express yourself...integrity...

...or, through gingerbread houses! We have enjoyed the holidays so far, especially the time we have had with family. During Thanksgiving, family parties, etc. There is nothing I love more than to be around them. We nit-pick each other, tease, torment, and in the end just accept each other for who we are, faults and all. Holidays are a good time to express thanks for this, I think.

The real point to this entry, started with these shabby little gingerbread houses we had so much fun making. They sit now, in my living room. On a table. Within kids reach. My girls don't touch them. Oh, they look. They reach. They point. But they leave them alone, with me in or out of the room. That goes for our Christmas tree, ornaments, presents, my nativities, etc...and it amazes me. Of course, I had to teach them. I learned this well after coming into the room to find every present completely unwrapped and strewn all over the floor. It's not just once that I've had to teach them, it's over and over and over. But they get it! At their age, they get it. What's theirs to touch, is okay. What's mommy's, is not.

That got me thinking about my childhood.

(homemade flowered Christmas pajamas...thanks a lot mom!)

I remember, we could find a piece of candy belonging to one of our 8 siblings and when we found it wasn't up for grabs it could sit there for a year without anyone touching it. Simply because it wasn't ours. Oh, we might look at it every time we passed it. Even pick it up. But we always put it back down. I wish I could say this lasted, but it changed in teenage years when we understood that after time the person probably wasn't coming for it. Or didn't care. Or they ate ours, so we might as well eat theirs and just endure the wrath of the sibling.

Integrity. I like to define it as: how you act when you think no one is watching. Or how you would act if you thought you would never be caught. I think there is more to it than just teaching them what is theirs to touch and what is not. Somehow my good parents taught us this...how do you teach this? What a wonderful gift to give your children!