![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theamericanjesus.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/christmas-rush.jpg\" "\\"christmas")
<\/a><\/p>\nMy family has a holiday tradition of going to see a movie the night of Thanksgiving and then again on Christmas. It\u2019s not a particularly innovative or interesting tradition, but with all of us being grown up and spread out it\u2019s the only time we get to have a family outing anymore.<\/p>\n
This year we saw Hugo<\/em>. Not the greatest Scorsese movie (I\u2019ll let GoodFellas<\/a><\/em> As we were leaving the theater I decided to swing by Best Buy<\/em> to see what sort of line had begun to form for their midnight Black Friday opening. Not\u00a0surprisingly it looked like\u00a0people had been camped out for several hours. The line back up all the way to the corner of the store.<\/p>\n Then we turned the corner. The line wrapped around the corner.<\/p>\n Then we drove down the side of the store. The lined continued down the side of the store.<\/p>\n Then we drove around the back of the store. Not only was the line wrapped around the back of the store, but it continued into the back parking lot and loading dock, zig zagging around trailers, a dumpster, and cars.<\/p>\n Such is the insanity of Christmas.<\/p>\n But it doesn\u2019t have to be that way.<\/p>\n And I don\u2019t just mean the obvious, that we don\u2019t\u00a0all\u00a0have to camp out the night before to snag great deals.<\/p>\n What if we stopped passing out junk at Christmas to people that don\u2019t really need more stuff, and instead started giving real<\/em> gifts to people who are really<\/em> in need?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what I mean\u2026.<\/p>\n A few years ago my wife and I decided to do something somewhat radical for Christmas. We decided not to get each other Christmas gifts.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t because we didn\u2019t have the money.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t because Scrooge is our personal hero and we loathe Christmas.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t because we\u2019re lazy and don\u2019t want to hunt for gifts for each other. (Although, I must admit we don\u2019t miss that stress.)<\/p>\n We were tired of fighting the Christmas rush for stuff that would probably end up in the trash in a few years. We were tired of stressing over finding \u201cjust the right thing\u201d for each other. We were tired of not being able to actually enjoy Christmas for all of the craziness.<\/p>\n Most of all, we were tired of pretending that at Christmas time we were doing anything that was remotely Christ-like.<\/p>\n So, we gave up getting each other Christmas presents and we bought a goat.<\/p>\n Seriously.<\/p>\n Hang with me here for a second and I\u2019ll explain why.<\/p>\n For Christians, Christmas is the season of Advent, the time when we celebrate God\u2019s gift of Himself to the world for our salvation. The tradition of giving gifts goes all the way back to the wise men from the east who came to visit the infant Jesus, bringing him gifts of gold,\u00a0frankincense, and\u00a0myrrh. Every year, the thought is, the church reenacts this moment by giving gifts to each other.<\/p>\n But I don\u2019t think many of us would argue that this holy act has been turned into a moment of materialism, selfishness, and greed.<\/p>\n In the biblical narrative, the gift of the wise men was meant to symbolize the kingship of Jesus. Gold,\u00a0frankincense, and\u00a0myrrh\u00a0were costly, royal gifts. But if we take another look at the nativity story, I think we can find a better model for gift giving, than simply giving each other \u201cnice stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Take a moment, step back, and look at the bare bones of this story. What\u2019s going on? A poor family, who is confined (most likely) to a cave because they couldn\u2019t find a place to stay the night, is visited by strangers of means who bestow upon them gifts whose value could significantly change their lives.<\/p>\n Now take a moment, step back, and look at what we do for Christmas. What\u2019s going on? We buy our family and friends (and sometimes ourselves) stuff that will entertain us or maybe make us look good for a little while. Strangers without means usually don\u2019t make it on our Christmas shopping list.<\/p>\n Not very \u201cChristmasy\u201d if you really think about it that way.<\/p>\n This is why I think we should ditch the gifts and buy goats for Christmas.<\/p>\n Or chickens.<\/p>\n Or a cow.<\/p>\n Or mosquito nets.<\/p>\n Or a well.<\/p>\n Or school for an orphan.<\/p>\n Or safe harbor for victims of the global sex trade.<\/p>\n Obviously you can\u2019t pick these things up at Wal-Mart. You\u2019re going to need to get a \u201cgift catalogue\u201d from someone like World Vision<\/a><\/em> or Heifer International<\/a><\/em>. There\u2019s a new one out each year, packed with ways to radically change people\u2019s lives. Look through it, pick out something, and change the world.<\/p>\n This is our new Christmas tradition.<\/p>\n Our World Vision<\/em> catalog comes in the mail sometime around November. We pour over its pages and we cry. We cry at the fact that only $50 stands in the way of hope and safety for sexually exploited girls, that it only takes $70 to send an orphan to school for an entire year, or that a mere $18 can buy bed nets that will quite literally save the lives of an entire family.<\/p>\n We cry because we realize that all the money we\u2019ve been spending on junk for ourselves could have saved someone\u2019s life.<\/p>\n I realize that the idea of fundamentally changing Christmas from a time of stuff giving to a moment of life giving might not be realistic.<\/p>\n But what\u2019s realistic about a teenage girl giving birth to the savior of the world? What\u2019s realistic about a baby being God incarnate? What\u2019s realistic about a God who chooses to let His people kill Him, rather than destroy them in His just wrath? What\u2019s realistic about a dead man coming back to life and walking out of his own tomb? What\u2019s realistic about uneducated fishermen dropping their nets and changing the world?<\/p>\n Nothing. But such is the reality of the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to wholesale abandon Christmas presents this year. And I\u2019m not telling you to break your child\u2019s heart with empty space under the tree on Christmas morning.<\/p>\n But what if you began simply, by getting together as a family and choosing to give up 1 thing together so that with that money you could save someone\u2019s life that you\u2019ve never met.<\/p>\n