Crispin Christmas 2010

Last year for Christmas we spent 5 weeks at home, but that was actually the first time we had gone home for Christmas during the season. In the past, we either stayed where we were (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008) or Joe did not have a job yet, so we were already home (2006 and 2007). This year we thought about heading home once again.  But we looked at what it would require:  1) a short trip for us all (6 days for a whole lot of money in plane tickets for the 6 of us), 2) me traveling by myself to stay longer, or 3) us paying for 7 tickets so we can have someone fly with me at least one way. So with those options, we decided it would be better to just stay put and enjoy a quiet Christmas by ourselves this year.

At times it can be hard to celebrate holidays on your own. I don’t tend to struggle with it as much as Joe does.  But there are traditions I miss, as well as just being around family. But so many other basketball wives whose husbands have now retired say that in some ways they miss the years of being overseas during the holidays. Everything is slow, relaxed and you get some really great family time that is hard to come by when you are back in the States. So we decided to make the most of this year and really think about setting the tone for Christmas from this point forward.

** Disclaimer: This is not a post to make anyone feel guilty about how they do Christmas. I am simply sharing about how we chose to do Christmas this year. We are certainly not the standard and are not even totally set on how it will go from here on out. This is just how we chose to celebrate Christmas this year. We enjoyed it, so I am posting on it

So I have been thinking about Christmas a lot over the past few years and how it could really be more about the birth of Christ. Being overseas, you do miss out on much of the commercialism of the holiday, which I see as plus, so I figured we were one step ahead there this year. We have also settled into a good Advent routine that I felt was preparing our hearts for an anticipation of celebrating the great gift of Jesus coming to earth as our Savior.

But it still seemed like it wasn’t totally about Christ’s birth for one reason: the day always seemed to be more about presents. We could talk about the birth of Jesus as much as we wanted, but when Christmas Day came and we were left at the end of the day with a mountain worth of toys and things for me to find room for, I had a hard time seeing that the kids had thought much about Jesus or anyone else on that day. So a series of events lead up to a change for us this year:

1. For some reason I remembered being in high school and opening presents over at my grandparents’ house on Christmas. There were only 4 grandchildren, so we each took turns opening. And one year it came to my cousin Nathan and he just had a couple of envelopes. And in those envelopes were donations made for the poor in other countries to receive gifts of livestock. I remember my initial thought being “That’s weird.” But when I heard that he had asked simply for donations to his favorite charity because he really didn’t need anything, I thought it was really cool. And I desired to have a heart free from material things like that.

2. Two years ago, my friend Maria sent me a video from Advent Conspiracy. It really got me thinking about how we feel like we “need” to buy gifts for people. And how so few people in our lives actually need much of anything.

3. Then I read about one family’s experience with not giving gifts on Christmas Day and instead finding ways to worship and to give gifts to Jesus by giving to “the least of these” (Matthew 25:37-40) over on A Holy Experience.

So after a few conversations, Joe and I decided we were going to try and change things up. We had never gotten the kids a ton of stuff at Christmas (I guess, I just say that in comparison to what others I know give). But this year we picked out two small things for each of the three children (we are the mean kind of parents who don’t get gifts for a baby) and then would let them each pick out something for each other. The gifts we had picked out were coming from a package from my Mom and was not looking like it would get here by Christmas though (not her fault, actually the first time one of her packages hasn’t gotten here in 2 weeks…under “investigation” now!) So on Christmas Eve. we decided we would just let Abby and Elijah give something to each other and pick out one thing for Naomi. So we did a last minute run to the store. We decided they would open the gift on Christmas Eve., so that Christmas Day we could focus on some other things. They also ended up receiving a gift on Christmas Eve. from the sister of the President of Joe’s club whose home we spent some time at on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Day, we really tried to focus on the birth of Jesus. We had signs put up with Scripture celebrating the birth of Jesus, which we read at Christmas. We had balloons for His birthday and a birthday cake that we ate after dinner (we even sang, but I had to stop at the candles because how do you know how many to put on for an eternal God? Plus, then who blows them out?) We did family worship time and sang a lot of the hymns we had been singing throughout the month. We read the Christmas story in the Bible, storybook Bible and in our advent calendar. We ate a nice dinner and gave thanks for Jesus and one another. It was a really relaxed and fun day.

The highlight of the day for everyone I think though was picking out gifts for Jesus. I made some simple construction paper ornaments that we had sitting by us as we looked through the Compassion, Gospel for Asia and Harvest of Hope websites. The kids each picked out one gift they paid for on their own and then were able to pick out 5 other gifts that we paid for. As a family we then decided on a family gift. We couldn’t decide between a Jesus Well and a house for a family in Bangladesh, so we did both.  I then wrote each of the gifts we gave on the ornaments and we hung them all on our tree.  It was so fun to go through and see all the wonderful ways we could be a blessing to others.

Here are a few things I learned through that experience:

1. A lot of my hold-up from not wanting to do something like this earlier was from fear of man. What would people think when they heard we didn’t give our kids a load of gifts on Christmas? I think I was half-expecting the “child police” to knock on my door and ask for an explanation. It is off-beat, so it is not an easy thing to do when others may think you are a bit weird.

2. I also had thoughts running through my mind of my own Christmas memories. You can start to think that you are taking away the “magic” of childhood when you do stuff like this. This thought did not stick for long though because I had thought that one through when we decided not to do Santa and I know that good memories can be formed from lots of things. Good memories are often formed about the things that parents do with joy and get their own children excited about.

3. I understand the whole “we give gifts because we are being like Jesus who gave Himself as a gift”. But the more I thought about it, Jesus gave Himself to us because we HAD to have Him. We could not save ourselves. That kind of gift is giving to those IN NEED. I think that is why the giving we did this year was more enjoyable and felt more Christmas-like.

4. I also realized that I want to break free from the pressure of “having” to give gifts on certain days (Christmas, birthday, etc.) Of course on a birthday, I want to encourage that person who is special in my life with how much they mean to me. And maybe it is through a gift. But maybe it is through a letter. Or a photo video showing our special times together. Or a time out together to celebrate our relationship. I still want to give gifts, but I want them to be overflows of my heart. I want to see something I think would bless a person, buy it and give it to them. Not “save” it for their birthday or Christmas.

5. The kids also showed me how much more they enjoy two presents than fifty. They played with the two things they got so much more than they ever played with any one of the fifty they had gotten in the past years. I have always believed that kids are stifled by having too many things, but this Christmas really put that into reality for me.

So just some things that this Christmas taught me. I don’t know how it will work next year. I don’t know how it will work when we are home and relatives have gifts for the kids. I do know that this was one of my most favorite Christmas’s and that must say something.