[FHE + a treat]
Theme:
Christmas Doesn’t Come From the Store
Thoughts
1. "We all enjoy giving and receiving presents. But there is a difference between presents and gifts. The true gifts may be part of ourselves—giving of the riches of the heart and mind—and therefore more enduring and of far greater worth than presents bought at the store.
"Of course, among the greatest of gifts is the gift of love....
"Some, like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens's A Christmas Carol, have a hard time loving anyone, even themselves, because of their selfishness. Love seeks to give rather than to get. Charity towards and compassion for others is a way to overcome too much self-love" (James E. Faust, "
2. "The spirit of giving gifts has been present in the mind of each Christian as he or she commemorates the Christmas season. Our Heavenly Father gave to us His Son, Jesus Christ. That precious Son gave to us His life, the Atonement, and victory over the grave.
"What will you and I give for Christmas this year? Let us in our lives give to our Lord and Savior the gift of gratitude by living His teachings and following in His footsteps. It was said of Him that He 'went about doing good.' As we do likewise, the Christmas spirit will be ours."
Opening Song:
“Joy to the World”
Scriptures
Romans 5:15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by a
one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but a
Christ bliveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the cfaith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Lesson:
Read The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” by Dr. Seuss:
Reread the following from the book:
Three thousand feet up! Up the side of Mt. Crumpit,
He rode with his load to the tiptop to dump it!
“Pooh-Pooh to the Whos!” he was grinch-ish-ly humming.
“They’re finding out now that no Christmas is coming!
“They’re just waking up! I know just what they’ll do!
“Their mouths will hang open a minute or two
“Then the Whos down in Who-ville will all cry Boo-Hoo!
“That’s a noise, “grinned the Grinch,
“That I simply MUST hear!”
So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow …
But the sound wasn’t sad!
Why, this sound sounded merry!
It couldn’t be so!
But it WAS merry! VERY!
He stared down at Who-ville!
The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook!
What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small,
Was singing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN‘T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?”
“It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe Christmas … perhaps … means a little bit more!”
(Dr. Suess, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, New York: Random House, 1957.)
“If the true spirit of Christmas doesn’t come from a store, where can we
find it?”
There is a difference between presents and gifts. True gifts may be part of ourselves, coming from the riches of the heart and mind.
Our Heavenly Father can give us so many wonderful gifts—the gift of peace, the gift of love, the gift of service, the gift of self, the gift of faith. Above all, He has given us the gift of His Son.
Story:
Charlotte McEwan, “The Secret Giver,” Friend, Dec 2008, 4–6
(Based on a true story)
God loveth a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7).
I love everything about Christmas: the lights, carols, time with family—everything we do to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Oh, and I especially love getting presents. I start making my Christmas wish list in September.
One year my list was about as long as my arm. And I kept thinking of things to add to it. I was excited to show it to my dad. “Well, David, I see what you want to get for Christmas,” he said as he looked it over. “But what are you going to give?”
“I’m making gifts for you and Mom at school. On Friday Mom is taking me shopping for Shannon’s and Jon’s gifts. So I’ve got it all planned out.”
“Hmmm,” was all Dad said. For some reason he didn’t like my answer. I didn’t like the sound of “hmmm.”
The next family home evening, my parents discussed the idea of giving and getting and the true meaning of Christmas. I could see my wish list getting shorter by the minute. They asked us if we had any ideas to help us remember to be more giving. Shannon waved her hand excitedly. My older brother, Jon, and I groaned. With Shannon, ideas usually involved doing things for other people, like weeding our neighbors’ gardens.
“Let’s choose some people who are lonely or in need and anonymously leave presents on their doorsteps,” Shannon said with excitement.
“Not a bad idea,” Jon said. “It would be top secret.”
“This might actually be fun,” I thought.
We all agreed that it would be a great plan. We chose two families. One was the Swenson family in our ward. Since Brother Swenson had gone back to school, they never seemed to have enough money. They had lots of kids too, who would love getting Christmas surprises. The other family was Mr. and Mrs. Perez, an older couple who lived down the street. They always seemed a little lonely.
We all went shopping for the gifts. We agreed to buy them using some of the money we would have used for our own presents. That was fine with me. I was having way too much fun choosing toys for the younger Swenson boys. Somehow my stuff wasn’t that important anymore.
We decided to give one gift a night to each family starting 12 days before Christmas. When the first night came, I dressed in black from head to toe, and Jon drove me over to the Swensons’ house. I quietly put the first gift on the porch, rang the doorbell, and ran away as fast as I could. I jumped behind a fence just as one of the kids opened the door. I could hear their surprised voices as they discovered the present. I felt like I would explode with excitement and joy. My life as a Secret Giver had begun.
Things only got better—and harder. We had to go at different times every night and sometimes even in the morning because the Swenson kids started looking out the window to try to catch us. And every time I crept up to the Perez’s doorstep, I imagined Mrs. Perez waiting there, ready to fling the door open, give me a hug, and tell me how wonderful I was. I definitely had to avoid that. Keeping a secret was half the fun.
Well, that year was only the beginning. The Christmas after that, we chose a family whose daughter had been in the hospital 11 times that year and another family whose mom had cancer. Wow—I didn’t realize that some people had it so tough.
Now that Christmas is here again, we’ve decided to help three families. The hardest part is choosing them. There seem to be so many people who could use a little Christmas cheer.
As for my own list? Each year it has gotten a little shorter. I’m so busy making my Secret Giver plans that I don’t have much time to think about myself. There are gifts to choose and strategies to plan.
One thing is certain—it’s great doing things for others. Nothing beats the feeling I get when I see the surprise and excitement on the faces of the people we help. Giving has become one of my favorite things about Christmas.
Activity
A couple of years ago I found the following idea in the Ensign and just loved it. I love how it celebrates the real meaning of Christmas a little each day. We didn’t do it last year and I really missed it! We are starting our count down to Christmas on Dec. 1st instead of doing the 12 days. I plan on introducing our advent boxes for our activity so that we can start on the 1st.
“I love advent calendars and watching the anticipation of my children as we count down the days until Christmas. I wanted the focus of our countdown to be more spiritual, though. I came up with the idea of wrapping inexpensive treats, one for each of the 12 days before Christmas. I labeled each one with a scripture reference describing a gift Heavenly Father has given us.
Every night for family scripture time, we have a child select one of these wrapped presents. We read the scripture references on the package and bear our testimonies of that gift in our lives. The 12 gifts I chose the first year were the Creation, agency, prayer, opposition, charity, scriptures and revelation, prophets, the Holy Ghost, eternal life and exaltation, the Resurrection, families, and Christ’s Atonement. After family prayer, our children open the present and share the treat inside.
The excitement of counting down the days until Christmas is still there, but it is tempered by reverence and appreciation for the great gifts we have already received from a loving Heavenly Father. Each year we select different gifts to focus on, but always we end on Christmas Eve with the gift of our Savior’s life and Atonement.“
If you need some ideas about what to put inside the boxes here are some Daily Christmas Devotions from Sugardoodle.
Closing Song:
"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
Treat:
Tasty Table Lights from Bright Ideas
click here for the recipe