So, I just went to my friend, Sarah's blog & she had this amazing video on there...
After watching, I realized that I haven't shared my latest thoughts on Christmas...and the truth is, with Christmas just around the corner, Josh & I have been talking about our annual shopping day on Black Friday every year in Dallas. Somehow we seem to get caught up in the craziness of it all and wind up spending much more than we ever planned and also end up just exhausted! So, we are talking about keeping me somewhat away from the malls and trying to do Christmas (particularly the gift giving) a little differently this year. The plan is to only give each other hand made gifts and to use the money we would have spent on Christmas towards purchasing a water well in Inida over the course of 2009.
We aren't parents, but we are trying to think of some creative ways to share this train of thought with our nephews and niece in Dallas too...if anyone has some creative ideas we would love it!
By the way, I'm not trying to be scrooge like..Josh & I will buy gifts this year - I love giving gifts! But what if we bought just one less or even two...in fact, if I'm honest, it is more of a sacrifice and really more of a gift for me to give my time than my money...and that is the meaning of giving...so that is my goal this year - to really think about those that I want to give to, and then give them something - whether it is material or a bit of me - that shows them they are loved...
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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4 comments:
Well, I didn't watch the video yet because I'm holding Kate and I don't want to wake her up yet, but I have been feeling the same way about Christmas. I do love getting gifts for my kids, but somehow the whole holiday just gets so blown up and way over done in my opinion. Maybe we should talk about doing something different as a family this year with our gift giving!
I completely understand where you're coming from! For the past several years I've been saying that we would scale back the gift giving and every year I'd go overboard for everyone, not just the kids. This year, we aren't exchanging gifts between adults and I am SO happy about this. None of us need anything and what we want we can all pretty much afford to get so rather than material things we're just going to spend Christmas as a family. Now don't get me wrong, we're not "scrooges" either and plan on giving to the kids, but that's changed this year too. Back in June I decided that the kids all have too much and 1 nice gift each would be more than enough. I talked to the kids about it and they were completely okay with this idea. Phew! So in August I bought their gifts from us and their "Big Guy" gifts (1 each, plus stockings) and we're done.
I can't wait...for the first time ever it won't be a unwrapping frenzy :o).
Last year we bought teddy bears and had the kids go to the children's hospital and give them bears for Christmas. This year we found knight helments that are piggy banks. And the goal is for each kid to do research for a children's ministry and when their bank is full they will donate their money to that ministry. My family does something different every year so we have a great time with this. If you need more ideas we have alot of them.
We are doing this with our family, instead of the time we would be opening gifts we are going to go the hospital and take gifts and candy to the kids and nurses there. We did it a couple of years ago and it was great. I got to preach a few weeks ago and showed this to our church and we are challenging them to do it also. It's a great idea.
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