It's a Wonderful Life

You always hear people preaching during the holidays.

                “It’s a time for giving, not receiving.”

That’s all fine and dandy and I couldn’t agree more, but in reality who all really goes with that saying. I know so many people who would be livid if they didn’t receive one Christmas gift during the holidays, yet they’re the first ones in line to say it’s not a big deal. Well, this year, my family and I decided to do something a little different.

NO GIFTS. It seems a little silly I guess, why not do Christmas gifts? Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t as if my family and I had an epiphany, took our merry selves down to the soup kitchen, gave away all of our miscellaneous belongings and decided to become non-sinning Christians; we did it because of numerous reasons.

1.       We didn’t really NEED anything. (I asked for tires earlier in the holidays and received them; all $656 of them) *enough to keep me quiet

2.       We really want to go on a huge vacation to the beach or overseas, so why not save now.

3.       We decided to finally try a Christmas season without giving gifts.

I’m happy to say I was pleasantly surprised. When I woke up that morning, I wasn’t depressed to not see presents under the tree. The house still smelled of homemade cinnamon rolls and even better, we had a white Christmas. The snow came as a surprise and it was wonderful! We literally spent hours outside playing in the snow. We hadn’t done that for years, at least since we had lived in Germany. And when I really thought about it, we had never really spent time like that with each other before during Christmas. I mean yeah, we sat around the living room opening presents, but spending time like that and comparing it to this past Christmas was different.  I don’t want to sit here and preach and suggest that all people never do presents again because let’s face it, presents are still one of the best things about the holidays, but it really got me to appreciate everything a lot more than usual. Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years!

Just a few random photos of me and the family Christmas morning. I think the last one is my favorite, Dad definitely won that snowball fight. :)