Merry Christmas-the Gift of Giving

We were once again blessed this year. Our family is so good to us and our children are spoiled on all levels! We did our traditional "3 gifts" from Santa (like the 3 wisemen who brought gifts to Jesus) for the girls and a few extras, but for the most part, we changed up our form of "giving" this year. We decided this year to give donations to an organization called Living Water in honor of each person in our family instead of giving gifts based on a series of sermons we heard the whole month of December at our church based on the "Advent Conspiracy"...check it out here http://ac.wcrossing.org/. The organization goes into communities where people are dying from not having clean drinking water...something we throw down the drain without thinking twice about it. They dig wells and the smiles on the faces of these children (http://www.water.cc/) when they can drink water without getting sick and dying is what I imagine brings a smile to Jesus' face. So, at Christmas, during the time when we so often forget the true meaning of Christmas, the gift God gave to us through the birth of His son, we remembered those who have less than we do, those who dont live out the blessings we do, and we gave, not in the form of gifts, but in the form of water. It was different not giving gifts and getting excited to see the smiles on faces from receiving a special gift, but we know we all have what we need and mostly what we want when we want it. It was nice to be a part of something that will hopefully save many lives, something that to me, resembled what God did on that first Christmas! Merry Christmas!