Am a bit under conviction regarding  what is popularly known as the giving season.  As if often the case, as announced by Jesus with a bunch of kids on His lap, “A child shall lead them.”   So, my grandkids, who we visit for the long holiday season, gave me a really good idea to pass on to you. 

It started last year…TO THEM.  Every evening around Christmas, the twelve before, to be exact, there was a knock at the door.  Everyone got excited, kids ran from everywhere in the house.  At the opened door was a gift, an ANONYMOUS gift; first with one, eventually with 12 items.

It’s good to copy a good thing.  So, this became our “Christmas Serving Venture.”  I’m writing this is in our daughter’s very small town near the famous Capital Reef National Park, Bicknell, Utah.  About 300 people.  My kids know most all of them, of course.  About nine pm or so tonight, four of the five grandkids will stuff themselves and their excitment and their ninth gift of nine things into our little Chevy for “the ride.”  We drive across town, a little crazy and fun stuff, turn off the lights a block away, creep along with kids finishing their laugh-decorated version of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” (Let see, ”…six cans of soda, five chocolate candies, four rolls of toilet paper…” etc.   They lay the box or bag or ZipLock on the steps, bang on the doublewide door. “Knock, knock, knock” and lickity split they all run like crazy to the darkened car laughing and yelling, “Hurry Popi!  Go!  Go!  Before they see us!”       

They have picked one family; they are fellow homeschoolers in town and very likely the poorest.  I’m the getaway driver. 

No telling what nine things we’ll load into a shopping bag tonight.  Last night it was eight very flat, very tasty Toll House cookies they made themselves without much flour.  Flat, hard, deliciously addictive.  A note from the “Christmas Angels” is different each day.  They make it; mostly the 12 yold.  It is the giving, not the gift.  Bottom line: giving and the joy and the fun of it.

Midst the so-called giving, the traditional kind in the commercial and cultural Christmas season, are you really giving?  You know what I mean.  SERVING, GIVING OF YOURSELF, maybe even sacrifice something you prize (your time, your quiet, your solitude), for someone else.   The Christmas Angels are going out of their way only a little, making it an event, having fun, and enjoying their picture of the other family enjoying, laughing, anticipating.

SO, I WONDER…It’s not too late to get the family into the act…the act of blessing and giving someone who would not be expecting the gift or the giver.  JESUS DID IT THAT WAY.  HAVE YOU BEGUN SERVING YOUR NEIGHBORS FOR CHRISTMAS YET?  

 AND DON’T FORGET:  2 Corinthians 9:11
You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

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