Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Gifts, gifts, and more gifts?

Disclaimer: I am not Scrooge. I love gifts. I love Christmas.

So, our basement bedroom overfloweth with Christmas presents waiting (somewhat impatiently) to be wrapped... At the same time, our house overfloweth with stuff. Over the past few months, I have been realizing more and more just how much "STUFF" we have. And I'm not just talking about my particular house. Practically everyone I know has far many more things than we have ever needed. Now, I'm not saying that economic times are not hard, and I know that the dollar doesn't stretch as far as it used too. Indeed, I have friends and acquaintances that are in real trouble with respect to mortgages, rising grocery prices, and skyrocketing unemployment. I simply feel a need to purge my house of extra things. I am ready to cart everything off to Oasis ministries and Goodwill. Does anyone else see the crazy irony in the fact that while I feel this way, I am purchasing gifts to fill up my house and the houses of our friends and relatives yet again. Yikes!
This year I must be getting old. I am far more excited about spending time with family than the prospect of receiving Christmas surprises. People are of so much more value than all the exciting merchandise of the season.
Thanks for listening to my venting.

Oh, I am trying to really get the idea of gratitude across to Judah. Does anyone have any ideas on how to teach this rather ethereal concept?

2 comments:

Megan Brueseke said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Megan Brueseke said...

Hey Amanda, I know exactly how you feel. Especially now that I have a child I really want to make sure he learns what Christmas is really all about. I found this idea (Take Christmas Back)on a blog I read - your post reminded me of it and I bet you'd like the idea too.
Here's the link:
http://poppyjoy.blogspot.com/2008/11/big-idea.html

The hubby and me

The hubby and me