Embracing the Spirit of Giving

Embracing the Spirit of Giving


“Giving is the style of the universe. Giving is woven into the fabric of existence… Giving is what we do best”. Eugene Peterson


Every year—at about this time—I start writching around to crank things up a notch. To pull out all the stops. To get the house fully decorated for Christmas, get friends and family fully fed with a meal or two, and get special Christmas treats baked, ordered or picked up for festive holiday entertaining. I confess to anticipating the arrival of Christmas every year with a spirit open to its marvelous story. But I engage midway through Advent with a palpable anxiety about getting everything “done.”


Sometimes the pace of the four weeks leading up to Christmas wears me out, and I almost collapse at the mere thought of getting preparations done with even the tiniest bit of flair. And other times, I get a sudden burst of energy and am able to stand in long lines at the post office, the grocery store, my favorite shops or my wrapping counter without breaking a sweat or reaching for a dark chocolate bar. Sometimes, I can go for hours on end without nibbling on a single thing nor feeling the teensiest hunger pang; other times, I feel like I need to have an elephant in the passenger seat of my van so that I can take a bite after every Holiday errand.


Unfortunately, energy levels—and mood swings—are unpredictable. We oftentimes greet the day with the best intentions only to find ourselves surprised at how quickly a traffic snarl or an impatient clerk can make monsters out of the best and most energetic amongst us.


Part of the secret of preparing for the Holidays is to set a pace with which you can be comfortable for the entire month leading up to Christmas, so that along with meeting deadlines and fulfilling all of the season’s commitments, you find yourself truly enjoying the days. Experiencing joy on Christmas Day healthy and happy—rather than haggard and hapless—should be one of your primary goals. Moving closer to the One who forever changed the world—embracing the message and the miracle of Christmas—is, of course, the reason for the season.


I’m passing along, as promised, some strategies I personally use to prepare for Christmas. I don’t pretend to be smarter or more clever or more creative or more anything. I only hope that some of these tips will help you make more sense or obtain more order to these next few days. If you gleam even one tiny idea, this Newsletter will have met its goal. So here goes:


1) Outline the month. In broad, general terms. Believe me: I’m not that organized, I hate detailed bullets and anything even hinting of “red tape.” (This includes budgets set by my husband, time lines set by my kids and artificially-imposed deadlines set by moi). But getting a general sense of some of the things you hope to accomplish during the Holidays is extremely helpful in getting your act together. Do you want to invite the neighbors over for coffee? Host a luncheon? Babysit a toddler so her mom can go shopping? Take an elderly friend to the mall? Map out your idea of how you’d like—ideally—the month to play out. My own personal goals are to host a girlfriends brunch, to host dinner parties for four to five different families, and to host my daughter’s fourteenth birthday party. Admittedly, it’s taken some finely-tuned organizational skills to pull all of these off while simultaneously staying on track with all of my other Holiday responsibilities. But I’m more than halfway there….

2) Take this broad outline and look at it in context. Do your kids have violin recitals two weeks before Christmas? Are school concerts on your calendar? Do you need to work the pre-school party? Is your daughter coming home from college? Do you need to budget in some travel time? What’s on your calendar that is absolutely mandatory—barring illness or emergencies—and what can be done or enjoyed only if all of your little duckies line up in perfect rows? In our own family, we’ve already attended three violin recitals, three school concerts and look forward to our church’s Christmas Eve candlelight service, where two of our kids will perform violin solos. Holiday entertaining—along with shopping, wrapping and shipping—will fall into place within this context.

3) Pick your entertaining dates well in advance and get the word out expediently. I know I know. It’s considered tacky to issue invitations via email. Miss Manners would wring my neck if she only knew. My day will come when engraved invites to my annual Christmas brunch will seem perfectly normal…but that day is not today! For the sake of expediency—not to mention sheer economy—email invitations are the only way for rocket moms to go. Being sleep-deprived with young ones exhibiting serious signs of the barnacle-syndrome hardly leaves room for endurance runs in creativity. I admit that in not too many years past (two, to be exact) I hand-wrote, hand-addressed and hand-stamped every invitation that left my house. These days, I prefer to spend that time doing other things. You have my official permission to be tacky if you so desire. So go online and either write your invitation in Word, copy and paste it into your browser and send it to the group you’ve created in your email system; or get more official and go to www.evite.com, which will record RSVP’s automatically, send updates, and streamline the whole process for you.

4) Start getting your act together early. I’ve forever been of the mindset that I’d rather give simple presents to many people than give a mere handful of extravagant gifts to a select few. You might feel entirely differently. That’s fine. But to stay in line with my guiding principle, I start shopping for Christmas as soon as Christmas has past. No, I don’t deal with the day-after-Christmas-madness-at-the-malls (been there done that. Yuck). But I do keep my eyes constantly open for gifts throughout the year, I keep my list in my Filofax and refer to it frequently, and I always stay on the lookout for good shopping deals. Out of town and out walking around a few cute gift shops? Keep your friends and family in mind. Hitting a great clearance sale at the mall? Think Christmas gifts. Your favorite shop offering a one-time special? Buy in bulk. Or decide on a theme well in advance and buy things along that theme whenever you see them on sale. It might be wonderful soaps or candles or papers or stationery or perfumes for all the girlfriends on your list; or musical toys or books or games or puzzles for all of the kiddies; and robes or slippers or ties or unusual t’s or books or coffee or gift certificates for the men on your list. Start thinking along theme lines early on in the year, shop for such, and you’ll find that by the time Christmas comes, you’ll be in pretty good shape. You can shop this way and still be creative in your gift-giving. For example, I bought homemade natural olive-oil soaps for a few of my girlfriends this year and chose scents according to personal preferences or lifestyles, giving lemongrass-scented soaps to my gardening girlfriends, pine-scented soaps for those who use fresh trees, etc. The key is always keeping your eyes open and keeping your family and friends ever-present in your mind as you shop. Store purchases in your gift closet or on a few shelves in an obscure place in your house, record what you bought for whom, and feel the enormous satisfaction of greeting Advent with lots of things already checked off on your list.

5) Set your color theme early. You can’t imagine how tickled I was to watch the HGTV Holiday special on The White House Christmas and see that the decorators and florists opted to use a lime-green-and-red color theme throughout the mansion. Wow! Lime-green bows held up every wreath, lime-green bows adorned the ornaments and lime-green tablecloths draped every table. I’ve been using a lime-green-and-red theme for the last few years in an effort to feed my lime-green addiction (OK, obsession…or illness…depending on who you talk to) and it makes me happy to see that I’m not the only one out there who sees Christmas colors with this unusual twist. If you love using the traditional Christmas green and bright red, that’s perfectly wonderful, too. But perhaps you’d rather use hot pink. Or burgundy .Or purple or blue. Splendid. Go for it with gusto. Start purchasing ribbons and wraps and gift tags and gift bags early, so that when you line up all of your supplies, you have a very color-coordinated look. For example, I bought red striped cellophane bags, lime-green tissue paper, lime-green silk ribbon, white gift “tags” and wrapping paper that is all red-lime-green-and-white so that no matter what I’m wrapping, I can reach for a supply and know that it’ll work with whatever else my hand has grabbed off my wrapping counter.

6) Set up a wrapping and shipping schedule to beat the Holiday rush. Even before Thanksgiving, I laid all of the gifts I had purchased throughout the year on my wrapping counter, organizing by theme and by family. I laid out all of my supplies—including tissue paper, ribbons, tags (I buy rings from the office supply store), shipping boxes and bubble-wrapped envelopes—and mapped out an organized production line. As gifts were wrapped, they were immediately placed into my van, so that if I ever passed the P.O. and saw an open parking space, I could make a quick shipping stop. But I blew it this year in that I’m at least a week behind schedule. Dag-gone-it. With Thanksgiving hitting a week late, I am late accordingly. As I generally ship anywhere from thirty to forty gifts out-of-state, I need to make three or four runs to the post office in order to ensure that gifts arrive on time. I try to get this done in late November so that I can: save on shipping charges (by shipping parcel post rather than priority), beat the excruciatingly long lines at the P.O. (no one ships in November), and get the immense satisfaction of crossing this off my list early on in the season. I must have been a slacker mom this year, as I still have one more trip to go, I wound up being forced to ship everything priority, and I’ve endured excruciatingly long lines at the P.O. with this weekend’s record forty-five minute wait hardly being a super-fun way to spend my time. There’s always next year…

7) Determine a “signature gift” and send it every year. Last year, for the first time (and as an experiment of sorts), I shipped and hand-delivered a custom-ordered, custom-made candy-cane fudge from our local candy shop. The reviews on it were so hearty that it’s become my signature gift again this year. I ordered dozens of boxes and it’ll wind up everywhere from Texas to Florida to New York. Easy. Festive. Hassle-free. Already gift-boxed. Perhaps there’s something clever—signature—that you can do: turn digital photos of your artwork into stationery or greeting cards; paint miniature canvases; bake an unusual cookie from your ethnic heritage; make your special cocoa or spiced tea? One of my girlfriends has been making homemade vanilla extract for almost twenty years; it’s her signature gift. She pours it into old-fashioned brown medicine bottles (which she buys wholesale and in bulk) and affixes a festive sticker to the front. I look forward to receiving a bottle every year…..

8) Get your cards out as soon as possible and build in plenty of margin time. Ok. You got me here. I am never organized enough to get this done early (even though I vow to be better each year.) Taking a good pic of four kids, sending them to the printer, and addressing and stamping almost two hundred envelopes is sheer hard work. It always gets done, but it always takes a back seat to other, more pressing responsibilities. I figure, if I can slack on my timeline somewhere, it’ll be here. I always buy my cards on sale the year before (generally picking them up at half-price), buy Christmas stamps before Thanksgiving, and buy my paper at the office supply store in bulk. I still haven’t gotten the whole digital picture thing under control over here at our house even though we’ve been using digital cameras for the past three or four years (it’s that whole business of shifting over from print to online photos that’s still got me confused as how to best organize and execute); surely you’re better at this than I am. My advice: make it a priority if you enjoy the tradition, but give yourself some freedom in getting them out as no one minds receiving them after Christmas.


I pray at Christmas that you embrace the spirit of giving. Not just in your thoughtful gifts to friends and family. But that you practice generosity in your time and in your talents, too. That you sing in a choir if you acknowledge your talent as a songbird; cook a meal for a friend if you grasp the joys of hospitality; take an elderly neighbor to the grocery store if you understand the importance of sacrificial love. That you take dinner to a family in crisis because you realize the physical and emotional tolls of illness or injury. Or lift up someone in need because you’ve witnessed the power of intercessory prayer.


Eugene Peterson, one of my most beloved authors and translator of THE MESSAGE, writes: “Giving is the style of the universe. Giving is woven into the fabric of existence… Giving is what we do best. It is the air into which we were born. It is the action that was designed into us before our birth. Giving is the way the world is. God gives himself. He also gives away everything that is. He makes no exceptions for any of us. We are given away to our families, to our neighbors, to our friends, to our enemies—to the nations. Our life is for others. That is the way creation works.” (*)


May you be filled with all blessings on Christmas Day—and everyday—by fully embracing the spirit of giving.


Merry, merry Christmas!


Carolina


*NOTE: Eugene Peterson, Run with the Horses (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1983), p. 42, 43.