Well, Christmas is coming, and it is coming very quickly, so I have kicked my "give unto others" into over drive! I do like to give through out the entire year, yet this time of year I feel it is so very important to make others know they are loved and wanted! As a divorced parent who was single for 2 holiday seasons, I must say that it was the hardest time of year for me. Not just financially, but emotionally, physically and even mentally. I had to go to all of the family events alone and watch everyone with their spouses and boyfriends/girlfriends, laugh and just enjoy each other. Due to the current events that took place in my life, I would now sit at the "Single" table (not really, but you get the point of what I am saying) and watch. My heart would break. It would break for me and it would break for my kids, because they would never again see that interaction between their parents. I shunned Christmas! I no longer loved it and I no longer wanted it to visit my humble abode. Then, God blessed my life with my amazing husband and the heavens opened up, the poo storm that had been my life for two years stopped, the birds started chirping and far off in the distant corners of the heart the Hallelujah Chorus could be heard, "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah!" God new I had being feeling horrible so in a very subtle way, he let me know I was loved, I was wanted, He was listening and all would be ok. (Now, you may not be Christian, and that is fine - I respect you, but take my writing of God and insert whatever leads you and makes you feel good, because this is not a post about God, it is a post about feeling like you are needed, wanted and can contribute, and then give all that back to the world around you). So remember at Christmas, people may be having the hardest time with losing someone or something that was dear to them. They may be ready to just break and you could be their shining light and Hallelujah Chorus!
So, in the story, brighter days are here again! The holidays are wonderful and full of love and hope and all things cinnamon scented and fattening! I am looking forward to not just the holidays again, but Christmas. That whale of a holiday at the end of the year that could make or break your bank account and leave your child exhausted and happy and running around with a perma-grin! That holiday! Now, play this as a movie inside your mind - 2004, Christmas comes, the kids get tons of gifts, play with only 1/4 and set the rest aside, mom cleans them up in their room for the remainder of the year: 2005, Christmas comes, the kids get tons of gifts, play with only 1/4 and set the rest aside, mom cleans them up in their room for the remainder of the year: 2006, Christmas comes, the kids get tons of gifts, play with only 1/4 and set the rest aside while mom cleans them up day after day after day: 2007, Christmas comes, the kids get tons of gifts, play with about 1/2 this year and set the rest aside and mom, as always, gets to clean them up for the remainder of the year: 2008, Christmas comes, the kids get tons of gifts, play with them and then set the rest aside and mom AGAIN becomes SUPER MAID: 2009, ENOUGH!!!! No way, not again! I have cleaned up unused Christmas gifts for the last time! I have heard my last "I really love this stuff, but I wish I would have got..." (and IT was only left out because it made the Christmas list Christmas EVE!) I had reached my point (you know, that point that everyone has - the point where you ask yourself if the fire chief would NOT have you charged with arson if you piled the last 5 years of Christmas toys up in the road in front of your house and lit the night sky up! - yupper, THAT point.) This year, this 2009 Christmas, it is going to be different. I am no longer buying items that go unused, I am no longer feeding into this society where it is ok to spoil and spoil your kids without teaching them consequence (which is what I did when I bought them whatever they wanted and then let them be wasteful and then cleaned up their messes). I thought to myself "Well this year, this year they are going to GIVE their Christmas Away!". Now, before anyone starts screaming that this is so selfish on the part of the parents (ME and my husband) or neglectful, or some form of twisted twenty first century abuse, please read further - Disclaimer: No Children were harmed in the making of this Christmas.
So, we have now decided we are going to teach the children the meaning of giving. The first year, 2009, we got together with a couple that we had been friends with for quite some time and we tried to formulate a plan of what exactly we were going to do to give back that year. I was confused. My family had never given in this way at Christmas when I was a young child, those few very short years ago. The other mother hopped on the phone with the local schools and "VOILA!" the very next day we had INSTA-FAMILY! We were very excited. I sat my children down and I told them that we had found a very neat process that our community completed each year in which a family would adopt another family at Christmas. I gave them all the details and to my astonishment - Not ONE of them became seriously ill or went insane. So this, this is a good start! I then took the kiddos shopping!!! We picked out all kinds of stuff for the children on the list (a private, no names list just with gender and age). My children really did have a great time doing it. Then, at Christmas they cam downstairs to an array of beautiful gifts and toys all their very own. So they opened them, they loved them, they gave thanks for them, then they played with a 1/4 of them, set them aside and for the entire year of 2010 I cleaned up unused Christmas gifts. Um, I was seeing the error in my plan! So, in 2010 we chose to do things a tad bit different! I found a book - Giving Christmas Away by Mark West, a Christian Artist. I had received it the year before and it may be the inspiration, that and the supreme dislike of cleaning the kids rooms, for the change in the 2009 Christmas. This year I read the book!! I found amazing ideas in how we could give our Christmas away. So for 2010 I began the process of truly "GIVING OUR" Christmas away. We didn't just go out and buy extra this year, we gave. We gave from our heart, our faith and our own wish lists! My children made their Christmas lists for Christmas. My husband and I went out and bought 2/3rds of the list (NOT the entire list this year) and after buying - we took 2 items from each list and GAVE those items away. I just bagged a couple things up and off they went to the magical giving fairy that takes up residency in the bottom of the Toys for Tots box! Now, before you think that this was a horrible thing to do - make the children painstakingly make a list of all the things that their little hearts desire and then GIVE the stuff on the list away - the children did NOT even know what they gave away. They never missed it. They new their Christmas Mother Load on Christmas morning was smaller, yet they never missed what they didn't get! A light went on in my brain! They wanted those items, yet they didn't need them. They loved those items while on the store shelves, but never missed them when they were not under the tree. A revelation had happened! My children, my loving children, were NOT greedy, they were SPOILED! I did it! It was me! They wanted all of it, but I made the choice to GIVE all of it! Well, not this year!
2011 is going to be different! We have declared it a "Non-Technology or Electronics" Holiday! Going old school!~ And this year we are teaching them the process of giving with a happy heart! They are making a choice of 2 gifts they can NOT live without. And those are the two items they WILL receive. Then we are going to donate, donate, donate! We are going to donate the one thing that ALWAYS brings OUR family and extended family closer and that is FOOD! We will be donating full meals to families, churches and shelters. We will be donating our time and services and we will be "Giving Our Christmas Away!"
Now for every single one of you that thinks we are doing this in order to be stingy and slimy and try to get away with out spending money on our children - that is NOT the case. We will spend the same this year as we have in all the years past. Our children will have a wonderful Christmas with their measly two gifts - but they will open them at a local Splash Park/Hotel where we will spend TIME with one another enjoying our family! But not until after we give!
