Day 310

I'm out of the office on lunch and it occurred to me that I haven't updated the blog lately.


My silence has been the result of extreme happiness and hard work. Dave, the boys and I are all happy and healthy, and we are gearing up for Christmas. I've been trying to impress upon the boys this Christmas season what the true meaning of the holiday is. It's not about what we get, but about what we have and why we have it.


But I won't deny that's difficult. With a six-year-old (and nine-year-old) in the house, visions of Santa with a bag of presents are very prominent.


We have made K-Love, a national Christian radio station, a fixture in our lives, and I heard on it yesterday that the average PERSON (not couple, family, etc.) spends $700/year on Christmas presents.  I let out an audible "phooooooo."  $700/year...  That's essentially rent for a month for us.  So here I am trying to figure out how to make Christmas great on maybe $300, and I hear that the average person spends $700.  So if you're reading this, I challenge you to remember what Christmas is really about, and try to focus on that instead.


Dave asked me over the weekend what I want for Christmas and my response (after telling him - him), was a new coffee cup.  Yes, that's all I want.  A new travel mug that doesn't leak when I try to take a sip out of it.  But I guess I never cease to surprise him.  I know he knows I'm not materialistic, but at the time of the year when most people send out mile long Christmas-lists with hundreds of dollars of ideas that they'll probably never use, I choose to be real.  And even when I stretch my brain, I can't think of anything else I want for Christmas.


We found a new church in August that we've been attending, Grace Baptist, and we love how their focus in not on what the church needs financially, but when they do talk about money, it's about how we can help the missionaries or other organizations that need money.  Our family decided to help out Operation Christmas Child (I think that's what it's called), after we heard about what children on the other side of the world have to do without.  While I was able to buy my boys each a 24-box of Crayons for $.50, on the other side of the globe, children go without because crayons cost $5.00... and the average monthly income is $2.00.  Children in Africa need to follow a food truck once a week in order to get fed, and because they lack bowls or cups, they drop the hot oatmeal (or whatever they're served) out of their hands and onto the road...  And they end up eating it off the road.


So how can I ask for anything more than a coffee cup, when there are children living like this?