But my second favorite thing about Christmas? It kind of goes hand in hand with the special Gift God sent us: Christmas is the season of giving! And giving is one of my most favorite things to do.
As a kid, of course I enjoyed getting presents at Christmas. What kid doesn't?! But I was also always excited to hand out gifts to my friends and family. I spent hours searching for the perfect gift for each person. I'm still the same way today; I love to gift my husband, family, and friends and I put a lot of thought into what each person receives. However, it's no surprise that gifting as a young adult (still fairly newly wed and a new parent) can be a bit expensive... or a lot expensive. This Christmas will be mine and Eric's fifth together and our first one as a family of three. We've decided to do things a bit differently. With a new baby, we've decided to cut back on much of the unnecessary Christmas spending and give in a way that gives back to our church and others in our community.
With just a few dollars, we've put together "goody bags" with a bottle of Gatorade, a pair of socks, and a snack inside, along with a Bible verse printed out on a slip of paper to hand out to some of the homeless people near Eric's work. He rides with his windows down a lot and is friendly with many of the people he sees sitting at stoplights or walking along the railroad tracks near his building, so he's going to keep the bags in the front seat of his truck and hand them out whenever he has the opportunity.
Vaught's not even three months old yet, but he's already outgrown a lot of clothes, mainly newborn and a few 0-3 month outfits and sleepers. Earlier tonight, I sat in the floor and went through his outgrown items and found so much that I could give away. There's a homeless shelter in the town where I work, so I'll be dropping some off there. I also filled two bags for Goodwill and Salvation Army. In the last couple years I've been told, "Don't donate to Goodwill; the CEO makes billions!" and "Don't give to Salvation Army; they hate gay people!" And here's all I have to say on the matter: what these CEOs or other people do with the money they make or the things they do or say is none of my business. What is my business, however, is that there are people in need, and it's my duty as a Christian woman to help them. I want to help more than anything, so if a young mother is digging through the racks at Goodwill in search of something in which to clothe her baby boy this winter, I know I've helped at least one person.
The third "gifting" we're going to do is for our four-legged friends at the local animal shelter. Unfortunately, they are a "kill shelter," meaning they euthanize animals after a certain amount of time. Even still, the people who work at the shelter are genuinely good folks who love the animals and try hard to find homes for them and want to give them as much love as they can while the animals are in their care. When we adopted Chance from this shelter, they told us that they don't have enough blankets and bedding for each dog, so instead they have to lie on newspapers on the concrete in their pins. "If we could have more blankets donated, each dog could have a bed," they told us. So last Christmas, I filled two large garbage bags with blankets and sheets and a few toys and treats and took them to the shelter. The workers there looked as if they were going to cry when I brought them in. After posting what we were doing on social media, several people pitched in and gave me blankets to donate, so I will probably post about it on Instagram and Twitter when we get ready to deliver to the sweet babies at the shelter!
The things mentioned above are just simple ways that we can give back to our community. It's not very much, but if we can make just one person smile this Christmas, that's more than enough for us!
Of course getting gifts at Christmas is fun, but we're looking forward to giving back this year without spending so much on each other and our family and friends. We're giving each other a new pair of shoes (we both really needed some new tennis shoes!) and a framed 5x7 of Vaught to our parents and grandparents-- more photos of him are all they really want anyway! As for Vaught? Our little nugget is getting bigger every day, so he's got some big boy clothes underneath the Christmas tree!
Merry Christmas to You and Yours!!!
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How are you gifting this Christmas?
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