Birthdays

In my post on due dates, I stated the obvious - birthdays are about the children. What I meant, but couldn't get into the post in context, is that I rather like the idea of making Christmas decidedly not about the children, as in not about toys and shirts and radios and things for the children.

With our own family, I'd prefer a Christ-based Christmas, celebrating His birth by giving to those to whom Christ would give - those who truly need. Tina, at last conversation, wasn't happy about depriving children of the happy stuff like presents and stuff. I guess a few presents would be OK, but that's so completely not the point that I'd rather keep that to a minimum.

We pretty much have everything we need, and it's becoming sort of a chore to keep buying things for each other when there's really nothing to buy. I've accepted that people want to buy me things, so I've stopped fighting it to some degree, but I'd still prefer they sponsored a child or gave to a food kitchen or something. I don't foresee dire financial straits (though who ever really does?), and I don't want our kids looking forward to unwrapping and opening and breaking, but rather to showing love to the world.

We had a little discussion with our Bible study group about favorite Christmas gifts as a kid, and most people couldn't remember a single thing. It was just the people and the time spent together with family. I could remember things I'd been given, of course, but nothing that really stood out as a favorite thing. I don't tend to make favorites lists anyway, but still I found the whole exercise instructive.