Reclaiming Christmas
What Jesus didn’t tell you about his birthday
Call me selfish but I have no idea what I got for Christmas last year. I could name you a few items for sure, but not everything. And I certainly could not list all the gifts I gave.
I doubt I’m alone on this. Christmas is supposed to be a chance to spend time with loved ones, but it seems to get more hectic and stressful every year. It is financially taxing and emotionally taxing on people who are alone or don’t get along with their families.
But this year I will change that. My family is trying a new approach. We are fortunate enough to already have all the things we need. So instead of getting each other more ‘stuff’, my parents, two brothers, their wives, two nieces and a nephew are all pitching in to help the less fortunate.
We are adopting a family in need in Canada and helping kids in Africa. Through the Salvation Army we have been paired up with a family with three children. We will team up to provide them with a Christmas dinner and gifts for the kids. One of my brothers traveled to Africa and has a special place in his heart for the children there. His family is buying mosquito nets to help prevent children from getting malaria.
Everyone wins. We help out people in our own community and abroad which feels great. Plus we all save ourselves a few hundred dollars and hours at the mall, fighting through crowds and searching for a parking spot. We have less ‘stuff’ we don’t actually need and instead of working overtime to pay for it all we actually get to spend time as a family. We plan to share stories about how grateful we are for our lives and each other.
We’ve never done anything like this before but I have a sneaking suspicion this just may be the most magical Christmas ever.
This is fantastic! It reminds me of a few Christmases ago when my family and I decided to have a ‘buy-nothing Christmas’ – the idea was to give gifts to each other that we hadn’t spent money on (aside from possible supplies), but rather had put some creativity into making. Baking, writing, sculpting, singing, creating… you name it, as long as it wasn’t shopping!
I wrote a story of a childhood memory for my mom, made a calendar with old photos for my sister, and framed photos taken in a photobooth with my dad. My sister and I also wrote a song about our extended family and performed it at our Christmas gathering. In doing all of this, it really made me think about how important these people are in my life, and was a very different process than the usual act of going out to buy something that I hope they will like.
Although subsequent Christmases haven’t been strictly buy-nothing, the general feeling has remained. While there are fewer presents under the tree, the ones that make their way there tend to be more meaningful, and we have all instead been able to spend more time, as Kate said, realizing “how grateful we are for our lives and each other.” That – along with delicious food – is what Christmas means to me.
And with all that saved time, money and energy, hopefully we can all be inspired by Kate and her family’s actions to do something valuable for people in the world who really are in need, at Christmas and always. Thanks Kate, for voicing an opinion that needs to be heard!
Thanks for the feedback Scarlett. I love the idea of writing songs and baking for each other. Maybe next year! People often complain about how materialistic the holidays have become and it’s nice to hear how people are changing that.