Seems like every Christmas we scale back a little more, a little more...
You'd think our older children would complain. But really? Our big kids are the strongest supporters for the idea of simplifying Christmas.
I don't have any 5-step plan for helping your kids to make that transition, but I do know that being somewhat disconnected from commercialism, media, and peer pressure makes a big difference. Okay, that's putting it mildly. We've not had TV for going on 8 years. And the kids are home schooled, so they just don't pick up on the consumerist fascination with all the newest ipads, ipods, and iphones. (And seriously, doesn't that stuff give you the creeps just a little bit??? Every new gadget is preceded by the word "I" - surreptitiously disguised in lower-case - so we don't notice our culture's overinflated, self-infatuated, indulgent obsession with SELF. Hey, I'm as obsessed with myself as the next girl..but sure don't want a series of "I" gizmos to remind me all the time!)
ANYway...the 'fewer gifts' part has come gradually. Adding another baby every couple of years sorta contributed to the process. 'Cause it's one thing to have 2 or 3 gifts for three children...but something else entirely to do that for five...or six...or seven children. And a couple of years ago, we realized the older children were trying to come up with cheap knick-knacks for the younger siblings, just to have another wrapped box under the tree. It was ridiculous, 'cause seriously, a 3 yr-old is just overwhelmed with seven gifts to unwrap, and does he really need yet another Rescue Hero???
We started last year with having the children 'trade names' between each other, so that each one gives a gift to one sibling. The big kids have so much fun hunting for that special treasure, and we help the little ones get a special present for their older sibling. Then each child also gets one gift from Mommy & Daddy. So two presents to open on Christmas morning.
Sounds sparse? Well, this is what we've come to realize:
In our western culture, Christmas morning anticipation is all about the excitement of getting gifts. What did I get? What else? Did I get everything on my list? Is that all?
Yuck.
Christmas morning anticipation should be about the excitement of togetherness, slowing down, receiving the free gift of Jesus Christ, our Emmanuel.
My 10 yr-old, Eliza, is reading a "Little House in the Prairie" series. With wonder, she's read aloud sections where the storybook children are above-all overjoyed to simply have family & friends with them on Christmas day - to get a piece of fruit and one candy stick in their stocking - where gifts are a homemade doll or wagon or pop gun. They needed so much, and yet were satisfied with so little.
While we who have so much always clamor for more, and yet are satisfied with nothing.
I have so much. More than I need; every week passing along another bag of hand-me-downs to goodwill. I am obesely wealthy, grotesquely abundant. And yet I want more. A new hair dryer. My favorite honeysuckle lotion and Eucalyptus-Spearmint Pillow Mist from 'Bath & Body Works.' A pair of jeans from someplace other than Goodwill. New rugs & towels for the guest bath. Snow tires for the suburban, a brake job, a tune-up for the jeep. Railing on the back deck, covered porch on the front, carport at the side entrance. I need those things. Don't I?
It's repulsive.
There is nothing, nothing I need.
Every day, every week, every month, all my needs are met in Him.
"He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" - Romans 8:32
I know this, and still, it is hard to live my faith. At Christmas, when we so easily say "it is more blessed to give than to receive" - it is so hard to really give. Really give. What is truly from the Spirit, of the heart, pouring out of a place of love & joy instead of duty & guilt.
Because who on your Christmas list really needs anything? Not my sister. Not my in-laws. Nor my parents, or friends. They are all as obesely, overflowingly abundant as we are.
Yet - There are those who need my true giving. Our neighbors, who need a simple gift of homemade bread, a note of appreciation & encouragement. My brother, who needs my continued reaching out with humility and reconciliation. The woman at church with a troubled son, who needs my time & attention & hugs, and is longing for a cross collection to brighten her meager home. Family across the miles, who ache with missing grandbabies, who rejoice over pictures & crafts & phone calls from 4-yr-olds. Our Compassion daughter, Nancy, in Tanzania, who writes that she was so happy to receive our letter, that she 'feasted' on beans at her auntie's house.
And my own children. They don't need more gifts, they need more giving - of my time, patience, love, affection, down-time, delight. When I have to press for ideas on a 'wish list' (isn't that the repulsively-self-indulgent traditional Santa-focused question for American kids? "what do you want for Christmas???"), I know that my kids don't need or even want another present. Not as much as they want my presence.
The excitement of our Christmas morning should be for the onset of uninterrupted days of games & talking & laughing, our final Advent celebration of His Arrival, building a new popsicle-stick-village, hiking thru the snow-covered-lacey-bare Aspens to 'Quartz Hill', crowding into the kitchen to make Jesus' birthday cake, bowling with baseballs & empty 2-liter-bottles in the upstairs hallway. Togetherness. Loving one another.
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." -John 13:34
So this year, we've tried to focus on more giving, but fewer gifts.
Not as many presents, but more presence. Our presence, for one another - and His presence, in our home, centering our celebration.
It's a work in progress. Haven't 'arrived' by any stretch of the imagination. We're enormously inspired by Ann Voskamp's post here:
http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/11/christmas-its-just-deciding-whose-birthday-it-really-is/
Next Christmas will be another step in our pursuit of His Presence, as we continue to diminish the pursuit of wrapped presents.
More giving; fewer gifts.
