Christmas Gifts

[notofworks]

At Christmas time, I loaded the bottom of the tree with many amazing gifts. When the evening of the 24th came, I continued our family tradition of sitting the kids down and having them perform several things first before I gave them their gifts. Just recently on Christmas Eve, I made my older son throw a baseball 90mph. He kept saying, "Dad, I can't do that. You know I'm not good at baseball, my sport is basketball", but heck, I had my demands and I wasn't about to give him his stuff before he did what I said.

So I stood there with the radar gun and had the kid throw. I felt bad for him at one point because he was topping out at 77mph, which is decent but WAY short of where he needed to be.

Eventually, his shoulder started hurting. "Too bad", I said. "Tell you what, we'll try again tomorrow and I'll have someone come over and teach you how to throw harder."

But that didn't work. These kids, I'll tell ya.

So I bought him a book about baseball and that didn't help either.

I had him prayed for.

I got the church to do a 24-hour prayer chain.

He managed to get the velocity up to 81, but WAY short of my requirements, but too bad, you know, I have my rules and I have the way I do things.

I thought enticement would help so I told him how AMAZING his gifts were and I'll tell ya, he BEGGED me for them. But rules are rules and I will NOT give that kid his Christmas gifts until he does what I say he has to do.

But it's January 9th and I'm starting to think the kid just isn't serious enough. He's just not throwing the ball the right way. But he'll need to figure it out or......no gifts.

Just wanted to tell you about my Christmas.