Christmas Blessing

It doesn’t make sense, but it was my favorite Christmas. It especially doesn’t make sense that it was our kids’ favorite Christmas…but it was.

It was a difficult year financially. Our expenses were high and income was low. We had a capital campaign at church and we committed a gift over and above our regular giving that was a stretch for us. And then we had some medical bills not covered by insurance.

Linda and I called a family meeting. We told our kids that things were tight for us this year, and the Christmas gifts were going to be lean and simple. They responded fine.

Then Linda introduced something she called, “The Blessing Tree.” Instead of ornaments, she filled the tree with colorful notes, taped closed. Each of the notes had a variety of things written on them. Most of them involved being a blessing to others, such as, “Write an anonymous encouraging note for someone at church, and secretly put it in their coat pocket.” Another was, “Leave Christmas cookies on someone’s doorstep.”

A few of the notes involved a treat…like going out for ice cream or watching a Christmas movie together. But most of them involved doing something for others.

And every evening, the kids took turns choosing a note, and all of us had to do whatever it said.

That year, the kids received nothing memorable under the tree. But none of them forgot the blessings on the tree. So much so that they asked if we could keep doing that every year.

I wish I could take credit for the idea. But the lesson I learned, along with our kids, was that life enjoyment has little to do with what we get, but almost everything to do with what we give. If you ask any of our kids about “The Blessing Tree,” they will tell you all about it with a gleam in their eyes. It brought more joy than any gift they ever received on a Christmas.

Some have asked me why I’m so anti-Santa Claus. I think the biggest reason is that I was led to believe he was real when I was a kid. And Christmas to me as a child was all about greed. I couldn’t wait to see what I would get. Christmas Day was a flurry of playing, trying to get around to everything I received. And by that night, I was bored with all of it. For me today, the beauty of Christmas is the opposite of what I experienced as a child. It’s supposed to be all about the giving of God’s Son. And that baby Jesus grew up to teach His followers to follow that example.

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” – Jesus (Acts 20:35).