At Your Service

Holiday Challenge - Do Something Different this Christmas

As Christmas approaches for yet another year, I urge you to pause, look back at all the good things that have happened to you this year - all the blessings you have received from God.

Yes, we had some tough times, but many good ones too.  Now that you have looked back, here is your Christmas challenge - same as last Christmas...

Are you ready for this? Are you ready to do something different this Christmas?

As the big day approaches, most of us are scrambling to put our shopping lists together.  For many, the people on our lists are the same people we buy gifts for just about every year.

Yes, there are children topping most lists, but many of our Christmas lists have the names of grown-ups - people we work with, are related to, or simply just like.

How about reworking our lists and doing something different this Christmas?

Most, if not all, of us know a family or child who is in desperate need.  No, I'm not talking about someone we see on television 1,000's of miles away.  There are many people right in our neighborhoods - across the street, down the road, or around the corner - who could use some help.

As the world's economy continues to sputter along, many people have lost jobs and their families have struggled for months.

Even if you do not know anyone like that, there are many others across the ocean we can help.  Yes, we cannot help everyone, but each one can touch one.

We all can do something different this Christmas!  

So, fellow FanBoxers (or whoever reads this), are you ready?  

Here is your challenge ("your mission, should you choose to accept it" - had to throw that in.)  Do you remember the Christmas shopping lists I mentioned earlier?  It is time to scratch some names.  

"What in the world are you saying, Peter?"  It is a simple as it sounds - scratch some names.  

If you have children, relatives or friends in need on the list, they all stay.  However, if you have friends with whom you generally exchange gifts for the sake of exchanging gifts, they go.  These would be people who do not really need a gift; who can give you a gift in return.  

There is a bigger blessing to be had from God, when we give to those who cannot give back.  There are even the words of Jesus in St. Luke 6:38 that if we give, it will be given back to us in great measures.  It will not come from the person we give to, but the Lord will ensure that we get a full harvest for the seeds of giving we sow.  

Right now, many of you have gifts that you exchanged the last two Christmases still sitting in your closets.  Right?  I won't tell.  To let those friends down gently, just tell them that you are doing something different this Christmas (and they can get in on the action, if they wish to).  

With the money that you save from not giving gifts to those people who do not really need the gift, go shopping for someone else.  

Yes, buy gifts for people who really need them!  Do you know a family in which someone lost a job; the old lady who lives alone; or those foster kids who do not expect anything special this Christmas?  Put them on your new list.