I recently shared this with my church and thought it would be good to share here as well…
We will all soon be ready to exchange gifts with one another at Christmas. In past years that would mean that Paige and I would be frantically shopping to find gifts for our family members and friends. The funny thing is…none of them ever needed any new gifts. They already had more stuff than would fit in all their closets and shelves. Have you experienced the same thing with your family? So instead of continuing to scratch our heads over what to buy, we decided to take a different approach these past few years.
Not only did we want to focus more on the true meaning of Christmas, we also wanted the children in our family to better understand the gift of Jesus and how His love should change our lives. Therefore, each adult in the now family brings about fifty bucks to put into a “pool” of funds. We then have the children in the family look through a Missions Catalog, such as the Samaritan’s Purse “Help Others at Christmas” gift catalog, to choose how we will spend the money to bless others.
The children have a great time in picking out items to help other children and families around the world – last year they chose baby chickens, a hive of honeybees, a fishing boat, medicine for health needs, Bibles, and more! Instead of searching through a toy catalog to shop for themselves, the children end up searching for gifts to give to other people in real need. This leads to some great “teachable moments” as we discuss with them the needs of others and how missionaries can use the gifts to share Christ with the families they serve. After choosing all the gifts, we say a prayer asking God to use the gifts to bless the families and to draw the family members to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
When we finished our Christmas celebration using this new tradition these past years, we hadn’t just swapped gift cards with one another… we felt that we had helped each other better understand the real meaning of Christmas by celebrating what Christ did for us and how important it is that we share Him. During this Christmas season, I hope that you will continue to think of ways to help your family be “on mission” for God.
And if your family does something special to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, share that with the rest of us. I know I’d love to hear about it and be able to share it with my church family to give them more ideas for next year!