Giving

Our community group (of young families) decided to do a little outreach to our church's neighbors ... something that even our preschool children could participate in. We assembled plastic gift bags full of either a pretty ornament or a Christmas mug w/hot cocoa, rolled up an invitation to our church's Christmas services, and tied them together with a candy cane and its story. We delivered close to 200 gifts to those that live in the neighborhood closest to our church. As before when we've done something similar to this outreach, the average resident is truly dumbfounded by a gift from a church...for no reason at all...with no strings attached. I love it! Sam enjoyed handing them to the door answerers and greeting them with a "Merry Christmas!", while Zach got the hang of what we were doing and handed the last gift to its completely surprised recipient from his spot in the stroller. Giving out of love and for simple giving's sake is much more fun for me than cruising through the mall seeking out what to get for even the slightly picky recipient on my list. I'd love to cultivate that in my children.

I've decided it's much more fun to give a gift of something that is a surprise than anything I would choose from an Amazon wish list. In fact, just this afternoon -- Doug and I came up with the PERFECT gift for his grandmother! We were so excited that we couldn't wait to check to see if they had it at Best Buy or Circuit City, we just ordered it directly from Amazon with 2-day shipping ... after our conversation, we just knew it was the gift for her for this Christmas. (Mind you -- we already had something else picked out and wrapped under the tree for her, so I guess she'll get two really great gifts!)

Giving to others ... a true reflection of my response to God's amazing present to me!