Happy Birthday, Jesus

You have to admit,

giving gifts to folks other than the 'birthday boy'

 is an odd way of celebrating the birthday boy's birth.

I struggle with being in the world and not of it

in lots of areas, Christmas included.

It's not that I'm a Scrooge.

Really, I'm not.

In fact 

I love giving just the right gift!

And wrapping it up all pretty, too!!

It's just really hard for me to keep 

'the Reason for the season'

as the most important thing

when so much other doing and shopping

is part of 'the season' also.

For several years,

we've been 'cutting back'

but still,

when you have an above average-sized family,

not much

is still

a lot.

Taking a cue from beautiful Ann 

we included gifts for the Birthday Boy

in our Christmas festivities.

After the family gifts had been opened

and played with

and worn; 

and the meal eaten,

we

had a party!

It was a little backwards, though;

instead of bringing our gifts to the party,

we shopped for them

during our party.

We divided up the money we received for Christmas

from my dad and my grandpa,

(thank-you so much!!)

and after reading Matthew 25:34-40

and explaining what we were doing,

everyone (generously!) added in some money of their own.

Some were more adamant than others

about what their purchases would be.

Lily wanted to give chocolate

- no surprise there ;-)

but once I explained that Jesus had no use for chocolate (gasp!)

she was insistent on using her money for milk

and water

and no amount of trying to talk her into going in on other purchases

could talk her out of her milk and water

so

milk and water it was!

We shopped from most of the places Ann mentioned,

going back and forth between sites

to choose the very best price on each particular item we wanted.

Lily, Tony, and Brandon all spent their money alone.

Jeremiah, Josiah and Lexi put theirs together,

and so did Tyler and I.

Well, actually, Tyler spent $25 of his

 and just gave the rest to me to spend,

since I'm such a savvy shopper :-)

We ended up
spreading our purchases out between five different organizations.

Tony thought it seemed a little weird to 'comparison shop' such giving

but agreed we wanted to give as much as possible.

All together

(this is so exciting!)

we spent $452 

and bought Jesus

a week's worth of milk

clean water for a family

SIX goats (yay!!!)

Chickens for TWO families or orphans

1 beehive with bees and supplies

6 mosquito nets (with natural insecticide :-)

seeds, tools, and training for an orphan

and some emergency food 

(Tyler thought it was all good and well to feed them in the future

but thought we really needed to feed the hungry now, too!)

Our Birthday Party for Jesus

was the best part of the day for me

and I think it will become a new tradition.

Happy Birthday, Jesus!