Proud Mom - Going to be the BEST Christmas EVER!!

I am sure most, if not all all of you have read the blog post from Lisa who "Cancelled Christmas."  It you haven't, check it out here.  This inspired me to make more of this holiday season by proposing the idea to my own family.

I did not  want a "forced" sharing of Christmas.  I wanted each member to fully agree to the plan with their own free will.  

Monday night, which is family night at our house, I sat my family down and told them I had something important to tell them.  I told them that I knew a family that had decided forgo their gifts this year in order to help those who truly need it.  This included writing a letter to Santa to let him know that they wanted Santa to find families that could use the toys and gifts more than their family did.  I told them about the service projects that Lisa and her family had already set up and talked about what a great opportunity for the true spirit of Christmas that will be for their family.

I then prefaced asking my family if they would like to embark on similar a Christmas adventure with pointing out the abundance of nice things we have been blessed with over the years.  I also made sure to emphasis that this would totally be their decision.  I proposed the project and immediately my middle son C-dog said, "Mom that is so cool because I was just going to ask you about giving our presents to kids who need it."   My youngest E-man agreed almost as readily as C-man.  My oldest, Sunshine, was a little hesitant at first but did agree to the project.  She was uncertain of how Christmas morning would play out without presents.  I assured her that we will do a good job of documenting our adventure and that Christmas morning will be focused not only on celebrating our togetherness and service this season, but on the true meaning of Christmas.  The whole reason we have a Christmas season to begin with.  The Birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I shared with them that true happiness comes from serving others.  I told them about a Christmas 10 years ago or so where a beloved co-teacher found herself in undesirable circumstances right before Christmas with her husband gone and no money for gifts for her two little kids.  I invited her to spend Christmas with us.  We had two little ones at the time and very little money ourselves.  Luckily our children were about the same age so we just divided what we were giving our children with her two little ones.  It was one of the best Christmases ever.  To this day when I see this co-teacher with whom I no longer work, she thanks me for that day.  That is true happiness.  Something money can't buy.  Gifts grow old, used, outdated, break, etc.  They never bring "true happiness."  True happiness comes in serving others and making others happy.  That is the kind of happiness that lasts a lifetime. Happiness that no one can take away.  

With tears in my eyes, I assured them that this will be a Christmas that none of us will ever forget.  We then brainstormed things that we could do to make this Christmas season more meaningful for others.  We decided that our first stop would be to the homeless shelter where we, as a family, have volunteered many times.  We took some of the money we would have spent on gifts for each other as bought a cartful of hats and gloves of all sizes.  

Our next adventure was to purchase blankets and to round up gently used blankets from our home to donate to the homeless shelter.  This is a project the youth at our church has put together.  

Next came choosing an angel from the angel tree to help out this Christmas.  

We have many more ideas and can't wait to get to as many of them as we can.  We are planning to support a fundraising activity for a parent of a student at our school who is suffering from cancer.  My daughter has a friend who spent a lengthy stay at Primary Children's Medical Center.  She thought it would be a great idea to take toys to the kids who have to spend their holidays at the hospital.  One of the biggest blessings so far has been to see the change in my children going from trying to decide what they want to get for Christmas, to deciding who we can help and how.   

I am so proud of my family for willingly giving up their own Christmas gifts this year to bless the lives of others.  I wouldn't call it cancelling Christmas...I would call it "Finding the True Meaning of Christmas."  

This is truly the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!