As family, friends and coworkers come home from their Christmas vacations – or, in some cases, come out of their homes from their Christmas vacations – the stories are now pouring in. This particular story was so adorable, I just had to share it.

NORAD has been tracking Santa’s progress on the night from Christmas eve to Christmas day on a specially set up website. My friend’s two sons decided to track Santa on Christmas Eve; always grabbing any opportunity to educate her children and elevate the conversation (no wonder we are friends…), she took the opportunity to teach them a little bit more about the world.

So as they watched Santa make their way through Asia, Europe and Africa (they fell asleep while Santa was crossing the Atlantic Ocean), they also checked out the pictures NORAD posted on each location as they came along. Unable to answer all her sons’ questions, she then took out her World Atlas to see exactly where each city on the NORAD map was. Still insatiable, they turned to Wikipedia to read more about each country that piqued the boys’ interest. While they covered many aspects of each country, my friend made sure that they talked about the children in each and every country; she wanted her sons to realize just how lucky they were.

So they talked about the children in Asia who were sometimes forced to work in sweatshops in terrible conditions, about the children in Eastern Europe who didn’t always have enough wood during the winter and would freeze all winter, and they talked about the children in Africa who got sick because they were hungry.

Which prompted these adorable, pure little souls to ask their mother if it was possible to ask Santa to give their gifts to the hungry kids in Africa so that they could have a happier Christmas (something about the hunger got to them more than the sweatshops and the cold, I guess). My friend, ever so wise, told them that the children in Africa would rather have money for food, and guess what – a mere week after Christmas, they have an entire fund raising project going on. The children (with, of course, the help of their mother) are making little potted plants they are going to sell to their friends, neighbours and teachers to send the money to Africa (they are still in the process of choosing an organisation).

I think these two kids, who are 6 and 9, have understood the meaning of Christmas better than most of us, haven’t they?

If you want to read more about the tracking Santa project, you can read the post here.