Spending Less This Christmas Season

Last week, we looked at ways to worship Christ during this Christmas season. This week, I am looking at Spending Less. As a reminder, this series is based on the book the Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World? I highly recommend this book, by the way.

What was the best gift that you ever received from a person in your life?

How many of the gifts that you received last Christmas can you remember and name?
How many of them can you point to in your house as something you use, see, or love every month?

How many of the gifts that you gave last Christmas can you remember and name?

Where am I going with these questions?

Each year, we participate in the hustle, bustle, and rush of Christmas shopping, but most of us cannot recall what we gave and received last Christmas.

We buy things without a lot of thought towards who made it, what their lives & living conditions are like, and what the effect this gift giving frenzy has on the environment. We buy all these gifts because we are buying into our culture's lies that spending a lot of money is how we show each other that we love each other.

This is what Christmas has become, but it doesn't have to stay this way.

What if we took time, starting in January even, to prayerfully ask God what He would like us to give our family and friends?

What if we gave of ourselves and our abundance to show our love for our family and friends?
What if I gave my favorite blanket, our favorite tea, or a well-worn and beloved book instead of some trinket from a store?

Discipline. Self-Denial. Delayed Gratification. These used to be marks of spiritual discipline and signs of a growing faith. Now they are becoming marks of fanatics and enemies of capitalism.

We don't have to buy our child, grandchild, parent, relative, or friend everything that they ever wanted. We don't have to go into debt to provide the perfect Christmas experience.

When we choose to spend less on the frivolous or cheap trinkets that last only for a season, we have more money freed up to buy gifts in line with our faith.

We can buy one bar of rich fair trade chocolate instead of bags of cheap knock-offs.

We can buy one peace pin with a story of bomb casings being remade into doves to give as a gift instead of a variety of cheap, mass produced jewelry.

We don't even have to spend (a lot of) money to give meaningful gifts. Instead of quickly throwing a gift in a cart and crossing a name off of our lists, we can take the time to sit down, write a thoughtful letter about the impact the gift recipient had on our life, and then look for something we can make or give with our time. Commit to walk with a relative on sunny days. Make the effort to regularly call a grandparent instead of buying a "world's greatest grandparent" tie to hang in their closet. Bake bread for a friend and sit down to eat it with them, along with tea or coffee.

We say, "Money can't buy happiness." We say that we know kids need our presence more than our presents. But we need to start living this out in our daily lives.

What are ways that we can spend less this Christmas season and beyond to future Christmases?
What are ways that we can spend our time, words, possessions, and space with others this Christmas?