The Worst Gift to Give ...

  A few Christmases ago, I was different than I am now. I wanted to make the holidays perfect for my children. Perfect in the world's sense of the meaning, and not my own. Certainly not in Christ or the meaning of Christmas. Everything had to be wrapped super neat with paper and a bow. We would shop for months picking up every thing we saw or thought that child would like so that Christmas morning was one where the kids would come down the stairs and be in utter disbelief, at what sat before them on that morning.

 At the time and for years before hand it was just how things were always done. Since we were first married it was something we had both thought was something that would bring happiness, laughter and love. I was 16 when I got married, this is how things worked while I grew up, so surely it had to work for me as well. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that what came of such, isn't actually the way it worked out. It took me many years to figure out that the packages and bows aren't all they are cracked up to be.

 Sure, we seemed happy enough, the kids would sit mesmerized at what "Santa" had brought, had left for them and the mere fact, that he had even eaten their cookies. Staring at wonder and amazement at all the glittering bows and shiny paper, fingers would ravage and sounds of glee were heard. Since that time however, I have learned now, that wasn't the only thing that "Santa" left behind with him those mornings.

 Consumerism and materialism are at a height in our country, and it didn't dawn on me till we almost lost everything that receiving LESS, is actually MORE. Sure, call me stupid, for not heeding the warnings. This was at a time my husband had a great job, we had a good amount of money and just 3 children. All my older children ever knew was name brand clothing or high end toys. I don't honestly know now; looking back, if I did it for me ... or for them. What did they know about toys or the value of something ? Who taught them the value of these things ? I had thought for many years it was others ... when all the time it was actually me.

  My oldest is now 21 and I can see him doing things that now honestly, I wish he wouldn't, but he got it from me, because of moments like this. Never once did I ever think to make the holidays something of less, so that it would be so much more. Never had I thought that in teaching them so little they would actually learn so much. In my neglect prior to becoming a Christian, my kids only knew Christmas as the holiday that you were given gifts by the big red suited guy. Maybe if you were good you got a bit more and if you were bad, that left you on the naughty list.

  Truth is, Should I ever have told my children they were being watched all the time or being put on a naughty list by some complete stranger ? Why should their behavior become different to gain "gifts" from others, especially that of Mom and Dad. Our love as parents,  should be unconditional, unbias, never faltering and always there, but just saying it with words doesn't make it so. Actions need to follow.  My children shouldn't have had to act differently to win some approval of a guy in a red suit. That was never even the meaning for the holiday, yet I was taught this and was following that of which I was taught. There in, the things and stuff became more important.

  Don't get me wrong, it is great to have an imagination, but carrying on like this makes the holiday so much more about the gifts and less about Christ. So little about the people in our lives and more about the things they can give or can do for us. All those years of raising my oldest children I spent shopping for petty little things. Things I do not even think we have anymore. Those were times I should have spent playing a game or reading to them. Making cookies or spreading joy to others, even beyond our own doors. Time is a priceless gift. It cannot be bought, returned or exchanged and is FREE. Love, much the same, comes better when earned and not bought. I had no clue.

  Now I see it and have made a change, my younger children do not know the holidays as our eldest ones did. What you see before you under that tree, would be enough for all now, let alone just the 3 kids at the time. I learned the hard way the worst gift I could give, was in the thoughtless and numerous things  I thought were going to bring happiness. Momentary and temporary happiness was quickly gone along with the years. Those presents, now don't matter anymore than they did sitting on the shelves in the store before I bought them. Maybe a few have stayed, some broke, some ended up in a yard sale or at Goodwill ... but the lasting impression of "too much" is what the children learned more so than what was under the paper.

  It is so easy to loose sight of the fact that their is in deed a bigger picture than what we can see. Life is but a vapor and gone before we know it. We shouldn't spend what time we do have here worried about things to fill under the tree, what our kids are going to think, what their friends might think of them or the nieghbors, because in the end, all that will really matter is the time. The people in our lives bear so much more significance than that of just objects. It is so easy to get entrapped into the way the world wants us to think today and not that there ever was a day Christ was born. Simple fact is, we have a savior, he was born on Christmas and we have to be the generation to break the cycle of consumerism and materialism. Our kids deserve that, they deserve the best us, instead of the best "stuff" from us. Years down the road, the stuff will have no meaning but instead what is remembered is the time we spent with each other.Those times will be passed to thier children and then thier children.

 The Bible tells us in Matthew, Chapter 6, verses 19 and 20 "

 

 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal".

 

What we were given on the day of Christmas was the gift of life, through Jesus who was born on this day. If we hold life sacred, knowing that this, above all else we see or do, knowing that we came in and shall leave the earth with nothing, all the things we posses, except for life itself, are not ours and therefore mean nothing. Let us remember .. or at least start to learn this holiday that it shouldn't be about the paper or bows, the guy in the red suit, the cookies or the things that are given, but life itself, that is the greatest gift of all.

 

Tammie