When I was 8, my class had a Christmas gift exchange. My family couldn\u2019t afford a gift, so I wrapped one of my dad\u2019s old books and gave it to a classmate. In return, she gave me the latest Barbie. When she saw my gift, she started crying.<\/p>\n
The next day, her mom came to school, looking serious, but when she saw me, her expression softened. She handed me a bag filled with gifts\u2014the Barbie\u2019s car, a Ken doll, and new clothes. I was overwhelmed.<\/p>\n
Then, she shocked me by inviting me and her daughter to lunch. It was my first time in a restaurant. Her daughter, once upset, was now kind to me, and we became close friends, still in touch at 24 despite living in different towns.<\/p>\n
That mother\u2019s kindness was my first real Christmas magic. Now that my family is stable, I pay it forward every holiday season by helping a child in need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was 8, my class had a Christmas gift exchange. My family couldn\u2019t afford a gift, so I wrapped one of my dad\u2019s old books and gave it to a classmate. In return, she gave me the latest Barbie. When she saw my gift, she started crying. The next day, her mom came to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23602,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23601\/revisions\/23602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newzdiscover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}