Because I’ve used a lot of virtual ink over the past few weeks defending my deliberate choice to take on many time- and labor-intensive Christmas traditions, instead of slowing down and pruning my to-do list, I thought I’d wrap up this week by sharing a list of what I do—and don’t do—to get ready for Christmas. My point (in my guest post on Introverted Church as well as Tuesday’s post here about how tangible Christmas traditions can enhance, rather than detract from, our celebration) was not that everyone should cram as many tasks as they possibly can into the weeks before Christmas, or that running yourself ragged to create the picture-perfect holiday is somehow good for your soul. It was simply to argue that the hard work of preparing for Christmas can point us toward that elusive “true meaning” of the holiday as much as a solitary walk in the winter woods or a half-hour meditating on scripture, if it is undertaken willingly, thoughtfully, and intentionally.

What I Do for Christmas

Bake – I enjoy baking, so this is the major activity of the week before Christmas. We serve cookies (as well as homemade stollen and cinnamon rolls—the links are to the recipes I use) at meals on Christmas Eve and day. We also give cookies to people we would like to thank, such as teachers, my husband’s employees, and the mailman. However, if you are imagining me in my apron, offering an encouraging smile to my children as they help me make the 30 dozen or so cookies I crank out, you’re in the wrong kitchen. I do 95 percent of my baking when the kids are at school. Alone. I concede to their desire to help (term used loosely) by giving them each a parchment paper rectangle of about 10 cut-out cookies to decorate with colored sugar. However, my  12-year-old, who taught herself to bake this year, can really help now. She was in charge of the fudge this year, and made it with only a little guidance from me.

Shop and wrap – Each child gets a nice little pile of gifts under the tree (anywhere from three to six gifts, depending on what they are), plus a full stocking. We also exchange gifts with my parents (although we’ve begun talking about perhaps ending that practice…we’ll see). Daniel and I do different things for each other in different years. Some years we purchase gifts for each other, while in others, like this year, we get something for the family instead. This year we bought a new TV. To save my physical energy as well as avoid crazy-making crowds in the parking lots and stores, I buy almost everything online (including the new TV, which is a discontinued model I got discounted on Amazon) or on concentrated trips to a handful of favorite stores, none of which are in the mall. I keep a shopping list in my wallet, so I’m always prepared should I make an unplanned stop at one of those stores.

Decorate – Besides a live tree and various decorations indoors, I string lights on the shrubs outdoors. As I wrote in my Introverted Church post, “I get a little zing of joy upon seeing my same old street transformed into a cheerfully lit wonderland. I’m reminded that God is not only our light in the darkness, but also has a way of transforming what is ordinary (a baby, a cattle stall, a weary heart) into something unexpected, delightful, extraordinary.”

Cards and letters – Yes, I am one of those people who sends a photo card of my kids instead of a tasteful card with a nativity scene or tree, plus a letter with our news from the year. I know all the reasons people make fun of these practices, and I don’t care. I do them for one reason: Because I love receiving the same from others. A gorgeous card with a gold-edged nativity scene, and a scripture verse and signed name inside, might be more outwardly Christian than a photo card and a letter detailing the year’s ups and downs. But I enjoy getting a glimpse into the lives of friends and family—seeing new babies or newly grown-up teenagers, hearing about the year that just passed. We tape all of our photo cards onto the the door jamb between our living room and dining room, so that we’re reminded of friends and family every time we hang out by the Christmas tree.

What I Don’t Do for Christmas

Entertain – Daniel and I are both introverts. We don’t like attending cocktail parties or open houses, much less holding them. The house is usually a mess until I do a final pre-holiday clean-up on the 23rd or so. Other than hosting some friends for dinner, and my parents for Christmas day breakfast, we don’t issue holiday invitations. And we rarely attend other people’s parties. We are fundamentally lazy about finding babysitters and conversing with other people past 8 p.m.

Shop (much) – Beyond the gifts I mentioned earlier for my children, parents, and husband, I don’t buy many gifts. My sister and I decided long ago to stop exchanging gifts with each other and our spouses, and about five years ago, decided to stop giving each other’s children gifts as well. We decided to focus our giving on their birthdays, when it is less burdensome to us and more meaningful to the kids. We give the aforementioned cookies to anyone whom we would like to thank with some kind of gift.

Wrap or decorate artfully – Every year, I look forward to leafing through the holiday issue of Better Homes and Gardens, and every year, I end up putting it down in disgust. The homeowners featured in BH&G inevitably select a color scheme for the holiday (red and green are never okay), which they carry into every room, onto their tree with its coordinated ornaments, and even use for their gift packaging. Their color-coordinated packages are further adorned with expensive ribbons, handmade rubber stamp impressions, or little natural treasures that they collected on their daily nature walks. Our tree is decorated with a mishmash of ornaments, some from my childhood. Our color scheme is strictly traditional red and green. And I rarely even put ribbons on packages, which are wrapped in whatever paper my kids’ school fundraising catalog happened to offer this year.

Despite not doing those things, the days leading up to Christmas are still packed with activity. And I’ll be honest: Even though I’ve chosen to take on work that is meaningful to me, I’m relieved when I slide the final tray of cookies from the oven, stamp the last card, and wrap the last gift. The payback for all the work is that I can sit back and enjoy the holiday itself, and the week that follows, in a nicely decorated home, nibbling on the holiday leftovers, helping my kids figure out the rules to their new games.

But that comes next week. As I write this, I still have three kinds of cookies to make, and almost all of the kids’ presents to wrap. So I’m putting aside the laptop to go tend to those final tasks. I invite you to use the comments area to share your own take on what is and is not necessary for your Christmas celebrations.

In last week’s episode of the ABC family comedy The Middle, Frankie (the mom) decides that, to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas, the kids won’t get a big haul of gifts. The kids greet this news with wide-eyed panic. When Frankie’s parents, dismayed that their grandchildren won’t get many gifts, show up Christmas morning with a huge load of presents, Frankie has a spectacular meltdown during which she yells at everyone for ruining the special Christmas she planned. Then she realizes that she is actually the one ruining Christmas with her tantrum and insistence that everyone do Christmas her way.

In an utterly different take on Christmas giving, writer Ann Voskamp recently described on her blog how her son asked one Christmas, “Why don’t we give up things so we can give to Jesus for his birthday?” In the ten years since then, Voskamp and her family have chosen not to get gifts for each other, but rather to pore over catalogs from places like Compassion and World Vision to select gifts (animals, clean water, etc.) for the world’s poor.

These two stories couldn’t be more different—one about a stereotypical American family whose kids can’t imagine Christmas without gifts, and one about a family who joyfully celebrates without gifts. But I think both point to an important lesson when it comes to helping our kids see Christmas as more than an opportunity to get a bunch of stuff they want.

If I announced to my kids that we’re forgoing gifts this Christmas, they would respond as the kids in The Middle did—with dismay and panic. And frankly, I enjoy getting them each a nice little pile of gifts, chosen very deliberately using both their wish lists and my knowledge of them for guidance. But my kids’ love of their own gifts has led to a fascination with our church’s Angel Tree—a ministry run by Prison Fellowship whereby people purchase gifts for children on behalf of their moms and dads who are in prison. My kids always want to pick lots and lots of cards, and I have to explain that we actually can’t take a lot because then other people in our church wouldn’t get a chance to help. So we usually just pick two, belonging to kids near my kids’ ages.

My children talk and talk about how the kids will love their gifts. They also ask why a mom or dad would be in prison, and who takes care of the kids while they are. I’d like to think that, besides learning that other kids don’t have as much as they do and that it feels good to help someone, my children are also learning that prisoners are not nameless “bad guys,” but whole people who love their children. If it were up to me, I might skip the Angel Tree giving. I could be confident that no child would be left ungifted, because there is plenty of interest in the Angel Tree within my church. And it’s one more thing on my long to-do list. But for my kids, it’s an indispensable ritual of Advent.

A few weeks ago, my friend Leeann responded to a plea I put on Facebook for hand-me-down clothes for a four-year-old girl I learned about through my sister. The little girl’s mom was struggling because her ex-husband wasn’t paying his child support. As Leeann searched her closets for outgrown clothing, her kids asked about this little girl, and why she needed their old clothes. Leeann explained, then went on to say that that some kids’ families don’t have enough money to buy lots of toys at Christmas, especially when they don’t even have enough money to buy stuff the kids need. So her kids said they wanted to get this little girl some new toys for Christmas. Together, they settled on some fleece pajamas, a Strawberry Shortcake toy, and a Little Pony toy. They wrapped the gifts, and I sent them off to my sister in Massachusetts, who will make sure they get to that little girl. So three kids in Connecticut, led by curiosity and compassion, have made sure that a little girl in Massachusetts whose name they don’t even know will have a few gifts under her tree.

A few wrapped gifts won’t change the fact that some kids’ parents are in prison, or that a little girl’s mom is struggling to provide the most basic necessities. Buying $50 worth of clothes and toys doesn’t come close in radical gift-giving to Ann Voskamp’s family tradition of forgoing gifts altogether to give generously to the poor around the world.

I’m guessing there are a fair number of parents who, upon reading Voskamp’s beautiful post about her family’s tradition, thought, “I should tell my family that we’re doing that too.” But as Frankie Heck learned in The Middle, telling our family what to do doesn’t often work out so well. A key component of Voskamp’s story is that the idea didn’t come from her; it came from her son.

Loving our children, first and foremost, requires accepting who they are. Perhaps if we let our children take the lead in deciding on family traditions to make Christmas meaningful, it will actually be meaningful, instead of just one more way that we parents make ourselves crazy trying to mold our children and homes into what we think they should be. And if we’re working throughout the year on teaching and modeling compassion, mindful consumption, and thoughtful gift-giving, then I am confident that our children can lead us toward ways of giving instead of only receiving.