Christmas Traditions that Teach the Value of Giving

During the Christmas season, no family is immune to the intense marketing messages that surround them. The Christmas spirit seems to have been replaced with greed. The value of cheerful giving can be taught to children through simple holiday traditions.

One holiday tradition we instituted with our daughters was giving to the less fortunate instead of thinking of our own gift lists. Ever since our oldest daughter was a toddler we attempted to teach each of our children that God wants us to be cheerful givers. Each time they heard a Salvation Army bell-ringer, our daughters knew that they would receive coins or maybe a dollar bill to put in the red kettle. Sometimes, depending upon how many stores we needed to enter, our change purses would be emptied by the end of our shopping time. Sure, we could have written out a check and sent it to the local Salvation Army office. We could have given the contents of our change purse all at once. We received a reward this year for making this a holiday tradition. Our adult daughter who was with us on a shopping trip gave her youngest sister some coins from her own pocket to put in the kettle.

Our family's love for making music led to another holiday tradition. When our children grew older, our family volunteered to ring the Salvation Army bells. My daughters sang Christmas carols as I accompanied them on the clarinet. Passing people stopped a few times to listen or sing along. Joyous responses to our Christmas cheer made the experience worthwhile.

Once we volunteered with our 4-H club to help serve at a soup kitchen. Because of the age of the children, they were not allowed to actually put the food on plates but were given the job of taking plates to people once they were seated and afterwards helping in the cleanup of the dining hall.

Perhaps the most enjoyable holiday tradition we have done is one I started when I was teaching our daughters how to bake. A few days after Thanksgiving, I would begin assembling a list of places that might be especially blessed to receive a plate of Christmas cookies. Then we would peruse our recipe books for an assortment of cookies we could bake. Some years we decided on eight different kinds. We would plan the days in which we had time to get ingredients and bake cookies. In past years the places that have received a holiday platter of assorted cookies included our local law enforcement center, both county nursing homes, my husband's workplace, shut-ins from our church, and the soup kitchen. A couple of times, we even surprised Salvation Army bell-ringers with small plates of freshly baked holiday cookies.

Each year we join in our church's holiday tradition of assembling shoeboxes stuffed with small gifts, hygiene products, and school supplies for Operation Christmas Child, a ministry operated by Samaritan's Purse. Our daughters have spent their own money to buy toothpaste and toothbrushes, toys, soap, washcloths, brushes, combs, hard candies, and other items to put in shoeboxes they have at home. Last year, one of our daughters wrote a Christmas greeting to the recipient of the shoebox she had put together. The shoeboxes are collected and brought to a local Christian radio station who sponsors Operation Christmas Child for the area. From there, our shoeboxes travel to children in 95 countries around the world. Samaritan's Purse has a video showing the distribution of the shoebox gifts to children in need. Our church has shown it prior to the deadline for collection of the boxes. From pictures of children in Africa orphaned by the AIDS epidemic to those living in the sewers of large cities, the video has impressed upon our daughters how a simple holiday tradition like giving a box of school and hygiene supplies and toys can make a difference in another child's life.

If I was asked next year what I got for Christmas this year, I probably would not remember. I know if you were to ask me how we taught our daughters values through our holiday traditions I could answer with a joyous smile.