I'm updating and republishing this from last year, because the results of it have been great.
I really like giving gifts. But, I like giving gifts that I know someone is going to like. That is why I try to make a practice of giving gifts to people during the year when I discover something someone will like, regardless of if there is a birthday or holiday. I HATE the pressure and resulting stress of having to come up with a gift for everyone I care about at Christmas. I’m not going to go off on the commercialism of Christmas, because I think there are some strong links between Christmas and giving. But, there are also some strong links between Christ coming (Christmas) and PEACE. So, we (my wife and I) have been looking for ways to relieve some of the Christmas gift stress, still give gifts, and honor the season and our values.
We came up with a few ideas. One idea was gifts of serving. We value being servants, and acts of service also make good gifts, so we thought this would be cool. We actually did this for our staff white elephant exchange last year. We made up certificates of ways that we could serve each other and we exchanged those. People gave car washes, house chores, oil changes, and things like that. We had fun giving them and it was also be a blessing to each other fulfilling them. This year I plan to offer a gift of service to my wife for Christmas, because we are not doing gifts for each other (read on).
Another idea was gifts of fellowship. You just make up a certificate offering to take the person/people somewhere with you. We did this with our Home Fellowship (Pursuit) last year. Everybody loved it so much they requested it again this year. We just did it this last weekend at our Christmas party. We did our exchange white elephant style. This year people did things like providing a family pic-nic, going shooting at the range, ice skating & Starbucks, going to the drive-in movies. Last year people did ice-blocking, miniature golf, dinner out, dinner at home. I may be giving this to someone else, but I also get the gift of being with them. This idea is impacting more than Christmas now. My mom and dad are typically hard to buy for on any occasion. For my mom's birthday I offered to take her out to lunch four times and pay. With my dad, I take him to sporting events. They love these gifts, I love giving them, and we get to build our relationship spending time together.
One thing we have been working toward in our family, is less gift chaos. You may have a family that is resistant to cutting out gifts. That’s how our family is. So, we have had to take small steps each year. We have tried only buying gifts for the kids. Then we added buying gifts for kids and for your parents, but no other relatives. We are going to try to stick with that one. Angie and I give gifts to each other whenever we find something throughout the year, so we didn't give gifts to each other last year, and aren't going to this year. We aren't giving a bunch of gifts to Joshua either. Instead, we are going to take the money we would have spent on each other and Joshua and we are going to buy an animal, like a cow, to be sent to a needy family in a third world country, through World Vision or Samaritan's Purse.
I hope you will join us in choosing less chaos and stress this season, and focus more on Christ and giving things that make a difference in the heart or in eternity. God bless you.
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