To your milk analogy, here’s my point.  You replaced cow’s milk with soy, doing your research and finding it’s absence of casein, a common allergen especially for asthmatics.  What you replaced it with, Soy milk, has it’s own set of problems however.  Soy produces excitotoxins in the brain, known to negatively affect growth in young children as well as cause seizures.  My family went through the same switch you did- and the kids were happily drinking soy milk and not ‘knowing any different’ with respect to missing the traditional breakfast variety. 

Then my daughter had her first seizure, laying unconscious on the floor at the mall, and having CPR administered in front of us in perhaps the most surreal moment of my life thus far.  After visiting with several allergists and nutritionists, we determined it was the soy milk causing it.  We learned that there is a better alternative, goat’s milk, which does not contain casein, and does not produce excitotoxins in the brain.  Our kids drank that for the years following with no adverse effects.  Oh, and it tastes much better than soy- the kids all agreed (as do I).

My point in this is twofold:

1.  Warn you about giving that much soy based anything to anyone, let alone a growing child. 

2.  I believe the rush to rid traditions that we question the biblical or nutritional basis of, while noble, is a dangerous effort.  You must really be careful to not make such a radical adjustment without fully researching the consequences. 

While your kids seem healthy on Soy milk (and I pray they are), you should carefully research the negative effects soy has on the young person’s body.  And while getting caught up on the gift part of the season has led many people astray from the true purpose and meaning of Christmas, eliminating gifts may have some long term effects. 

I’m not sure what they would be, but one worry I have is that we can easily become focused with reaching all ends of the earth before we reach our Jerusulem.  That is, it’s easy to imagine that we can come to ignore the needs within our own families and inner circle of friends when we are focused on the world at large.  Ask any PK how they feel about this to get a good iea of what I mean. 

Giving gifts to family and friends can be a wonderful experience for the receiver (to feel special/important and loved) and to the giver, who sees the effect that it has on the receiver and is nudged towards a heart for giving elsewhere.  Careful to keep this in mind when offering a replacement!

Giving makes the giver happy, but do we REALLY need all those stuff?

I agree with giving a poor kid in Indonesia a Christmas gift to show love and provide them with something they’ll probably never be able to buy.

I don’t agree with giving kids who have “everything” more stuff just for the sake of giving. Defeats the purpose. (I’ve never bought into the saying that Christmas is a time of giving. The whole year should be a time of giving of ourselves, and the Lord’s truth. not just a season.)

Also, I just learned that I have a dairy allergy. Guess what kind of milk-laden Christmas candy this preschool teacher got from 10 students? Thanks guys, thanks for the chocolate that I will give to my husband.

I really apologize for saying you had.  For some reason I thought I remembered you questioning the ethics of calling a program child sponsorship when it is symbolic and not actual, but my memory must have failed me.  Again, I apologize for putting words in your mouth.

MB

Obviously, at 8 months old (she’s our only child so far), our daughter’s not going to comprehend the whole Christmas presents thing, so we’re still in the working phase of how we’ll handle it in the future.  Not to mention Santa- not trying to cause anyone else to feel weird about it, but for our family, that’s a whole Pandora’s box of dubious worldly tradition that my mother clings to with the tenacity of “a love-starved cobra” (just watched The Man Who Came to Dinner the other night- love it).  We’re leaning toward explaining it all to her, telling her it’s not real.  Some friends of ours never explained it to their kids, and when people in public would ask them what they wanted from Santa, they’d just look at them like they had slime oozing out their ears.

Right now, we have 2 ‘presents’ for the baby:  a car seat (her present will actually be the empty box and the wrapping paper), and a wooden alligator toy that clacks (which she probably won’t play with until she’s walking).  We’re not buying anything for anyone else- we plan to make some baked items, but that’s about it.

I never thought much at all (if ever) about the wise men being connected with our Christmas gift giving traditions.  My parents always taught us that the reason we gave gifts at Christmastime was because God gave us the MOST PRECIOUS GIFT, the reason for our celebration, His Only Son.

Did we do the “Santa” thing when I was little?  Some.  It was fun to pretend, although harder growing up in Florida where we had no chimney, no snow, no reindeer, etc.  Our story was altered a bit to substitute a boat, 8 dolphin, and the lanai door.  Did we know it was pretend?  Yep.  Still fun.  There’s nothing wrong with fun. 

These traditions didn’t do anything to alter my belief about the true meaning of Christmas, or the fact that nowhere in scripture is it said that we SHOULD celebrate the birth of Christ. 

It doesn’t say anywhere in scripture that we sing in church, have an alter call, sit in pews or substitute grape juice for wine in communion; but many of us do.  There’s nothing wrong with any of it as long as Scripture is TAUGHT correctly, adhered to in ALL cases, and EVERYONE is shown the love of Christ through His church.

My kids get gifts, they give gifts, and they know why we celebrate.  Good stuff.  Can we be “better” at it?  Yep.  Getting there a bit more every year.