Ethan's Christmas Box

This past Saturday night, we took the boys to Walmart to buy the stuff for this year's Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.  Before we left for the store, Marcus showed the boys several videos from the Operation Christmas Child website of children (from past years) happily receiving the shoe boxes; so Caleb and Ethan understood that the toys we picked out at the store would not be for them to keep.  At Walmart, the boys had a lot of fun sitting in the cart as we piled in all kinds of toys and knick knacks, some of their choosing and some of ours.  For obvious reasons, we had elected to fill boxes for two boys ages 2-4, and our boys talked happily about the "other" boys who would enjoy the toys we were choosing.  We finished up at the store, drove home to stuff the boxes, and then put the boys to bed.

Sunday morning, the boys laboriously toted their boxes full of toys from the car all the way into the church building.  It took Marcus and Ethan more than five minutes to get inside, but Ethan carried it all the way.  When Ethan walked in, I directed him to put his box against the wall with Caleb's.  He balked.  I gently told him where to put it and started to guide him in that direction.  He looked kind of dumbstruck when I took the box from his hands and put it next to Caleb's.

Just then, Miss Nina, the lady in charge of Operation Christmas Child, came up to take the boxes.  She thanked the boys for bringing them and then asked if it was okay for her to take them to the children who were waiting for them.  Ethan finally erupted in the tears that had been building since I took the box.  Through his wails, I caught something like, "I want to give my box to a little boy!"  After talking to him for a couple minutes, I realized that he had imagined that the children in need of Christmas boxes would be lined up at our church like they were lined up in the videos he'd seen.  He had it firmly planted in his head that he would get to hand his box to a happy little boy.  He was sorely disappointed by the reality of the situation, and it took him a good five minutes to calm down enough to go to class.  Poor little guy!