So, make it different. Be the change. Buy a goat for that hard to buy for person that has everything and give it to a family in honor of that hard to buy for person. What would be more awesome than knowing your Christmas gift was money that purchased a goat for a family who is starving somewhere on the other side of the world? I think that is such a wonderful gift to receive. Someone else has something to help sustain their family instead of me taking back that sweater that didn't fit just quite right.
We go so overboard with me me me. I don't want my children to think that Christmas is just about them getting gifts. I want them to know that that is when other people in the world take a day to remember Christ's birth, and that we remember it everday, not just Christmas Day. We remember his birth and death everyday. We remember the life he lived, the examples he gave. The biggest example being, He GAVE. He gave everything for us. He gave his life. I want them to do things that they think Jesus would do if he were here right now walking with us (physically).
Like I said a few weeks ago we are doing things differently. We are trying. The last several years we started changing things, but I think this year will be the best. I cannot wait for everyone to open their gifts, the gifts that gave to more than just the person opening on Christmas morning. They give hope to someone else.
I cannot believe I did not know about Operation Christmas until this year. Beth Brodine, Mommy to Leia's His Hands Sister, posted about it, and I am so so glad. I told David about it and he was pumped about it too. Our kids had the best time buying toys for other children. They smiled, laughed, and ran up and down the ailes looking for things that they thought the children would want. They were selfless...not once did they ask me if I would buy something for them. In their little hearts they knew this was for someone who had nothing, never received a gift, didn't have toy of their own. If we all could be like little children with a giving heart. They kept saying things like, "Oh mommy, I really like this so I think this would be something they would like," "Mommy, they are going to love this," "Mommy I wish I could take it to them so I can see their smile, because that would make me so happy."
The ideas are endless of how to change Christmas. Their are those scraping pennies to bring their child home from an orphanage who are selling such wonderful things, buying animals and so many other things through www.worldvision.org. I have a couple links on the sidebar that go to sites of people selling some awesome things to raise money for their adoptions. And Operation Christmas is an awesome experience for the whole family.
So, when you start getting stressed over the holidays think on this....there are children and families all over the world who have never seen a turkey, will not see food on Christmas day or the day before of days after, they will drink Cholera contaminated water (if they have water at all), they will sit in the orphanage that is so cold their hands feel like they will fall off, children wil have no family to smile and play with through the holidays or after, widows are leaving their small children for 16 or more hours that day in search of a morsel to feed them so that they do not die, a baby will no longer be sustained by breast milk and the family will leave it on the doorstep of an orphanage because they know if they don't the baby will die, 30,000 children will die that day and every day before and after. So, be thankful. Be thankful that you can Be the Change and make Christmas different for you and for them.
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