Life Lessons thru Gift Giving

As a kid I loved Christmas, but if I’m to be totally transparent, it was the gifts I loved. Yep, the more the merrier!

Sad, huh?

After marriage, I began to see things differently. The fact that we had no money to buy gifts helped change my perspective. I was now forced to come up with creative, very creative hand made gifts. But, to my surprise, I enjoyed it! I enjoyed it because as I made them, I was thinking about the people I was making them for. We laugh now about some of the very creative gifts I made & I cherish knowing the grace with which they were received & often displayed for years. (Bless their hearts!)

Years passed and another gift giving shift took place in our lives. Now, we had enough money to buy gifts. Not gobs of money, but enough to buy one gift per person. It was still fun to think about the person and try to find that perfect gift just for them. Not quite as much fun as making it, but still very personal.

Then, as so often happens in the hectic pace of today’s world, the personal element left the process, and that’s what it became, a process. Each year, the burden of finding gifts became heavier and more & more I felt like “bah humbug”! Our parents were downsizing, getting rid of stuff and really didn’t need more dust collectors. Other family members already had everything they needed or wanted, and the “toys” on the kids’ wish list became increasingly expensive, as in waaay out of budget.

What once brought great joy, now drained the joy.

Time for another shift but this time it was intentional.

Last year, at about this time, we had a family pow-wow. We decided that gift giving would be scaled waaay back and that each one would pray and take a portion of their gift giving budget and put it in a “Happy Birthday Jesus” jar. The amount given was between God and the giver. After the holidays were over, we would decide as a family, how God would have us use the money.

We also talked with extended family members and agreed to not exchange gifts anymore. I think the sense of relief was unanimous. What we, our family, did instead was buy gifts like clean water, a goat and chickens in the name of family members. My granddaughter even bought a dozen chickens for two of her friends. She wrapped a picture of a chicken explaining that a third world family would now have the means to feed themselves (the eggs) and supply income for the family by selling surplus eggs at the market.

Taking the pressure & process out of the gift buying frenzy and making the gifts, once again, personal & meaningful made for one of the best Christmases we’ve had in many years. An added blessing, it was much easier to focus on the Christ in Christmas.

Listed below are some of the organizations that provide opportunities to allow God to use you to bless others in His name. Please, take time to really look at these catalogs, it will change your perspective!

Samaritan’s Purse

Christian Children’s Fund Gift Catalog

World Vision Gift Catalog

Harvest of Hope

Open Doors Gift Catalog

All of the catalogs contain “gifts” of things we take for granted and expect, almost as a “right”, in our affluent culture – clean water, food, blankets, the opportunity to make a living, Bibles, bicycles and on and on. It is sobering and heart breaking; we are a spoiled people.

May I challenge you to prayerfully look at these catalogs as a family. Let God use the incredible needs presented as one of the most important life lessons you can teach your children!

Let me know what you think!

Sue

P.S. I promise I’ll get back to the Driver’s Ed series. Just wanted to get this post done because of its time-sensitivity.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 8th, 2007 at 10:49 am and is filed under Home Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.