Christmas Presents

Creating Christmas traditions with Tony is so much fun! Bringing together two sets of family traditions and memories of Christmas can make for an interesting challenge, but we really enjoy putting pieces of each of our childhood memories together as we create new ones.

Tony loves buying Christmas gifts. He also loves wrapping them. Is that just plain strange, or am I strange for thinking that wrapping gifts is a tedious task that should be put off until the last possible moment? It's a good thing we have two Christmas trees because both of them are already nearly full of presents and it's December 12th. Growing up, there was never a present under our tree until Christmas Eve, so this whole tree full of presents in the middle of December thing sort of throws me off...and makes me feel really behind...until I remember I still have 13 whole days to wrap gifts. Ask me how I'm doing on that in 12 days.

Anyways, I love Tony's love for presents. He spoils me every holiday with incredible gifts! I will say, while he definitely values the quality of gifts, he may value the quantity of gifts even more. I can't fault him for that. There is something lovely about an enormous pile of presents stacked under the tree. Tony makes sure that whoever he's buying for receives lots of gifts, not just one big gift - that would only be one thing to wrap...BORING!

Lots and lots of presents and wrapping means we need lots and lots of boxes to wrap things in. If you were to open my pantry during the month of December, you'd find that it has been raided for any possible box. Cereal bags have been removed from their boxes, granola bars are in a pile, crackers are now in rubbermaid containers, frozen foods have been transferred to freezer bags. Tony is very resourceful when it comes to wrapping gifts. I never would have thought to use food boxes to wrap gifts, thank goodness I married a genius. By the way....are less and less stores giving boxes for wrapping nowadays? Sure seems like it, what a bummer!

Christmas is a beautiful time of year. We are blessed to be able to give gifts to those we love and to those around us who need to know the love of Jesus this Christmas. I'm teaching on the virtue of Joy this month for the children in our church. It's been such a blessing to me. While presents and traditions are fun and bring momentary happiness, the reason Tony and I can rejoice this Christmas is because we have surrendered our lives to a God who loves us, sent His Son to come to Earth, die on the cross for our sins and bring us forgiveness and salvation. Through Him we have an inexplicable hope and inexpressible joy. The last year has been tremendously heart-breaking for us in many ways. Christmas causes us to reflect on our recent heartache, but also allows us to rejoice in a God who holds our lives in the palm of His hand, who will never leave us, and who will allow us to be safe in His arms for all of eternity!