The last few weeks
in one of my classes I'm taking we've been talking about our responsibilities towards
our children. I was able to review an article about good, better,and best things by Elder Dallin H. Oaks. What's been on my mind for this post is to write
about doing the best things as a family for Christmas time. I also
hope to do a better job this time of incorporating a few more media
elements to enrich this blog post.
I talked about this idea with my wife and had the following dialogue:
My Wife: I've been thinking
about that a lot. I put a quote on Facebook:
We find the real joy of Christmas when
we make the Savior the focus of the season
Even in gift giving if I can try to be more
serviceable, that's better than giving gifts.
Me: It
depends because sometimes the way to reach someone is through gifts,
especially if it's their love language. (We also spent time talking
about the Chapman's five love languages in class as well, mine is
Quality Time and so is my wife's).
I think that the
gift giving goes too far, when you're not focusing on the real needs
of people, and just getting them something even if they don't kneed
it.
My Wife: I think
things that help people to come unto Christ is what's best. The
people that influenced my life the most has been those who have
helped bring me unto God. It's not so much the gifts, but the time
and the effort and the fact that they care.
Me: I think of
President Monson, he told a story of a family that was coming in as
refugees from Germany. Their brother had secured for them an
apartment, however, it was a stripped down cold apartment with no
furniture. This family was coming with absolutely nothing.
President Monson (at the time Bishop Monson) couldn't stand the
thought of them being in that apartment on Christmas eve. The ward
council decided they would do something about it and that Christmas
they fixed up the electrical, provided furniture, painted the room,
stocked it with food. The whole ward pulled together to make that
apartment a beautiful place. To me this was one of the best things
that could be done with their time. I've included the story below (this is a clip from the full biography of President Monson you can find here)
This story reminds
my wife and I of the refugees from Syria. This Christmas season
we've been trying to think what more we can do as a family to help
the refugees. We've contacted the Utah center for refugees in some
refugees into our home, however, this Christmas time we have some
family members who are struggling and we may need to take them in as
our 'refugees'. The question is how do we make our service something we do as a family rather than something we do as just my wife and I. Our desires are in whatever act of service, we do something that brings people unto Christ.
However, it's a challenge for
people to come unto Christ if their temporal needs (not their wants)
but their needs are not being met. When you meet their needs in a Christlike manner we believe that it brings them unto Christ.
In our society we
get so caught up on giving gifts and consumerism that we forget that
sometimes the true needs are a caring friend, a listening ear, or a
loving heart. My children hear about all the gift giving and they
beg us for presents. Yet, they soon forget those things when I just
play with them and spend time with them. As I think about this topic I think about this video where the son ends up trying to 'buy' some of his dad's time.
Really what my
children need for Christmas is my time, and not just fun time, but
time that helps them remember their Savior and their need to help
their fellow man. I truly believe that this is the best thing that I can be doing for
them. If all I'm doing is working to get ahead to save up for college to provide the luxuries of life for my children I think I'm doing something good, but I'm missing the point.
Obviously if my kids
don't even have food or shelter, or clothing (their needs, not their
wants), I should do all within my power to make sure this is being
met. However, once those basic essentials are met (and those in my
opinion are far lower, than what society would say is essential), the
best thing I can do is to be with them and show them by example how
to become a disciple of Jesus Christ and a productive member of
society.
Yet, how easy it is to fall into the consumption track when we conflate our desires with our needs. For us our consumerism challenge is the purchase
of education products. We love to read and we often times find
ourselves spending money on books and computer education products because we feel like it will be a good thing for our children. Yet, when we look at things over time we realize that we didn't
really need those products as we rarely if ever used them. I suppose my point is how easy it is to fall into the trap of sacrificing our best things for something that is better or just merely good. It's a danger that we all have to watch out for and keep making adjustments to make this better.
So to my readers, how have you avoided traps of consumerism and focused on the 'better' and 'best' things in your family?
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