This holiday is going to be pretty tight financially. For the kids, it will mostly be a Craigslist Christmas, with just a couple of "new" gifts thrown in. Amanda and I aren't even planning on exchanging gifts. But if there's one thing that this holiday season has been teaching me so far, it's perspective.
Probably like a lot of churches, ours has an angel tree every season, where we can pick a person(s) to buy a gift for. Each tag has the requested gift, as well as the age and gender of the child that the gift is for. I was approaching the table nonchalantly, thinking that this Christmas is pretty tough for us, so we probably won't be worrying about getting presents for anyone except ourselves this year.
Then I started reading the info on the tags. The gifts that were being requested were things like pajamas and diapers, and most of the kids' ages were in the single digits. I thought about what it would be like for my children to need such bare necessities as clothes and diapers to wear, or not having enough food to eat - and my heart just broke right there.
Our kids have a playroom - yes, a room full of toys for them to play in. Sure, most of those toys were acquired from friends or from Craigslist purchases (Amanda found a train table with trains and tracks for $30), and sure times may be a little tough right now. But they're likely to improve, and in the mean time our kids still have plenty of toys to play with, in addition to food, clothes, and shelter.
I called Amanda over, and we promptly picked up several tags. Pajamas for one, diapers for another, and a dump truck for someone else - we can do that. Praise God, we can do that.
2 comments:
That's a great perspective. My parents didn't have a lot of money when we were growing up and I remember getting things like a pack of crayons and coloring book for Christmas and I LOVED it. Kids are so unaware of finances when they are loved and the basics are cared for.
Great blog. Thanks for the perspective.
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