Christmas is certainly not all about gifts – far from it! However, for most of us, gift-giving is a big part of our celebration. Even more than that, it’s a way we honor God as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the most precious and generous gift ever given.
Christmas gift-giving provides Christian parents with a tremendous opportunity to foster gratitude and generosity in our children. And with all the happiness and celebration of this season, we can actually help our children go beyond a sense of the rightness of giving and grow into a deep enjoyment of being generous. Let’s explore some meaningful ways to approach gift-giving for kids during this festive time.
Storytelling with Purpose
One of the most effective ways to teach children about the spirit of Christmas is through storytelling. When you share the story of the birth of Jesus with them, highlight the significance of God's gift to humanity. Explain that Christmas is truly about God giving to us the most costly and precious gift of his son because of his great love for us. More than anything else, that is what we are celebrating!
Volunteer Together
Show your children a sense of excitement that your family also has an opportunity to show love to others during this season. With an eagerness to share what you have and bless someone else, encourage your children to participate in acts of service and charity during the holiday season.
Lend your talents and efforts to a community event (such as a live nativity, Christmas caroling for folks that might not get much holiday cheer, or a community-focused church musical presentation) that draws people together and shares the joy of Christmas. Volunteer as a family at a local food bank, homeless shelter, or nursing home. Ideally, choose a volunteering activity that has special meaning for your family. This hands-on experience can help your kids understand the importance of giving back and the joy it brings to those in need as well as to those who give.
Create a Tradition Around Sharing Love with Others
Start a family tradition that focuses on giving. For example, you can set aside a specific day during the Christmas season for random acts of kindness. Let each family member choose a kind act to perform, like making homemade gifts for neighbors or sending Christmas cards to the elderly.
For several years in our home, we hung a Christmas stocking for Jesus among our own stockings. As we did acts of kindness and love for others throughout the season, we placed little papers with these acts written on them into the stocking. It provided a way for us to make an offering to God of intentional acts of love toward others. However you choose to emphasize sharing love, think about creating traditions around these things to teach your children that giving should be a regular and treasured part of their lives.
Emphasize the Thought Behind Gifts
When teaching children about gift-giving, help them understand that it's the thought and love behind the gift that truly matter. Encourage them to select or create meaningful gifts for family and friends. This not only fosters the spirit of giving but also shows them the value of personal connections.
It’s also wise to discreetly remind children about this idea before they open gifts from others. Help them understand that, even if they are not crazy about the item received, they can express joy and thanks for it as they remember that it encompasses time, thought, and money lovingly contributed by the giver. Because of those things, the giver deserves an expression of gratitude, even if your child doesn't feel grateful for the item itself.
Encourage Generosity
Teach your children about the joy of generosity by involving them in charitable donations. Together, select a charity or cause that resonates with your hearts, and then set aside a portion of your Christmas budget to donate to that cause. You can also have a container available for people to add money to throughout the season and then enjoy giving it as a family to the organization you’ve chosen.
Here's another cool idea I’ve seen others do. (This one would work well when your children are old enough to know about some of the needs in your community and around the world.) Make a Thanksgiving Night tradition of choosing a charitable focus for the season. Family members could come with their giving ideas and the amount they’d like to contribute. Giving ideas could include a local ministry to the homeless or to families struggling economically, a group in your state that’s helping families recover from a natural disaster, an organization that provides livestock or crop assistance to families around the world dealing with drought and hunger, or a group that assists any of the many refugees currently struggling in our world today. The possibilities are practically endless! Talk about the impact these donations can have on the lives of others. And don’t worry too much about the difficulty of agreeing on which one to give to. You can always give to two or more!
Remember to keep the individual contribution amounts secret. There should be no manipulation involved, and those who have less available to give shouldn’t feel ashamed. Just rejoice in the giving and in knowing that your family can join together in blessing others.
Involve Children in the Joy of Giving Gifts
Your children will naturally be excited about what they will receive for Christmas. But you can help them to greatly enjoy giving as well.
My father did an excellent job of this when we were growing up. He loved to get something special for my mom, usually a piece of jewelry. But he didn’t just wrap up the little box and put it under the tree. He typically hid the special gift in a very mundane gift, like a can of tennis balls. That’s the one I remember most. My mom (an avid tennis player) was mildly happy to receive some new tennis balls, but we were all just about beside ourselves knowing that a ring that she was going to love was hidden inside one of those balls.
It was really fun that my dad gave so creatively. But the best part was that he included us in the fun. I think we were sometimes more excited about these surprises than we were about the gifts we had coming. And that’s the idea. It’s really a treasure to discover that it’s more blessed to give than to receive.
It’s so easy for Christmas gift-giving to get ahead of us and become something ugly – financial pressure, greed, entitlement. Ironically, it can be the thing that robs us of our joy at Christmas. But if we set some intentions and take the reins in establishing our traditions instead of following the flow of the culture, it can be such a beautiful and God-glorifying thing to enjoy.
Xo,
Christie
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