This is the season for gift-giving. Christmas giving is a tradition that started to mimic the greatest gift ever given, the baby of Bethlehem. God’s love gave us a Savior, so our love gives during the Christmas season to those we care about. The gifts don’t have to be large or costly, but they do need to flow from a heart of love.

Growing up in a broken home, riddled by poverty and sin, my gift-giving and receiving experiences had to be redeemed. The experiences I had as a child and young adult were negative, to say the least. Yet I somehow fell in love with Christmas and developed the mindset that it was not about what I received but about those I could give to. Shopping with my Mom for Christmas meant I would buy and wrap all the socks and underwear to be given to the family, including my own. Christmas morning was not a “wake-up and be surprised” event as my gifts were necessities that I had bought and wrapped!

My best gifts came from members of my church family who wanted to bless me. I remember one year a dear family lost a child in a car accident a few months before Christmas. They spent the money they would have spent on their son on me. The three-foot-tall, walking doll they gave me stayed by my side through the years and followed me to my dorm room at the University of Alabama. Agreeably this was not a cool thing to do, but the doll always reminded me that someone unselfishly loved me.

Most of the early gifts I gave were homemade but created with lots of love. My list was long because I wanted everyone in my sphere of influence to feel the joy of appreciation and love. That is still the approach I take to the season. It’s all about loving others not about getting what I want. It’s about relationships, friendships, and caring.

My only detour from this mindset came a couple of years after I married. My mother-in-law asked me what I wanted for Christmas. She said, “Anything you want, cost doesn’t matter.”  Larry and I had moved into our first home in a neighborhood of shady, curving roads. It was the perfect, low-traffic place to enjoy long bike rides and the beauty of being outside in South Georgia. The only problem was I didn’t have a bike – had never had one in all my life! So, when the question was posed I said, “I want a bicycle”! I anxiously awaited the Christmas gathering where I would have my first-ever bicycle. I would be able to cycle without borrowing someone else’s bicycle. Even though I was in my early twenties, I felt like a child anticipating Christmas for the first time.

When Christmas dinner was over and the presents under the living room tree were opened, my mother-in-law said to me and my sister-in-law, “I have something else for you two downstairs in the closet.”  We ran down the stairs. I didn’t know what Cathy had asked for, but I knew my first-ever bicycle was waiting for me just a few steps away! We swung open the big walk-in closet door to find two sets of luggage, one for me and one for Cathy. Major disappointment swept over me. While I could certainly use the luggage, my heart was filled with dreams of a new bike. Somehow Christmas had become about me and not about others and the pain was unbearable. I recovered enough to make it through the visit, but I knew my “what I want” detour had ended. I recommitted to the true meaning of Christmas, and I have never been disappointed since.

This Christmas guard your heart as Proverbs 4:2-23 NKJV, says, “My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.”

Let your self-image be determined by your relationship with Christ, not by the gift you might or might not receive. Make Christmas about the joy you can give others. Trust God to provide for your needs and wants because He knows, and He cares. Remember the essence of Christmas is the coming of a Savior. “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.” Isaiah 9:6-7 NKJV.