In this installment, I write about how to square the problem of kids, Christmas, and the bad economy.

Last year at this time I lost a night of sleep after my children grumbled about what they thought was a paltry Christmas.  My 11-year-old son, for example, was irked that his younger sister got a slightly nicer cellphone than his.  In the midst of a global recession that caused some families in our neighborhood to lose their homes to bank foreclosure, I felt my kids needed a better understanding of what was going on in the world and to temper their unseemly sense of entitlement to the latest $60 videogames, $10 first-run movie tickets and the latest iPhone gadjits. 

The day after Christmas, I arranged for them to make two phone calls.  The first one to their 89-year-old great-grandfather in Denver and ask him about what Christmas was like for him in 1932 during the Great Depression.  Then they talked to the local power company and got some stats on the number of families in and around our zip code who were having a cold, dark Christmas because they could not afford to pay their electric bill.  They were instructed to ask questions and write down the answers.  In the end, they actually kind of enjoyed the exercise, learned something, and understood why Daddy was making them do it.  But would it stick with them? I didn't know.

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