Ever since our first child was born we have put a lot of thought into every tradition we do. We started from scratch and now I realize we’ve got a lot of them! From the very simple singing of “Blues 12 Days of Christmas” (yes, Blue Clues–this tradition has sort of hung around from their younger days) to our Treasure Boxes. Obviously some that are just plain fun and others with incredible significance. At the heart of our traditions is focusing our children on God giving us His son, Jesus, in the form of a baby. Giving, giving, giving is all they hear from us because we feel like we need to counter what they hear elsewhere.

As I sit here writing and listen to the hustle and bustle in our home and take a look around, I focus my eyes on the stockings that hang from our staircase. You might think we do the Santa thing and know their purpose in our home, but you would be wrong. We don’t do Santa, which is explained well by my friend, Candice. You can read that here. We’re not scrooges, we’ve just purposed from the very beginning that our children would know the true meaning of Christmas and know the historical context of St. Nicholas.

Back to those stockings…if we don’t do Santa then what do we do with those stockings? We fill them–oh we fill them alright–but we fill them with encouragement for one another instead of a bunch of knick-knacks. The kids are the ones who really got this one going. Every Christmas season, those stockings serve as a mailbox, of sorts, for each person in our family. The kids hustle and bustle around as soon as the word “Christmas” is mentioned and work to fill each others stockings with notes of encouragment, colored pictures, and little gifts to be given. Almost every single thing in their stockings is something given from within our home. Those little gifts are things that they have and they know their sibling wants so they give it. This year, Littlest One thought a bit more about all of this and deliberately took his personal money with him on his shopping trip with Nana & Papa so that he could buy a little something over and above for a sibling that still had an empty stocking. I love listening and watching as they observe who needs more in the stocking and then doing something about it. Every single day since the day after Thanksgiving when we get out our Christmas decorations has been filled with children filling stockings!

Opening our stockings on Christmas morning would not appear to a casual observer to be anything special. They might even think it’s full of a bunch of junk, but the reality is that it is full of love. What better gift is there than that?

This whole season, as I’ve watched each of my children delight in giving something of themselves for their sibilings, I have been wracking my brain for some way to carry this spirit of giving on throughout the year. I’d love to tell you that I’ve come up with some solution, but I haven’t yet. I keep thinking of maybe keeping our stockings up year-round. Or maybe I could make special “mailboxes.” But then I think that maybe it would lose its specialness. Hmm…maybe I could get out our stockings mid-summer so that the get to enjoy it twice per year. Oh, I don’t know. Still thinking through this. Do you have any ideas?

All I know right now is that I am thankful for this time each year to remind us of what our focus should be on–the giving–and seeing that my children are getting it. Now to figure out how to spread the giving throughout the year.

Just so you know, I will be taking a break from writing this week to spend time with my family. Have a Merry Christmas!