Season Reflections...

Ya, I know, I'm a little late to be posting this but here it goes anyway.

I had a great Christmas filled with family and friends and presents.  Andrew and I have multiple families to visit since both of our parents are divorced and each family does Christmas a little differently.  I love all of our families but am only going to talk about one today. It's a longstanding tradition that Andrew's mom and their family usually hand out Christmas gifts after they eat Thanksgiving dinner at Andrew's grandma's house. Since it's a lot of people, rather than everybody giving everybody a gift we pick a name out of a box and give just that person one gift.  This has been the tradition for quite a while, even before I married Andrew.  This year, we did something different.  Since we usually get so many presents elsewhere, we decided to still pick someone's name out of a box but this year we made a donation (amounts remain unknown) to our favorite charity in their name.  We then had to write a description of that charity and why it means so much to us.  I am loving it, it has been so much fun.  I am learning so much more about my new family's deep passions and what they care about, which is so much more meaningful to me.  It was really special because the person that got me made a donation to a sex trafficking organization, which I just sent my person a donation to a sex trafficking organization too!  Such a surprising coincidence! From their letter I got to see the person's heart and pray that the person that receives my letter gets to do the same.  I feel great that I have gotten to share a piece of myself with Andrew's (and now mine) family and get to see their inner hearts as well.  It's also helped me to refocus my reason for the season which is My Jesus, who cares for the orphans, the widows, the poor and those who are hurting. A great reminder as I frequently get distracted and side tracked.

Anyways, I thought I'd share...we may do something different next year...but maybe you can start this in your family for one Christmas or even as a new tradition....I can promise you won't regret it.