Christmas EDitorials on wEDnesday

You’ve probably heard grown ups give you a lot of rules, like how to act when you are around other children. Sometimes they give you so many rules, you need to make a list to remind yourself! But one of the most important rules is to treat others nicely, even if it isn’t an easy thing to do.

Did you know Santa is also a grown up? He has rules too! You know he can see when you are sleeping, and he knows if you’ve been bad or good! One thing Santa is paying extra close attention to this year is how you treat your friends, people at school, and grown ups. Santa told me himself!

Have you ever heard what forgiveness is? Forgiveness is a very good feeling you get when you care about other people so much, you decide to be nice to them, even if they weren’t very nice to you. They might notice your kindness and be kinder to you in return.

Sometimes, our friends and grown ups can make mistakes. Our friends can eat our last peanut butter cookie without asking or make fun of the outfits we’re wearing. When they do hurtful things, it makes us sad. We don’t want to be nice to them anymore.

This is when we forgive.

Even though we are hurt, we don’t want to hurt them back! If your friend ate your last cookie, say, “Hey, that’s okay! Let’s ask a grown up if we can make some more together!” Then you will both feel better and you’ll be able to have more fun… and you will get a yummy treat out of it! If a grown up tells you to do your homework before you play outside, you can feel frustrated and misunderstood. But try to forgive the grownup for wanting you to do well in school! Grown ups care about you very much, and they get sad, too, when you aren’t nice to them.

Now that we can forgive other people, we can ask for forgiveness too. Can you remember a time when you teased someone at school or on the internet? Have you ever laughed at someone when he was embarrassed? Have you ever judged someone based on how she looks or talks? Have you ever said mean things to a grown up, or didn’t say thank you when someone did something nice for you?

Just as you feel better when someone tells you, “I’m sorry,” you can do it too. Tell people you’ve hurt you are very sorry, and you hope they can forgive you. Then, make sure you don’t do those hurtful things anymore. Santa knows you make mistakes too—everybody does! But if you ask for forgiveness, Santa really smiles.

And you will make the person you hurt feel a lot better. This way, instead of fighting or feeling bad, you and your friends can concentrate on getting ready for Santa and being happy! There’s no Christmas better than a happy Christmas!