Comments on Jill Savage: Focus on the Giving

This Christmas my whole family is getting together...

2008-11-24T17:20:58.418-06:00

This Christmas my whole family is getting together, and instead of the aunties and uncles getting gifts for nieces and nephews and each other we're pooling money to buy a goat (maybe even two) through the World Vision catalogue. I'm so excited because it will be so good for my kids to participate in and will make Christmas a bit less about getting tons of presents.

Thanks for sharing Karalin and BP! I love hearing...

2008-11-20T22:58:47.781-06:00

Thanks for sharing Karalin and BP! I love hearing what other families are doing to encourage giving!

Thanks for sharing your family's shoe box story. ...

2008-11-20T13:48:45.984-06:00

Thanks for sharing your family's shoe box story. We packed two boxes this year and dropped it off yesterday.

We like to help with our local food drive. My son and I volunteer at the food pantry. We helped at the food drive last year sorting the donated items.

We also did the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxe...

2008-11-20T11:17:58.992-06:00

We also did the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. My two older boys (5 and 3) each chose things that they would like and we packaged them for a boy of the same age. This is the third year we've done it.

My other favorite activity occurs at the mall. The Salvation Army does a "Forest of Trees". They set up a whole bunch of Christmas trees at the mall and each tree has a theme like "Baby Tree" or "Toy Tree" or "Sock Tree" or "Book Tree" etc. We take the kids and pick up a list and go around the mall buying things to place on the trees. We don't do any shopping for ourselves. We usually do this about a week before Christmas. When we're done we treat ourselves to hot chocolate while the kids get a few minutes to play in the play area. We haven't been able to budget for an item for every tree yet, but we're hoping to get there one of these years soon!

I look forward to reading some more ideas!