The Chunkah Presents thing

I have good kids. Really good kids. The kind who look out for one another, who get good grades and are helpful and go the extra mile to try and do the right thing.

They are, generally speaking, helpful, respectful and responsible.

Which makes it hard not to give them presents on Chanukah. They have certainly been on the nice side of the naughty and nice list.

When people ask why our kids listen so well, I don't really have an answer for them. The best I can come up with is that when we say we are going to turn around the car and go back home if they don't stop fighting, and they continue fighting, we turn around and go back home.

Which meant that we couldn't come off our "no presents" stand. If consistency and following through are the key ingredients to keeping our kids, we couldn't change our minds here even if we wanted to. They would know that when mom or dad threatens something, it can be negotiated down or behaved away.

We needed to come up with something though.

So we decided to give them money. Every day, over the eight days of Chanukah, we are going to give them some money. And every day, they are going to have to put some of the money in tzedakah, and put the rest in their bank. And after Chanukah, they are going to get to go to whatever store they choose, and blow all the money.

They know that they aren't getting presents this year because of how they behaved last Chanukah. I'm hoping they can respond better this time around.