Fight the Greed!

It always amazes me that the Christmas holiday is celebrated in the name of a man who was born, raised, and died in poverty. I have heard many people justify the excesses of holiday giving by talking about how God gives lavishly to us, and we should we reflect that in our lifestyle.

Hmmm.

Well, rather than delving into the theological tenuousness of that position, I’m going to focus on its results- the greediness that settles into almost every American child during the month of December. We as a family have very deliberately tailored our holiday festivities to encourage thankfulness, generosity, and joy among our children, rather than feeding into the ‘what am I going to get’ syndrome- which comes naturally to humans anyway.

A couple of important notes- we start from a foundation of a frugal lifestyle, where we limit shopping expeditions to about once a month and allow no TV commercials in the house, and we never whine about ‘if only we had enough money to buy (fill in the blank)’. Also, we have discovered that fighting the greed makes us unpopular with lots of people this time of year, no matter how politely we try to explain our position. So- be warned!

To prevent this post from getting too long, I’m going to write about this over the course of the next few weeks, rather than addressing it all in one post.