Weekend Kindness
Reaching Others Through Kindness

Here’s a tough question.  I don’t know about you, but it seems that Christmas has become (especially now that I’m older) all about telling people what they can get me so that they get me something I want rather than what I remember it as a child– a time of surprises.

Now, granted, I’m not sure that many children actually look forward to getting something that they don’t want.  One of my worst memories of Christmas centers around this very thing.

I was at my grandparent’s house for the usual Saturday Christmas time get together and I don’t know where everyone else was, but it was just my family and I still there and I opened a gift that was a backpack– something that I really wanted– but I thought it was clothing so I said “Not more clothes!”  Needless to say, this embarrassed my parents and they took me aside to tell me how wrong my reaction was.

But all this to say ask, have we strayed so far away from what Christmas is that we now judge gifts by how they compare to what we really want?  Is it wrong to do returns to get what we really want?  And how does that show kindness to the one doing the giving?

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