A New Christmas Tradition

Every year growing up, we would get piles of presents. The tree was buried in them, they would take up the whole room. Even if my parents were broke, they would scrape up the money to get us dollar items or make us things. I loved it. And I love watching my boys open presents, and I imagine the joy that will fill their eyes as I shop and hide things in the closets.

This year I decided that the kids don't need any more stuff. And we all definitely need a reminder of what the season is really about.

The hardest part, is how much I enjoy watching them open the presents and crawling through a living room strewn with wrapping paper to find more! So I knew we would need to replace that joy with something even better.

This year we are going to give a present to Jesus, as we remember his birth this Christmas. We have a box that is wrapped nicely, and every time some one does something nice for any one else, we will write it down and put it in the box. Then on Christmas morning, we will read the nice things that have been done and talk about how happy this makes Jesus.

We unveiled the plan last night, after decorating for Christmas and reading the story of Jesus' birth. The boys had seen the "present" earlier in the day, and were very excited when I pulled it down off the entertainment center to explain what it was for. Roman seemed on board, and then Isaac asked how we were going to give the gift to Jesus. Ben told him that if he had been listening, he would know. So Isaac started thinking very hard...

"Put it up in the sky?"... "No".

"Just wait until we die?"

There we had to laugh. Very logical guesses actually, we were impressed.

It took another minute, and I'm not sure that he truly got it, but we tried to explain that when ever we do good things for others, Jesus knows and it makes him happy.



In case you are worried about my poor neglected children... they are getting scooters from mom and dad and a stocking from Santa. Just not the gobs of presents that have resulted in a toy room too full to play in!!