the Season for Giving

Now is the time to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas and how I'm living up to the values I say I believe in. For me, that means focusing on the birth of Christ and spending time with my family. To reinforce those ideas, my husband and I have agreed to forgo giving each other and the kids individual presents this year in favor of more family-oriented gifts. Even though last year we opted for arts and crafts gifts almost exclusively, which was nice, this year we will take it a bit further and buy only items that promote family activity and interaction and that we can enjoy all throughout the new year. I'm thinking things like board games and museum memberships. I've wanted memberships as gifts for years but it seems to have taken us a while to get here. Now that Zoë is 2 and understands everything we say and do, I feel much more compelled to get going in this direction than before. I don't want her to get in the habit of the Christmas "gimmes." No, we'll save birthdays for that!

We began our Season of Giving by cleaning out many of her old toys they weekend after Thanksgiving. I explained to her that Thanksgiving is for saying "thank you" to those we love and that we say thank you to God by giving all the "lonely" toys she doesn't play with to other kids without toys. And now I've been explaining to her that Christmas is to celebrate Jesus' birthday. Whenever we see a Christmas tree with presents, I tell her those are for Baby Jesus and she bursts into the Happy Birthday song!

As for the rest of the family, the plan is to make gifts to give this year. That way we each have hands-on involvement in the making of others' gifts, which promotes the family bonding thing I'm working on. That's been the plan every year for a couple years but we always fall short, lose time, and end up buying a bunch of half-arsed stuff at the last minute. My biggest pet-peeve. But anyway, that's the plan. And like a lot of my plans, this one is lacking creativity & skill. I loathe tacky hand-made gifts and since Zoë is only two, tacky is about all she can make right now. I suppose my parents would love it anyway, but I still cringe at the thought. My husband will probably be making his world famous spaghetti sauce but I have nothing up my sleeve. My goal this week is to browse as many craft sites as possible and post about the ones I deem worthy of giving this year. Do you have an idea for me? Let me know!