Art by Sarah Richards Samuelson, tulippainter.blogspot.com

For Beth Millward, Christmas comes early. “Honestly, I often start playing Christmas music in August. It’s still 80 or 90 degrees. But as soon as the kids walk off to school, I’ve just got to turn on some Christmas songs. If not then, the first chilly day of the year,” she says.

Beth loves Christmas, and it boggles her mind that anyone could think about it with anything but glee. She has a theory about this: while most people try to pack their celebrating into 25-30 days, she gets at least three months in. Then she’s not panicked about fitting everything in. 

 Christmas is coming, portly goose and all, whether that fills you with glee or stress. Today we’re going to dig into this dichotomy and hopefully get rid of any dread you might feel. Christmas should be a season of joy and dare I say peace—even for moms. Fear not! You too can enjoy Christmas, though maybe not as much as Beth. 

 We’re going to start by talking about strategy. You may know by now that one of my greatest joys is to find two moms with different strategies for the same scenario—in this case, Christmas. Let me introduce you to Beth and Ceri. 

One way to characterize their two strategies is that Beth has an “and” approach to Christmas, while Ceri has more of an “or” approach. 

 Let’s look at a typical morning at Beth’s house, so you can see what I mean:

1.  Christmas Eve breakfast, with extended family, and any other people they can find who might be feeling lonely this time of year. 

2. Sugar-cookie decorating contest, complete with awards. Judged by an impartial neighbor. Very serious business.

3. Last-minute Christmas shopping.

4. Start cooking for Christmas dinner. (Shrimp, crab, ham, side dishes)

5. Feast

6. Drop off 12 Days of Christmas gift.

7. Drop off Secret Santa gifts for a family in need.

8. Kids act out Nativity play.

9. Kids open ornament for the year, related to a trip or activity during the year.

10. Watch Luke 2 Video, with Amy Grant’s “Breath of Heaven” playing behind it. (See below)

11. Read The Night Before Christmas.

12.  Family sleepover!

I adore Beth, but thinking about packing all of that in one day makes me hyperventilate. But Beth loves it. This is Christmas to her. She packs it in not out of duty, but sheer exuberance. I’ll share even more of her fun traditions throughout this article. Beth is one of the three hosts of the Family Looking Up podcast—I never miss an episode. 

For some of us, the key to a joyful Christmas is more of an “or” strategy. This is true for Ceri Payne, a life coach and master organizer. 

Each Christmas, Ceri decides what her priorities are for Christmas. Then she talks to her family to decide what activities to do and what they can cut out, so they can be intentional about their time. 

 They decided their main priorities are: 

1. Create memories

2.  Cultivate family time

3. Create downtime

4. Focus on the spiritual side of Christmas

5. Provide service

6. Honor traditions of the past

If activities do not fit within these priorities, it’s easier to say no. For example, they decided to use a light projector instead of putting up Christmas lights, because they didn’t want to spend the time or money to put them up. They started ordering Chinese food on Christmas Eve instead of having a big feast, so they could spend more time enjoying each other and less time hustling and bustling in the kitchen. 

This hustle and bustle seems to be behind most of the dread the moms I talked to feel about the Christmas season. I love Ceri’s approach to edit your schedule to the most essential, most important things. 

But only you know if you’re the kind of mom that is happiest when you fill every minute with Christmas activities like Beth, or if you need to scale back and simplify this year. Both ways work, and so does being somewhere in the middle. 

Another culprit for Christmas stress is that dirty word: expectations. Sometimes as moms we feel like we’re solely in charge of making Christmas great. We want it to be so magical and amazing that sometimes we get unrealistic, and then disappointed. 

But we’re moms, which means by definition we have kids. And when kids are involved some things are just going to go wrong. 

One memorable Christmas, my husband David was so sick he was just down and out—asleep on the couch for the entire night. We ate our Christmas Eve dinner without him, and then tried to revive him for the pageant, but he was just out. We carried on without him, me reading from the Bible and trying to wrangle the children and throw some songs into it. But pretty soon it was just utter chaos. It ended with my five-year-old shepherd marching in front of the manger chanting “Defense! Defence!”

I’ve found, however, that many of the expectations are mine alone—the kids are fine. If something falls through, sometimes as moms we feel responsible. But often we forget that Christmas can be fun for our kids and us too. 

Sarah Powers, co-host of the fabulous podcast The Mom Hour, realized last year that her kids are getting old enough that they don’t really need as much hands-on management. But it’s hard to break the habit of buzzing around taking care of things. So last Christmas, she decided she was going to stop the buzzing and start participating—to sit down and enjoy the hot cocoa with her kids, instead of just making it for them and moving on to the next task. 

This really hit home for me, and gave me my mantra for this Christmas season: Participate. No more buzzing on the periphery of the fun! 

The Mom Hour is one of my favorite podcasts. Sarah Powers and Meagan Francis have great chemistry, they choose and research their topics well, and they are such a great resource for moms! The episode I referred to is called December Intentions for Busy Moms: 2018 Holiday Special #2.

For the rest of this post, I’m going to share some of the great ideas I’ve collected from moms—including Beth and Ceri, from gifts, to traditional activities to decorations to service. This is not intended to stress you out, with even more activities and traditions to add to your list—it’s just a fun glimpse into a variety of family traditions to show you how different Christmas can look from one family to another. And who knows, you might find one or two that you want to throw in to your own holiday mix. 

Gifts

Giving gifts is definitely one of those activities for which you can have an “and” strategy or an “or” strategy. Some families go hog wild, just mounding those gifts under the tree. Others set a budget and stick to it. Still others set parameters based on parameters for gifts. 

My friend Lori Brescia gives her kids three gifts for Christmas, representing the three wise men. They wrap them in color-coded wrapping paper. Red is a gift of meaning, such as a journal, a scrapbook, a special date with mom and dad or a family trip. Gold is a gift of wonder—something fun a child has been wanting. Green is a gift of usefulness, such as clothing, books, or camping equipment. Having these limits helps them stick to just three gifts per person and it keeps the focus away from the commercialization of Christmas. 

Ceri uses different categories: something to read, something to wear, something to play with or entertain them, something warm, something that sparkles (she has three girls), and something they need. 

Lindsay Nielson, the mom behind the fabulous Instagram account The Lindsay Report has her own formula. One gift from mom and dad; one from Santa; something educational, like a book or science kit; and an experience, such as a movie or dinner date, mini golf, etc. 

When Julia Meservy was growing up, her dad planned a treasure hunt each Christmas for one big family present, like a trampoline, a puppy, or, when they were older, a stash of gas cards and restaurant cards— a big gift they could all use together.

He’d hide clues all over town—at the gas station, friends’ houses, the grocery store, etc. 
Now that Julia has her own kids (ages 5, 3, & 3) she has continued the tradition, although they stay around the house since the kids are small. Typically, after all the presents have been opened they point out an envelope that is sitting on one of the branches of the Christmas tree. Inside is their first clue. The clues always rhyme and are typically four lines long, although one year when their kids were really young they did pictures of objects around their home that they could find. After they find all of the clues, it leads them back to the Christmas tree where their surprise is waiting. So much fun—plus, it helps stretch the gift opening part so it’s not just over in a flash of wrapping paper. 

Most families I talked to also make sure that the kids open gifts one at a time and watch each other, so they can pause to be grateful and admire each other’s gifts, instead of just opening everything at once. 

Then there’s the issue of Christmas lists. When I was a kid, one of the first signs of Christmas was getting those gigantic, tree-killing catalogs from Sears and JC Penney—the Wish books. We’d pore through them and star the things we wanted. Mini versions of these catalogs still come to our house each Christmas, and the wants just start piling up. Of course we want to buy our kids things they’ll treasure, and it makes sense to ask them what they want, but lengthy Christmas lists always leave me so depressed and worried I’m raising entitled children. 

 One of my favorite solutions for this problem came from the podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin. One of her listeners, Miriam, has her kids write a list of things they like—their interests and hobbies–instead of a traditional  wish list. That way they don’t feel entitled to get what they have put on their list or disappointed when they don’t, but they give parents and grandparents a good idea of what interests them at the moment. Miriam saves them each year and their family has fun looking back on what they liked in the past.

Beth has another genius solution, which solves several problems. When she’s with her kids at the store and they want something, she say, “Why don’t we take a picture with it, so I can remember you want it?” This appeases the kids, and then Beth can scroll through the pictures later to see what they like. And often, she’ll ask them, “Do you still like this?” and the answer is no. Needless purchase averted. 

Alison Malstrom, my sister-in-law, keeps a gift list on her phone that she manages all year long and buys gifts throughout the year when she sees things on sale. Her goal is to have 90% of Christmas gift shopping done by the first of December. 

And your kids are the only people you have to shop for at Christmastime. I asked the How She Moms Facebook Group what they do for extended family gifts, and I got a mixed bag. Some with larger families pick names or pick families that they buy for. Others buy for everyone, or at least every family, and some forgo exchanging gifts altogether.  

Buying for parents is often the hardest, because they’ve usually bought or acquired all they want or need. Hillary Hess’s dad had a great solution. He asked his kids to spend money doing service and report back what they did. It was a great experience for their family. 

Marilyn came up with a great tradition for buying gifts for her grandchildren. She tells them the price range and then takes them each shopping (individually or in pairs) to pick out their gifts. She gets to spend time with them and find out what interests them, and she knows that she’s getting them something they’ll actually like (and something that fits). Then the kids come home and wrap their own presents and bring them to the family room. They have a family party (with dinner and other activities) and everyone opens their gifts. The kids love opening these presents as much as if they didn’t know what they were. They love that their parents don’t know what the gifts are and they get to surprise them.

One of Linda Crawford’s favorite traditions is that her husband takes each of her four kids out to dinner and a shopping date for their sibling gifts. She loves watching them think about what their siblings truly want and need, saving up, and gratefully accepting the others’ thought and attention. 

Most families I talked to have their kids buy gifts for each other, often with their own money so there’s some sacrifice involved. 

My sister Hayley has young kids, so they don’t have money to buy for each other yet. So she takes them all to the store, gives them $10, and they grab a blanket from the store to put over the gifts in the cart until they check out, so they can keep the element of surprise. 

Not surprisingly, Beth has a really fun–and very involved–tradition for her kids’ gifts giving: Santa’s Workshop. She prints off Santa bucks, and then hangs up a list of chores and how much they can earn for each one. Then the kids try to earn 10-20 Santa bucks for each of their four siblings. Beth and her husband Danny shop for the kids and then set up the gifts in different rooms of the house—“stores” for each one of the kids. Then the kids go shopping for their other siblings at the Santa’s Workshop. They find this easier and way more fun than taking the kids to the store to pick out their siblings’ gifts. 

And then there’s neighbor and friend gifts—treats, candles, etc. Linda Crawford likes to assemble kits with a ready-to-make rice side dish recipe by Paula Dean, wrap them beautifully, and just drop them off when the moment presents itself. No one has to refrigerate anything, you can use it anytime, and it doesn’t add to the mound of treats. 

Instead of neighbor gifts, Kristin Steele’s neighborhood has a party where they all bring food to donate to the local food bank. Yes, it’s another even to attend, but it’s a fun one, and for a good cause. 

Ceri has another great idea for an early neighbor gift—she buys wrapping paper after the holidays when it’s 50% off, then gives it to her neighbors in early December, with a note that says, “Here’s a gift to help you get wrapped up in the holiday spirit.” She stores it in her Christmas closet. 

And yes, I just said Christmas closet. Her house had this random 6X6 closet that Ceri turned into her Christmas closet. Inside, she has a box for each member of the family, where she can put gifts as she buys them. The closet locks, so it’s the perfect storage plan! She also keeps a birthday box in the closet, so she can buy little gifts on sale and keep them for when she or one of her daughter needs a gift for a friend. 

And of course you’re not done once you buy the presents. Now you have to wrap them. Ceri has a fun solution for this too. She sets aside a few Saturday nights in December as wrapping dates with her husband. She gets two pairs of scissors, two rolls of tape, and puts on a Christmas movie, and they go to town. 

Christmas Cards

Another of the Christmas traditions that you can prep ahead is Christmas cards, if that’s one of the things you’ve decided is important. We always order ours during Black Friday sales. But it usually takes me until right before Christmas to get them all addressed. This year I’m going to try to get the addresses all figured out during Thanksgiving week, so they’re ready to go when the cards come. 

One of the cards I look forward to receiving every year is from my friend Adrianne Mortensen. She asks a different child to write the family Christmas letter each year, summarizing the year and/or describing each family member. Other family members are not allowed to comment or edit what is said about them (within reason). It’s pretty hilarious.

Janssen Bradshaw hates throwing away all the beautiful Christmas cards she receives after she’s done displaying them over the holidays. So she decided to save them each year and cut them into heart shapes. Then she ties the hearts together to make a Valentine’s Day garland. I’ll include a photo of it on Instagram this week and on howshemoms.com in the post for this episode. Janssen is the wonderful woman behind everyday-reading.com, one of my go-to sites for children’s book recommendations. 

My cousin April Gilbert has a special Christmas tree set up just to display the Christmas cards she receives. A great idea, and a great segue into talking about ornaments. 

Ornaments

I received a lot of listener ideas about Christmas tree ornaments—several families buy ornaments when they travel, or let each kid pick an ornament that reflects their interests each year. Some have a kid tree and a pretty tree, because those kid ornaments can get pretty gaudy and random. 

My favorite ornament tradition is one I discovered and promptly copied six or seven years ago from my friend Amber Addams. I walked into her house and noticed a cell phone dangling from one of the branches of her Christmas tree. Of course I asked her about it. She told me it was their “bat phone,” the cell phone her husband used to talk to her during their long-distance engagement. I looked closer and found more strange ornaments: a name tag she wore during her church mission, her husband’s military name tag, a binkie to commemorate her son’s first Christmas, and the hood ornament from the beloved van that they drove into the ground. 

Because of Amber, our tree now includes my baby booties, my second son’s first pair of glasses from when he was an infant, a metro pass from when my husband lived in Austria, a belt buckle from my hometown, some of the cheap necklace pendants my kids have bought me in Christmases past, and my high school ID card, among other mementos. I love that our tree is now full of family stories that we get to retell each year as we decorate and whenever visitors notice them. 

One year, my sister-in-law Alison Malstrom gave us a gift of 25 ornaments that related to 25 New Testament scriptures, with links to videos we could watch as well. We love bringing these out each night leading up to Christmas to help us focus on the meaning of Christmas.

Now that our kids are getting older, we use a guide that Brooke Romney, a fabulous writer put together. It also includes scriptures for each day of December, but includes really thoughtful questions that generated great conversations last year. Here’s an example of the questions from one of the days:

By who and how were the wise men warned not to return back to Herod? Did they obey the warning or question it? Have you ever been warned about a bad situation? What did you do? Were you like the wise men?

Brooke also had great gift lists for boys, since she also has four boys, which you can find here.

Activities

One of the best part about putting this episode together was finding out about unique family activities and traditions. I’ll start with one of my own Christmas traditions with my siblings, which was short-lived, but very memorable. 

We were just finishing Christmas Eve dinner in 2001, when my two brothers gave each other the signal. They launched their coordinated attack, plucking me right out of my seat. Before I realized what was going on, they carried me kicking, writhing, and yelling, to a rolling computer chair, to which they quickly—and very securely—tied me up. I was the Christmas hostage.  

They got right to work with decorations, my husband of two years standing idly by. Soon I was decked out like a Christmas tree: ornaments and candy canes dangling from the ropes; garland draped here and there; a hard hat, for some reason; and a wreath around my neck, complete with lights. 

They picked up the chair, loaded me into the neighbor’s van, kidnapper style, and the whole family piled in. Since I was the second Christmas hostage, I knew what came next. They would be leaving me on various doorsteps, ringing the doorbell, and running away, leaving me to sheepishly explain why I was disrupting their Christmas Eve festivities. After the first drop, I asked them to at least do me the courtesy of gagging me so I didn’t have to have an awkward doorstep conversation. 

My two sisters and I each had a year of being the Christmas hostage, and then we stopped being able to get together for Christmas. Maybe one of these days we’ll all get together again, and we’ll have to take down our brothers. 

The Hanchett family has a fun twist on the tradition of Christmas jammies. They draw names and buy pajamas for each other, each trying to find the funniest pjs they can. The stipulation is that then they have to wear them all year, or at least all season. They’ve come up with some pretty great ones. 

Every Christmas, Alisa Stacey prints out tickets that say the Honda Express and she picks a night to drive the family around to look at Christmas lights. The kids have no idea when it will happen. They put them to bed as usual and then “wake” them up with a train whistle and give them their tickets, which they punch on their way to the van, where hot cocoa and cookies await. They drive around and see Christmas lights and sing Christmas songs.

Before kids, Danielle and her husband used to go out for breakfast to celebrate Christmas Adam (the day before Christmas Eve). They tried eating out with small kids and it was *not* the way to say Merry Christmas. Now they celebrate with a ‘fancy’ restaurant at home, which they call the “Porterhouse Christmas Family Cafe.”

They set up a table in the living room, with music in the background and her husband dresses up as the server. Sometimes the kids dress up too. They have a special menu they can order from with Christmas-y menu items and special things they don’t get all the time (hot chocolate! juice!) and everyone LOVES how much fun this is.

They still laugh about the time they’re (then) three-year-old (who didn’t quite understand the breakfast menu) happily ordered french fries when asked what she wanted, and the time her husband accidentally spilled chocolate milk on their eight-year-olds head.

 Kara Farnsworth and her extended family also celebrate Christmas Adam. They have a big Grinch-themed feast. This year they’re planning a big group service project. 

 Last year, Hillary Hess decided to set aside an entire Saturday in December for a Christmas movie Marathon—in their Christmas jammies of course. Food is Hillary’s specialty—she blogs at helpingofhappiness.com and has a podcast by that name as well. So when they watched Christmas Vacation, they drank egg nog but decided to forgo the extra-dry turkey.  They ate cookies and drank hot chocolate for the Santa Clause. In between movies, they sang Christmas songs like the carolers in Christmas with the Kranks. And they ate spaghetti for lunch in celebration of Elf–maple syrup and sprinkles optional. And of course they balanced it out with some fruit and veggie trays. 

 Arabah Joy has so many wonderful and simple Christmas traditions that it’s hard to choose which ones to share. So here are three, and you can read more about them and other great traditions at arabahjoy.com.
1. Snowflake cutting competition. It’s as simple as it sounds, and you end up with pretty decorations.
2. The Christmas Eve box. A box the family opens together on Christmas Eve, which includes a new game for the family to play, pajamas, snacks, and sometimes even a coupon for a Christmas campout by the tree.
3. Christmas story scavenger hunt. Armed with a bible and the fabulous guide Arabah created, participants figure out the clues and gather objects around the house. For example: “Read Luke 2:6. Find something soft and warm like the material in this verse.” You can download the clues for free on her blog, Arabahjoy.com.

Before the first of December, Beth chooses 25 Christmas books, wraps them up, and then they read one every night leading up to Christmas. 

 Kristin Steele also has a Christmas book tradition. She buys a new Christmas picture book for the family each year, glues that year’s Christmas card onto the front cover, and writes about some of the highlights of the year. 

 Christmas Eve

Now lets talk Christmas Eve. Several years ago, I realized that I was kind of dreading Christmas Eve. We always had a fancy, candlelit dinner; put on a Christmas pageant with the kids; opened their Christmas pajamas; somehow got our over-stimulated children to bed; and then still had hours of work to go. It was all fun, but so much work that I was too exhausted to really enjoy it. I realized that of all those traditions, the food prep was the most work and the least memorable. So we started a new tradition. Our Christmas Eve dinner is now a simple shepherd’s pie and an angel food cake. It’s symbolic—with both the shepherds and angels represented, it’s simple, and I can make it all the day before. It’s a nice, humble meal, so we can focus on the rest of the night’s festivities and maybe even get to bed before 1 a.m.

Rachel Dahl does a themed dinner as well—a Bethlehem dinner, basically charcuterie with pita, hummus, grapes, dates, goat cheese, etc. After dinner her girls exchange sibling gifts, they act out the Nativity & sing, and then to bed. Now that her girls are older, they spend the day  skiing on Christmas Eve! They feel like we have the slopes to ourselves and it gets us in the Christmas spirit to be out in the snow! 

Molly Liggett spend Christmas Eve with her husband’s family for fondue and a favorite things gift exchange (everyone brings their favorite thing wrapped and we choose a gift white elephant style). The kids get matching Christmas pjs and a book from grandparents. They act out the nativity and try to get home early! 

Which brings us to Christmas morning. Ceri has a great tradition to bring in the true meaning of Christmas before the frenzy of gifts. Her daughters usually wake up at around 7:00 on Christmas morning and come into their bedroom. They all snuggle up and watch a Nativity movie, say a family prayer, and then they go out to open presents.

Beth’s Christmas starts a little earlier. When she was little, her parents would let the kids check their stockings as early as they wanted. So Beth is used to waking up at like 3 a.m. And she still does. Her husband, Danny, actually keeps a present in their room so she can open it early and go back to sleep. Then the whole family wakes up at around 6 am to open presents. Danny always teases them, giving them a long list of things to do before they can go out to the presents. He goes out first and tells them that Santa didn’t come. Then they finally release them for the fun. 

But after all the presents are unwrapped, Christmas can be kind of a let down. Merrilee Boyack was definitely feeling this. So when her kids were older, she started a new tradition. In early December, she gave each of them $100 and asked them to spend it doing service. They kept it a secret all December, until Christmas night, when they’d all come together and share how they spent their money.

She told this story, along with many other great ideas, on the Helping of Happiness podcast, hosted by Hillary Hess:  Episode 32: Christ-Centered Christmas with Merrilee Boyack.

Service

Which brings us to our last Christmas topic for the day—perhaps the most important topic: giving service. Perhaps there’s no better way to teach our kids the true meaning of Christmas than to serve others. 

Beth has been incorporating Secret Santa into her family Christmas traditions since college, when a church leader challenged their congregation to help families in need by giving more than was comfortable to buy them food and presents for Christmas. Beth ate a lot of tuna that year, and spent everything she had. She and her friends dropped the gifts on the family’s doorstep, and she was hooked.

Since then, she’s done Secret Santa every year, and now includes her kids in the fun. She loves taking her kids shopping for kids their own ages, and feeling that twinge of pain of giving them to other kids instead of keeping them for themselves. 

Lori Brescia takes a different spin on Secret Santa, and they do Secret Service Santa within their own family. This started as a way to help her kids build better relationships with each other, and also to take the focus away from themselves during Christmas. They all drew a name and then all through the month of December they did small acts of service for one another, as secretly as possible. Sometimes it was random and other times Lori rigged the drawing when one kid was having trouble with another specific child. 

Some of the service the kids do for each other includes: 

• Making beds and/or cleaning rooms

• Doing someone’s laundry

• Cleaning their room

• Making breakfast and having it ready at their spot at the table when they wake up

• foot rubs

• dollar store toy on their pillow

• drawings & handmade gifts

• lunch packed & in the fridge before school

• doing one of their chores before they wake up

• helping with homework

• baking them a special treat

• listening to them talk about their day

• words of comfort/encouragement, or just not saying something rude when they would really like to

Ceri’s family makes HOBO bags each year, an idea that came from a friend’s brother. He died after a struggle with mental health issues, and had lived on the streets for a time. He left money for his family to make and distribute HOBO bags each Christmas. HOBO stands for Helping Others Before Ourselves. They fill bags with things like socks, toothbrushes and toothpaste, chapstick, etc. and they pass them out downtown, along with hot chocolate. It’s become her kids’ favorite part of Christmas. 

I love all of these ideas about getting our kids out and serving. For the last several years, the church I belong to, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has done a Light the World campaign, with an advent calendar full of daily service ideas for people of any denomination. I’ll link to this year’s calendar in my notes. 

I want to end this post with a sweet story from another episode of the Helping of Happiness Podcast, Episode 34: Power In Motherhood with Paula Wood. 

Once her kids were old enough not to pull all the ornaments off her tree, Paula Wood decided to get another tree in addition to the family one with all the kids’ ornaments—a pretty tree that she would decorate with a collection of nativity ornaments. Her kids called it the Jesus tree. 

One year, she wrapped a doll in a while towel and put it in a little box at the foot of the tree to complete the theme. A few days later, one of her daughters came to her very sadly. She explained that the Jesus tree made her sad, because all the presents were under the other tree. It was Jesus’s birthday, and she should have presents too! 

Paula was touched of course, and asked her daughter what they should do about it. They decided to think and pray about it to come up with a solution. Later than night, Paula was readcing her bible and came across Matthew 25:34-40:

“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

She had her answer. The next morning, after the kids left for school, she found six boxes and wrapped them nicely. On the tags, she wrote: Hungered and ye gave me meat, Naked and ye clothed me, etc. 

When the kids came home, of course they wondered who the presents were for. She explained, and then had them all think of ways they could do those things, They wrote them on pieces of paper and put them in a jar, to pick from for the rest of the season. As they completed each activity, they’d place a present under the Jesus tree. 

The Wood family continues this tradition of giving to this day, and it has become their most meaningful and memorable Christmas activity. 

Merry Christmas to all you fabulous moms out there! May the season be filled with fun, meaning, and joy—for your family and for you!