Our Simple Things...

Last year at Christmas, my whole perspective in giving was challenged in great ways. When I begin to consider what gift to give a loved one, the conversation in my head begins....

...how much should I spend? How much are they spending on me? What should I buy? Will they be impressed with that gift? What are they buying me?

Because of Advent Conspiracy, I was challenged.

The first thing I had to do, like I mentioned, was change my perspective on giving. If I did choose to give someone a gift, I wanted to thoroughly enjoy doing it in the spirit of Christmas. I wanted to keep my focus on loving that person, enjoying the blessing they are in my life, and giving them a gift to celebrate our greatest gift, Jesus. This was so freeing for me....to bring the focus on giving and celebrating as oppose to focusing only on the gift.

We decided to greatly reduce the amount of money spent on people, because believing (money = amount of love) is just not true. This actually allowed us to give more gifts, which was SO fun. I really enjoy giving gifts.

I baked lots and lots and lots of chocolates. We packaged them in Christmas tins and shipped them to all of our family. Our immediate family was the only people we bought gifts for....with my changed perspective from above.

A few days before Christmas, we drove around our neighborhood with the back hatch open in our car. B and I sat in the back (super fun for him) and we hopped out at neighbors' homes and gave tins of chocolates to them as well. I hope this becomes a tradition for us.

As Christmas approaches, we encouraged 'giving' talk with the boys instead of 'getting' talk. Who can we give to? What can we give? How can we serve and love this Christmas, like Jesus served and loved?

We tried to keep the number of gifts the boys received to a minimum. This was actually very easy. They were completely thrilled on Christmas with their new items, giving any more stuff would have just been absolutely overwelming. We try to save big gifts for their birthdays, when it actually is a day all about them.

These are all very simple things, I hope to do even more this year. For me, it really was just a challenge on my perspective toward giving at Christmas. You don't have to be a reader of our blog for long to know I'm in a radical relationship with Jesus. Sometimes, it's a relationship I enjoy. Other times, it's hard and I wonder if He's really there. But He is. He was born to save us and offer life abundantly. I don't think it's bad to give gifts at Christmas. But I just don't think it's what it's all about.

It can be about so much more.

Comments

  1. I am SO proud of the kind of parents "my" girls have become. Love you all so much,
    Mama M

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  2. Julz, I love you and your sincere, sweet and thought out spirit! The tables have turned my daughter, I am learning from you! :) Your Momma

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  3. ohhhh. you are challenging me my friend...as you often do. since we talked about this i've been about this a lot. thanks.

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  4. i miss you Julie! Let's be friends.

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