Helping children to understand about those less fortunate

[IcouldstillbeJoseph]

I have never been a big fan of Christmas. I find the general encouragement to be gluttonous and fierce consumerism uncomfortable and depressing. I was so saddened to see two grown women physically fighting over a turkey once....
Anyway, I used to always work at Christmas (I'm a midwife) and just ask for people to give to charity for me instead of a gift.
Now I have 2 small DC things are a bit different and we are a bit more festive (we didn't have a tree/cards anything before) but I really want to help them learn about how it is a time to help and remember those less fortunate - and not just a time for going crazy and opening lots of presents (am I sounding like the fun-police?!). DS is now 3 - can anyone advise how to best achieve this?
I'm thinking of trying to volunteer somewhere locally at Christmas but ideally would like him to come along with me....

Do a special festive shop and take to the local food bank... bake cookies for Rest Home or other such establishments that welcome home baking... DS could chose a special toy for a local 'giving tree'

There must be options for donating your time, like the 'soup kitchen' of American movies! but I don't really know what it is... what about contacting The Salvation Army and asking??

I ask the children to choose a toy each from their toy box and we drop at the local womens refuge along with some clothes.
Last year I also did the JL website donation and asked them to choose a new toy too.

I imagine you could work in your local soup kitchen over the Christmas period.

I used to be bah humbug about Christmas but as the children got older I enjoy making it an experience they can treasure too and have got caught up in the excitement of it (but thats a whole other thread!!)

Icouldstillbejoseph -do you normally end up working christmas too? I'm also a midwife and undoubtedly always end up working something over christmas -we haven't sorted shifts for this year yet though so will wait and see what I get!immy dc are 5 and 2. This year I am starting the christmas show box thing with them,which I used to love doing when I was younger.
As pp said I also get then to donate old toys to charity.
The difficult point I get is when ds said 'even though they haven't got mummies or daddies (this was when discussing christmas boxes for orphans) Santa wont forget I get them a present'! How to answer that?!

One of our family traditions is doing the MN christmas appeal, and I ask for a child the same age as ds as an additional to my donation and he goes and chooses a present for them, wraps it and takes it to the post office.

We'll also take toys and clothes to a charity, do a foodbank shop, make gifts for various people, and ds will do some charity things with school too.

As DD gets older we will do the donate a present thing I think. Tesco ran a scheme last year that I donated to. I also do the operation Christmas child boxes, although I know that is a contentious issue amongst mumsnetters.
Personally, I have always felt that the most important part of Christmas is the coming together of families and friends and, even though she is only 2, I am trying to think of things we can do together rather than just shower her with gifts. For example, with my cousins, we have decided not to buy presents for the children this year, instead we are going to take turns in hosting a little party where everyone brings a dish and the kids get to play together for the afternoon. We are always so busy that playdates are few and far between so hopefully this should be a lovely experience.

The Salvation Army runs an xmas present campaign every November/December. you could donate gifts either directly to an SA church or a collection point at a shopping centre (superdrug collected for them 2012).

Here is the link from last year:

www.salvationarmy.org.uk/uki/christmas-present-appeal

I usually save duplicate or excess presents that my dc get for Eid & birthdays and donate to this campaign. Especially with whole class birthday parties, they receive a lot of duplicate gifts so I regift this way. Atleast the presents will be appreciated instead of gathering dust in a cupboard.

What I do during the year not just Xmas is get ds (7) to pack a big bag of shopping up, few packs of wipes etc etc and think about what he's putting inside, ie if he was a little boy who didn't have rice pudding would he like it, or what he thinks a little person would like. And then I get him to choose some toys from his bedroom as well... I usually over see this as otherwise he would give small broken things or of no consequence and again I tell him to think about what another little person would like to play with,

We then walk to the local church in the castle as that's the local point for the local food/basics bank. Whilst I'm not overly churchy the ladies in the little tea room are lovely and usually have some kind words for ds.

Foc his part he understands then that not everyone has as much as him, and and he likes to think about others. Ds2 is quite excited as well to do it, but at 2 he doesn't understand the principals I use lol.

Here we do Love in a Box where the DCs pack a wrapped shoe box full of goodies for a little girl/boy in Romania.

I've also done Send A Cow, we actually sent chickens and rabbits and the DCs were very interested in how that worked. DD thought we were sending a pet rabbit, so that was a bit of an eye opener

This year I plan to make mince pies with the DCs and take them to the local old folks home.

When i was young i always had to clear out my toys about november time, and anything still in good condition went to a local charity for families who needed assistance. It made me more grateful as i would see that not everyone was lucky enough to have a nice house/money for toys etc. and it meant we got to clear our house out a bit too.

As an adult, my gran is in a home, so i tend to go there on xmas eve with buns/cookies/sweets. There are usually some people there who dont have relatives there, but they go and visit as some people dont have any family left. I think its lovely and it makes me feel fuzzy inside :)

Your post has made me feel fuzzy inside shabby