This is part of what I hate about Christmas and I am about to do it. I am going to give you my wish list. I actually have a Christmas wish list that goes beyond world peace and spending a holiday with all of children and grandchildren together. The likelihood of those happening is very low on any given year. But really I do have a list. Ok a list of just one. Don’t hold it against me.. Keep reading.
I like to remember when the kids were little (MY kids now all grown up)… it was so fun to find the perfect little toys and to see their eyes light up on Christmas morning with squeals of total delight. When they were very small, the delight was in the wrapping paper, ribbons (yes we watched them like hawks!) and the boxes. They could play for days just on the discards of Christmas! When they got a little older and realized what the toys were and they played for hours. Usually the toys were something from Fisher Price with little men and projects to setup and involved a bunch of cooperation and maybe even Mom or Dad had to read the instructions. Christmas toys occupied the little ones for months. They had many choices of toys to play with. If one got bored with their toys, there were someone else’s toys to play with, permissions granted or not.
Each Christmas we tried to buy the children books, musical toys, educational toys and a special toy. We want to develop their minds, their curiosity, and their knowledge in lots of ways and not just give them whatever it was that they wanted the most. We never bought war toys, no guns, no tanks, and no bomber planes. Despite our ban, the children were clearly attracted to those forbidden toys when they played with other children. They just did not have them at home. (Ok, another inconsistency, no guns in our house, but we played asteroids on the Atari game system which was basically blowing up the asteroids before they blew us up. We played those Atari games as a family for hours and hours.)
When the children got older, they started writing Christmas lists. In reality, those lists were just their response to those time-aged questions “What do you want for Christmas?” and “What are you going to ask Santa for?” The kids created a list as a natural defense for all the people who asked the questions. In some ways it is the adults who are lazy. Instead of spending time with the child and thinking long and hard about what would fit best, we transfer the responsibility for choosing to the child. As the kids get the hang of the lists, the lists get longer and more expensive and way more detailed and the adults get resentful. “Those children are demanding and selfish and all they want is expensive stuff!” we say. And while it is true, the kids are just learning well the lessons taught. Do I have a solution for all that? No. For my grandchildren, I have decided to not enter the fray of one up-man-ship and trying to pick the perfect gifts for very particular children. For them it means an expensive gift. My plan has been to give them a memory. Memories are priceless like the commercials say. Last year we went to two different shows at the Rose Garden. Picking the shows was a bit of a challenge because Blake is not so enthralled with plays and he is easily bored. We saw David Copperfield in very expensive nosebleed seats. It was quite exciting and would have been better if we could have been closer. Despite the high cost of the seats, Mr. Copperfield never once glanced up. He played to the front row crowd exclusively. We also did a family event to see the Globetrotters (evidently they dropped the Harlem part of their name, go figure). The kids loved them, laughed and it moved so fast, Blake never got bored once. In keeping with that theme, I have a plan for this year, too.
With my own gift giving the last few years, I have worked hard at making gifts. It is a little hokey but it gives me a chance to think of people and to love on them with my hands. We are a culture of stuff and we all seem quite capable of buying our own hearts desires. So the most I can do is thoughts and love and it is hard to find ways to convey those things. Spending money is not love. It is buying. We are all quite good at loving ourselves that way. How do we love each other? Last year as I spent more and more time cooking for family group, I have loved the togetherness and conversation around the table, something so lacking when you live alone. So my Christmas gifts centered on what I love, cooking supplies.
Now what do I want for Christmas? If you really want to know, it IS world peace and the second thing would be having my children all around me with their children and lots of talking and playing and hugging and remembering together. We would eat pizza on Christmas eve and on Christmas day have cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate for breakfast and then ham and wine and mashed potatoes for dinner. We would play music in the background and play with Blake’s legos and then some card games. Ok this is my fantasy. I miss my family.
Since those two things are probably NOT in your control, here is what I do want. How many times do you look for an opportunity to change the life of someone who really needs it, someone in a third world county? And how many times do you give money and wonder how much of your gift actually gets there after contributing to the overhead of whatever organization? Then after you contribute to feeding children do you ever wonder how we changed tomorrow for these people? There is a new solution. There is a website called http://www.kiva.org/ that has the power to impact lives in third world countries. They took seriously the whole thing about giving hungry people a fish or teaching them how to fish. They help you make loans to people in impoverished countries and call it microlending. The amazing thing with this KIVA organization is that they have a 97% payback rate. Let them explain it:
What We Do Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back. Kiva partners with existing microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified borrowers. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva.org, our partners upload their borrower profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them.
Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform for the poor. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle. The below diagram shows briefly how money gets from you to a third-world borrower, and back!
Think about it and don’t give it for me. Give it for you. Give it for your children. You can find people who are woodworkers, and bakers, and farmers, and all sorts of professions who just need to get a start. You can make a difference for someone who can’t look you in the face to say thank you. Is this not called a random act of kindness? Can we actually be the Samaritan? I heard a quote from someone and it really struck me. (It came thru Bethany’s blog and I tried to find the original author…but Google didn’t even have it!). It is still worth it… Maybe God’s will is found wherever my ability and someone’s need intersect. Happy holidays. DKU
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