A Different Kind of CHRISTmas

This year, we were challenged by our church to join what they called "A CHRISTmas Conspiracy."  The idea was to keep three things in mind during this Advent season.

1.  Spend Less
2.  Give More
3.  Love Everyone

We weren't asked to completely give up spending this year, just to spend less on the USELESS, obligatory gifts.  We were challenged to give more, of ourselves, more thoughtful gifts, more to those in need (with the money we didn't spend on the useless).  And finally to love everyone, even the hardest to love, and the lowest of low.  Yes, God called the Magi to pay a visit to a very young Jesus, but the ones He called FIRST were the shepherds, the ones who NO ONE wanted around, the thieves and homeless of the time.  They were the FIRST to see Jesus, and the FIRST to get a glipmse of the Good News.

Paul and I took the challenge very seriously this year.  Instead of buying gifts for everyone, we tried to make most of our gifts, using things we already had, and set a limit for each other.  For aunts and uncles we made a basket with treats in a jar...cappucino, hot chocolate, brownie mix and pancake mix.  And what a hit it was, and so easy to be done (and they looked pretty).

For each other we set a $40 limit.  At first it was very difficult for me to figure out what to get him for just $40.  It's not even that $40 is a small amount of money, it's a fairly substantial chunk of change and it challenged me to be more purposeful in my giving.  After much mulling and considering, I settled on a date night in a bag, and a way for us to document what has gone on over the past year, every year. 

The date night in a bag had the movie "Date Night," some boxes of our favorite candies, a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa con queso.

The second gift I gave Paul was a scrapbook that we can use to document every Christmas with a little blurb about what went on that year.  I thought of this because we take pictures in front of the Christmas tree pretty much every year, and I wanted us to be able to share these with our future children and eventually grandchildren.  The most fantastic part of this project what that the only thing I had to purchase was the photos.  I had EVERYTHING else already at home (and Paul tells me I spend too much on scrapbooking supplies).  I was fairly certain that we had taken pictures during our first six Christmases together, although I could only find three, so I had them printed, and put them in the book with their dates, then started a "page" with the 7th.  That was the year Paul proposed at Disney in the presence of our families.  Because our first official date was to go see "The Incredibles" Paul proposed at the meet and greet with Mr. and Mrs. Incredible.  The background to that page had the Incredibles logo on it.  This year the page was left blank, allowing us to write our memories together.  I used paper from our wedding invitations for the background and one of the extra cards from our memories jar as a place for us to do our journaling.  I am so excited to see how this turns out as our family grows over the next few years!