The above verse is a reminder & confirmation to me to rest in Him. When I do His {God, King of Kings, Heavenly Father} will, He is pleased and as a result I will have peace. All Glory is His!
*** Totally changing the subject now ***
I want to address something I’ve been noticing as a trend online: Christmas on a budget. While this is a wonderful idea, necessary for many, and I actually haven’t seen much I disagreed with. However, honestly, none of it has applied to me. The ideas for stocking stuffers – I don’t pay that much for gifts! What I want to talk about is: what about when a budget is out of the question? A budget for Christmas – I wish! Right now, I’m trying to figure out how to put gas in the car AND buy groceries. Buy Christmas gifts? uh, not happening.
Does this mean we don’t ‘do’ Christmas? No way! Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year.
It just means we are learning to be much more creative. Watch any good (or ‘low budget’) Christmas movie – so many are about the miracle of Christmas and how magical this time of year is. I don’t disagree Christmas is a miraculous time of year. But, look at what is often portrayed in these movies as the miracle of Christmas. People’s change of heart. Family’s reuniting. So many go too far though and it becomes a lie; I’m talking about the movies ending with financial woes and hardships coming to an end with a large gift and/or hurting hearts finding their love. While that is all good and lovely, it is not the miracle of Christmas. It’s just what is tangible and able to be felt. And the masses tend to feel more generous at this time of year (tax cut-off doesn’t hurt either). Usually it is a distraction/distortion of the truth though – many of us don’t get the huge dream we were anticipating at the 11th hour because it’s Christmas; it’s about our learning to live within the means of life, trusting Him.
What is the miracle of Christmas? God sending His Son to be born as a human, to die for each of our sins, then rise again – so we could have eternal life!
So, back to ‘doing’ Christmas…what this means, traditionally speaking, is gifts. BUT it really isn’t about the cost, size, value, or time spent on a gift. It’s about thinking of who the gift is for – so often though, it has become about making sure to have a gift for everyone we might know. I’ve never been in the financial position to be able to give what I’d like to.
{insert clarification} First of all, I have raised my kids with the understanding we don’t do big birthday parties and first choice is always to make a gift. This has made it easier for me, I don’t deny that. We didn’t have to abruptly learn how to live on nothing. We don’t just run out and buy something to buy something, no matter how much we love the person. We give gifts because we want to share a part of ourselves with another. My goal, for 12 years now, has been to keep gifts to $5 or less, in the last couple years I’ve had to go up to $7 or even $10 at times. For Christmas, my kids have basically always received one main gift and a couple other little ones, depending on the year. A couple years ago I spent the most I ever have on Christmas – it was right around $250 for everyone (total) – my children, parents, brothers, brothers’ families, family friends, youth leaders/sunday school teachers/piano teachers. Interestingly enough, it was the most empty giving I’d ever given. I hated it. I like making gifts. I’m so thankful God made me that way. However, I’ve mainly raised my children this way for a few reasons:
- Money is not plentiful for us. By the grace of God there is always money for necessities, but we don’t live ‘typically’. [see below]
- When you have to keep the cost to almost nothing you tend to think more about the receiver, what they like, their interests, not about how quick you can be done with this chore.
- When you make the gift, it is more about an expression of the receivers’ importance to you, than what the gift is.
Time for some brutal honesty: I haven’t had a source of income since August and child support quit the end of September. Simply put, it hurts. It’s beyond scary. I feel like a major failure. Some days the lack of funds overwhelms me. Some days I tell myself we’re fine. Right now – I’m having physical symptoms of tension headaches, lack of sleep, major stress….so, obviously I wasn’t doing as well at giving it all up to the Lord as I thought I was {sigh}. Be still…. While child support isn’t typically enough to live on and it hasn’t ever been consistent, it hasn’t been non-existant at the same time as me not having any other source of income. Before you have any thoughts of me having been a good planner, I must have had a savings set up, or done something smart like that – let me stop you. It isn’t true. I had no warning and no reserves, they’d been used up to get through the summer.
I suck at having a budget – why? Because I don’t have the same amount of money two months in a row, it might be $0 or up to $700. (please don’t be offended I have put actual numbers up, but I want you to understand why some of the ideas I have read seem so ludicrous to me, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one in this position.) I have learned to buy what I can when I can and we don’t do many extra’s.
- We live in an apartment attached to my parents’ home.
- My daughter & I share a bedroom.
- My son has a bedroom on my parents’ side of the house.
- My living room is 225 sf – this is where we live. do home school. where I work.
- Until this year I haven’t paid rent.
- I don’t pay for a vehicle – we drive a wrecked vehicle my dad fixed up. My dad does all vehicle maintenance.
- We just moved out of the van because I couldn’t afford to drive it. Thankfully my dad had another vehicle here he fixed up for us.
So. Christmas gifts.
—We are making them this year with supplies we already have. Not looking at ideas and going to buy supplies. It’s amazing how much stuff we have – useful, just waiting to be used. Why not start using some of it now?
We drew names within my family and had Christmas on Thanksgiving. So I only made a gift for my dad – using pictures, like I do every year :-D. I did add a canvas print for my brother & sis-in-law of their two sweeties. For family friends/youth leader gifts this year I’m giving Chai creamer and Vanilla Sugar (I made both) in small canning jars, in the end it will be approx. 15 gifts for $9, the cost of a case of canning jars. For Christmas this year, I have purchased one gift, a Bible for Vince; he’s 15 and asked specifically for a Message Bible a few months back. I expect I will buy a few stocking stuffers, but I dont’ know what yet. I still have lots of finalizing of ‘plans’ in my head {jewelry making, sewing, scrapping, crafting} — I don’t follow patterns, so I live in a state of confusion until I get it all worked out :-D.
–Not crafty. Don’t have supplies on hand? Don’t have money for anything extra? How about taking the time to write out what someone means to you. A different element to our drawing names this year was we were to pick a verse we felt identified the receiver of our gift and before they opened their gift we said the verse and explained why. It was amazing. I made a calendar for my dad – on each month I put a verse I thought might apply for the plans I know are laid out for next year. It took a long time, but I loved giving it to him, and I loved the way it made me think ahead to the next year and be focused, intentional on how I will be praying for him each month. Cost = $2 (because I got prints of the pictures, my printer decided to die for color printing). I used my own photos I’d taken through the year. I had all the scrapbook supplies.
—Remember, the receiver of your gift doesn’t really want you to spend money you don’t have to buy them something. Plan a coffee date with a friend, make treats & coffee at home. It doesn’t have to have a cost to let someone know you care about them as a person. Allow yourself to step out of the commercialized Christmas rut and enjoy the holiday season – allow it to be a time of rest, reflect on family memories, spend time with friends and family. Slow down before the new year starts. Enjoy the kids while they’re out of school for Christmas break.
Anyway, I just wanted to be a blogger stating what others may be experiencing as well. Not having a budget for Christmas.