Christmas is coming! Did that fill you with the warm fuzzies or make you want to scream?
I’m afraid I now fall in the screaming group. Don’t get me wrong—Christmas is a joyous time to celebrate the birth of our Savior, but the month of December brings a crush of expectations. Decorating and baking and entertaining and Christmas cards, and worst of all, the shopping, wrapping, and mailing. I love the people in my life, and I want to find the right gifts for each one. This gets harder each year, because everyone seems to have everything they want and need. Still, we buy more.
And the credit card debt grows. And the pile of toys in the children’s rooms grows. And our closets get crammed with more and more until they overflow, so we fill our garages with stuff until they overflow, then we rent self-storage units to fill with all that stuff. Still, we buy more.
Jesus tells us, “‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions’” Luke 12:15.
How much of our time is spent working to pay for our stuff, shopping for stuff, taking care of our stuff, and figuring out ways to better store and organize our stuff? What if we realigned our priorities and spent our money and our time on things with long-term value? Family. Community. The Lord. How would that look? Warm. Fuzzy. Peaceful. Like Christmas is meant to be.
What about you? Do you have any creative gift ideas to reduce the flow of stuff in your life?Labels: Christmas, gifts