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Inspired

I was very inspired by a post that my friend Emily recently wrote. Emily and her husband are not "present people". They don't go crazy every year worrying about buying the right gifts for everyone who could have "possibly" bought a gift for them. I am the polar opposite of that. I LOVE buying gifts for people. I am a recovering shopoholic, so the majority of my spending pleasure now comes around the holidays and is centered around the adventure of finding the perfect gifts for all 32 people on our list...yes 32 people!! I am also the person who LOVES receiving gifts. I spend the 25 days leading to Christmas dogearring catalogs and letting everyone know what my Wish List consists of. After all, if you don't tell people what you want, how can you expect to get it, right?!?!

Well, this Christmas, Blake and I want to start a new trend in our family, one that is not centered around presents. So, as I read Emily's blog I was reminded of our goal. The part of Emily's post that both inspired and convicted me was this: "It’s funny that Christians do Christmas just like the rest of America…shouldn’t that be like the ONE holiday where we look different than everyone else? And not just by adding a Christmas Eve service to the mass chaos this season has turned into?"

This year, rather than focusing on giving presents to the 32 people on our list, we are going to focus instead on showing those 32 people the Presence of the Christmas season, and point them to the best gift we could ever give, Jesus. We, like so many families from Cross Timbers are also learning more about this whole Advent Conspiracy concept in order to make Christmas 2008 what it was meant to be for our family! One tradition that I want to begin this year is one that started in my house growing up. Every year, my mom would set a small, empty basket beside the tree. Beside that basket was another basket that was filled with hay. The empty basket was for baby Jesus, and every time myself, Evan or Jessica would perform a random act of kindness, we put straw in Jesus' basket. The purpose was to give baby Jesus a soft place to sleep on Christmas. One of the first things I would run to see at 5 am(yes we were early risers) on Christmas morning was baby Jesus lying in his manger. It kept the focus on the Presence instead of the presents, and I want to do the same for my children.

What new or old traditions are part of your family Christmas? Any that you want to stop or new ones to incorporate into the holiday season?

Comments

Melanie said…
We are doing this year what we heard about a couple of years ago from our sweet friend Jamie Farrar and her sister... it is the idea of the 3 gifts from the wisemen who each brought a gift to Jesus when He was born. Gold, frankincense and myrrh- one large or more expensive gift that the child would really want, one that would help in their spiritual growth and one that is of "smelly good" stuff. We are doing just 3 gifts for each child, keeping it more thoughtful, more meaningful and less crazy!
December 5, 2008 at 11:13 PM
Anonymous said…
I love this idea Jamie! Isn't it great to think about actually raising your children in a way that can effect the generations yet to come? I even actually like to think about when our great, great grand children will sit around and talk about how crazy and different Great Great Grandpa Andy and Great Great Grandma Emily were but how we set things in place to shape even who they have become years later. Love it.
December 6, 2008 at 7:36 AM
Andi Hawkins said…
I love the basket idea. What a perfect illustration for our kids!!
December 7, 2008 at 3:52 PM
Sallie said…
Sweet Jamie. This year is a hard year for everyone with the economy. It forces us to think of what really matters. We decided to give three gifts to each other this year. After all, Jesus received three gifts. We can't control relatives of course.
December 12, 2008 at 8:09 PM
Denyse said…
What a neat idea! I can just see those precious little ones of yours trying extra hard to earn hay to make a soft place for Baby Jesus. =)
December 12, 2008 at 9:24 PM
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