive

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birth of Jesus.

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Hopefully we'll get to do all that again this year after missing so much last year.

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Of course, we can still celebrate the incarnation and worship our Savior no matter what.

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And just as God gave us the best of all gifts, we can still give gifts.

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Giving gifts is one of the favorite activities of my life.

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I got to give to friends.

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I like to give to the people that I work with.

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I give to charities, to neighbors, and certainly to my family, and especially to my children

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and grandchildren.

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I like to give special, desired presents to my now-grown children.

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But what I'm going to talk about today is focusing on the kids.

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The first words my grandkids, especially the younger ones, say to me when I visit them

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or they visit me, do you have a surprise for us, Jidu?

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Jidu is my grandmother name.

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And of course I do.

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You won't, however, always find me giving the latest toy or must-have item, but sometimes

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I do that.

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I want my grandchildren, and that's who I'm giving to now mostly, to enjoy and appreciate

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the gifts they receive from me.

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But I also want them to have real value for their lives.

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So my presents to them usually fall in one of these six categories, starting with books.

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My first gifts to babies at showers, to every birthday and every Christmas is always books.

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I love books, and I think they're important for the development of every single person.

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I will offer old favorites or a classic or a new book, lots of different variety.

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I give board books, picture books, beginning readers, adventure series.

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My older kids love fantasy and adventure kinds of books now.

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The topics change, trucks and tractors, Star Wars, princesses, unicorns, horses, that might

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be because I like horses, and fantasy.

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I love reading to my grandkids, then letting them read to me, and finally just watching

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them reading on their own or watching the older kids read to the younger kids.

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Just provide amazing adventures, take them to exotic places, introduce them to real heroes,

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reveal life in another time, let them see faith in action.

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They get to step into someone else's story.

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I also give gifts that will spark their imagination.

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This is a broad category, but let me name a few things.

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Some of them love building and constructing, so recent gifts have included Star Wars Legos

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and magnetic tiles, they're the end thing, and science experiments.

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Jewelry kits and cooking pretend or real, please some.

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A cookbook for one of my granddaughters has been a real hit.

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Music of every kind is a hit, and I give art supplies galore, appropriate for every age,

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and every medium.

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The younger ones have loved little dragons that they can paint and then play with, and

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cars as well, and dinosaurs they can play with.

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I'm often the recipient of their art efforts.

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I just got, when my daughters came, one of them brought a picture that a granddaughter

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had painted just for me.

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Hand puppets play a key role in our frequent storytelling.

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Lions and kangaroos and mice and koalas, I probably had about a dozen different hand

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puppets and we would use them in stories.

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Their all-time favorite was a very realistic looking alligator.

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Costumes allow them to be superheroes, or knights, or ninjas, or cowboys, or sports

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stars, or as they get older, the latest preteen idol.

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A sand and water table has given the younger ones hours of wet fun on hot days.

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I also want to help keep them moving.

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So one of my best gifts a while ago was a backyard play set, swings, glider, a slide,

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a climbing wall, a fort, and my backyard.

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So that my kids who lived here then, the kids would say, can we go to Jidu's playground?

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Of course, they would say, oh, now we're not going to bother you, you just keep doing your

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work, we'll just go in the backyard.

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I'm like, you're not bothering me, I'll go with you.

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We even had a bounce house, they loved it.

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A slip and slide, we've had bikes, a spring horse, a pogo stick, sports equipment, so

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many balls of every kind, shoes and shorts for practice for soccer, goals, a punching

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bag for a boy who was having trouble with anger.

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My older boys loved their surfing lessons.

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They burn up some energy, that incessant energy with all of these kinds of activities.

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So keeping them moving, strengthen their bodies and grow skills that they may use later.

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Memorable experiences, and this is really one of my favorites.

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I love to take them on fun outings, bookstores and pet stores are quick and easy.

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I love the pet stores that let you hold the pets, the kids love it, and their parents like

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it, that's where they're holding them.

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The zoo is amazing, except the one we'd go to, I couldn't keep up with the kids.

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Any place with a train or a carousel was delightful for the younger ones.

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Children's museum, children's museum, even Chuck E. Cheese, we've done it all together,

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and the beach.

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They love the beach, digging, splashing, running, surfing.

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I used to teach horseback riding, so when we've had a chance, I've been able to teach

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most of them some basics of riding.

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I love sharing my love of horses with them.

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One time I took them to Disney's Animal Kingdom, and they were just a little young, and the

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little young children's area didn't have a whole lot, but it had a dinosaur dig.

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I'm thinking what we spent for mom and I and two kids to get into Disney and pay for parking

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and pay for food, and all they ended up doing was digging in the sand.

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I said, next time we go to the beach.

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That was crazy, but living in Orlando has provided many attractions.

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Gatorland was a hit, also not as expensive.

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We have pictures of each of the boys on an alligator and another draped in a python,

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which I didn't like.

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One year's Christmas gift was an annual pass to SeaWorld for all the local family members,

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and recently the kids and their parents got passes to a climbing gym in the town they

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live in now, which the boys love doing.

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Last March, my three young teen grand boys were supposed to spend a week with us.

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We had many adventures planned, but COVID canceled that.

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We rescheduled it for October.

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Well, that didn't happen, so maybe someday we'll get to it.

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Time is essential.

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All the activities are good and fun, but time really matters, and any of these gifts can

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fall under the time topic if I do the activities with them.

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Sometimes time just means a quick trip to Chick-fil-A, or watching a movie together,

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or playing games on my iPad.

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I love to just be with them.

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The past year meant no time face-to-face.

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I didn't get to see any of them, but we had a lot of face time.

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Not face-to-face, but good old face time.

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We would call and talk, and one granddaughter just played my favorite song because she's

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taking piano now.

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Just really wonderful to be with them.

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Then there's the time they know nothing about, and that is the time I spend praying for them,

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which is quite a bit.

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Then I would say the final one I want to mention is more intangible, is I did this with my

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children and I'm trying to do it with my grandkids, and that's a generous spirit to give.

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I would help them choose toys or clothes to give to someone else who could use them.

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I also give and have for many years now to Angel Tree, which is part of prison fellowship,

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and it provides Christmas gifts for children whose parents are incarcerated.

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I do one gift to Angel Tree for every grandchild and tell them about it.

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We've supported children through compassion, and they've gotten to be a part of that.

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I would love to see more happen because I love to be able to do it.

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Now, do I ever give a gift just because it's something they want?

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Yes, I do.

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I try to give them at least one thing they really want, and I buy some little trinkets

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and snacks when I visit them, but most of the time I seek to give life-expanding presents

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that will keep on giving.

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So far, they all still love me, so I must not be making too many mistakes in the gift-giving

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area.

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What about you?

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Did you get any ideas?

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Do you see the relationship between giving gifts and keeping connection?

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If you give something, an activity or something they can make or anything that they could

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do, they will remember that's from you, and there's a connection that happens because

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you did that.

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But there's just when they open a gift and it's something that delights them, then that,

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again, makes a connection.

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I personally want to keep having connection and having a chance to encourage and influence

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not only through my prayers, but in through ill relationship.

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And so I just encourage you, again, write down some things.

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What do you see as the best gifts that you have given or could give this year over the

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holidays?

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Let me know.

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I would love for you to write me.

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Just go click on that, write to Judy, and tell me what's happening with you in the gifts

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as you plan for Christmas this year.

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God bless you.