Presents…

So Robert and I have been having the discussion of what to do when we have kids—and let me just put the baby rumor to rest right now….we are in no way ready to have kids.  Yes, we love River (and love blogging about him!!!!) and do all that we can do to get a glimpse of this little man (we got a glimpse today–be looking for pictures!), but we will not be having children anytime soon.  We can’t even agree right now on having a puppy–so kids, not so much…okay, all that said, we are still having this discussion because I think it is important for us to decide–or at least be discussing–these types of things now.  We’ve been asking our believing friends and relatives–do you do Santa?  Do you not do Santa?  How do you not do Santa and not have that kid in his class that ruins it for all the other children????  These are the type of questions that run through my mind?  In my friends blog she talks about the tradition of giving their kids 3 presents each–for each wise man.  That’s an interesting concept–one we might just use.

My same friend has two little girls and she recently wrote a blog asking for advice on this topic.  To see her full blog on this and to read about the three wise men tradition, click here.  In this blog she put a piece in from the blog she had written the year before and it’s especially what I want to share with you, so I hope she doesn’t mind that I’m about to cut and paste!  Thanks Randel!

Here are her thoughts:

the national retail federation estimates that americans spent 457.4 BILLION DOLLARS at christmas in 2006. just 10 of those billion if put towards bringing clean water across the globe would solve the water crisis. 18 of those billion would bring food to every hungry child and adult on the planet. can you imagine if we began to look outside of ourselves during this season? what if we gave sacrificially to those truly in need, to show the love of jesus to those who are the least of these in our communities and around the world?

here’s an excerpt from the website adventconspiracy.org:
“part of saying “yes” to Jesus means that we say “no” to over-spending. we say “no” to overconsumption. we say “no” to those things so we can create space to say “yes” to jesus and his reign in our lives. after the holidays we work for months to get out of debt, only to find that the presents we bought in the name of Christ furthered a consumerist mentality in us and our children and took our focus off of the greatness of Jesus. as Christ-followers, the advent conspiracy starts with us resisting a culture that tells us what to buy, wear and spend with no regard to bringing glory to jesus.”

So what do you do?  We would love to hear your thoughts on presents and shopping and what you do for your kids and for the kids out there–what your parents did for you–did you feel deprived if you didn’t have Santa?–we can use all the advice out there!  We can’t wait to hear back from all of you!