“Here’s two dollars,” he said, laying the crumpled bills in my hand on top of the others.
“How much money do you have?”
“Uhhh…about over a hundred and sixty-something,” he said.
“Ok,” I said, deciding not to push him into greater giving, “let’s see how much we have now.”
I poked through the dollars and loose change in my hand. “Eighteen dollars. Not bad. Maybe we can get a net or a soccer ball.”
“Well,” he said, “I have more but…my heart is saying give more but my head is saying buy something big.”
“Something big for…”
“Something big for me,” he blushed. “It’s hard.”
“You don’t have to give more,” I said. “Just pray and ask God what you should give. Take your time. No hurry. We can do this tomorrow even. No big deal.”
He walked off to his room and all was quiet for a while. He eventually came back to the den shaking a can of coins.
“I’ve decided to give all my change too.”
He dumped it.
Stacked it.
Counted the stacks.
“1…2…3…4… This is a lot… 5…6…7… I didn’t know it was this much… 8…9…10… Oh, man…”
“16…17…18… Oh man! Eighteen dollars!”
It was as if for a second he forgot he had counted it only so he could give it. Then he remembered.
“Oh man. Eighteen dollars… This is hard.”
After I pitched in a little money of my own, they counted up our offering.
“Fifty bucks! Let’s go shopping!”
The kids had a hard time deciding but eventually bought a goat. Which left us enough money for flour and salt.
I realize this will only further jeopardize my manhood and solidify my reputation as a mommy blogger but, yes, I do make dough ornaments with my kids. Every year. And I like it.
I retain my man card by calling the dough “spackle” and by using a large pocket knife instead of a cookie cutter. And by cooking hardening the ornaments over a blow torch instead of in an oven.
We made angels and snowflakes and stockings.
And a goat.
To hang beside our chicken and duck.
And last year’s bee.
Every year another hard offering, another need met, another ornament, another chance to give what our head wants to keep. In celebration of the One who put giving in our heart.
What’s one of your family’s Christmas traditions?
For a whole bunch of alternative gift ideas, visit the Gifts Of Compassion on-line catalog. To spread the word about it on Facebook, Twitter and e-mail please link to http://bit.ly/GiftsOfCompassion . Thanks.
Doug says:
“I realize this will only further jeopardize my manhood and solidify my reputation as a mommy blogger but, yes, I do make dough ornaments with my kids. Every year. And I like it.”
Could you cement your reputation any more than the photo in the previous post? If that picture is indicative of the situation, not only are you a mommy blogger, but the only other bloggers you hang out with are either female or Compassion staff. You must have a very secure wife.
Eric Dye says:
That was awesome.
My favorite line: “… another chance to give what our head wants to keep.”
Doug says:
“I retain my man card by calling the dough βspackleβ and by using a large pocket knife instead of a cookie cutter. And by cooking hardening the ornaments over a blow torch instead of in an oven.”
I’m calling your bluff on this. Pictures, please, if you want to claim to have retained the card.
kristie says:
We just started one this year…we baked cookies on Tuesday night and delivered them to the front doors of four families who are special to our family, after we were sure that most/all of them were asleep. We included a letter of blessing with an angel printed on it, and also instructions that the receiving family should bake/deliver cookies for three families, along with a copy of the letter…and then cut out the angel and stick it on their front door so that no one else “blesses” them with cookies. My seven year old had a blast ducking under people’s motion-sensor lights..and oh yeah she enjoyed the leftover cookie dough, too. π
Mela Kamin says:
awesome – we’re in the midst of a WV fundraiser – my kids are making crafts & selling to raise $ to give goats & such … they have almost enough for 2 goats & are still going – amazed by their hearts & determination to see what our money can do instead of get
Kelli says:
We’ve got several fun traditions each Christmas (gingerbread houses, getting up at the crack of dawn and so on) but very few have a great, lasting meaning so we’re starting a new tradition this year as well. We’re throwing a Christmas Party for the kids and their friends. It’s going to be a celebration of Jesus’ birth complete with cake and ice cream. We’ve asked everone to bring a new, unwrapped gift which we will take to a local charity. We encouraged the kiddos to invite friends that do’t go to church and we’ve had a great response.
I’m also really excited about this gift giving opportunity with Compassion. We plan to donate something in the grandparents names this year and the kids are jazzed. The fact that we’re buying a goat is, apparently the coolest thing ever. I love this idea so much! π
Lindsay says:
A tradition that we just started this year is to draw large pictures of the Christmas Story, with references to the OT prophecies they fulfill. Daddy is a very good artist. Ruby and Burke are very good colorists. And I know how to read the words on the pages. π We’ll see how it transforms over the years.
I love the Compassion catalog! π
Heather U says:
We invested in a bunch of Pottery Barn stocking a few years back, mainly because I wanted them to be monogrammed…for among the ones with the names of everyone in our family is one which reads Jesus. Every Christmas Eve we each write (or in the case of my 4 yrs old I write it for him) what we want to give to Jesus that year. We write these things in a book so every year we can look back on what we dedicated to Jesus the year before. It is also a great witness for anyone who has an open house each December.
Kelli says:
What a sweet idea!
Kris says:
Absolutely love it!!!
Shana says:
Our family does Jesse Tree Devotions (complete with Tree and ornaments). This is always special to us because both of our children received Christ (seperately- different years) while doing our Jesse Tree and Advent Wreath devotions!
A tradition that I hope is continued generations.. Would love to do Jesse Tree Devotions with grandkids decades from now.
Merry Christmas
jay sauser says:
I LOOOOOOOVE driving around and looking at Christmas lights.
JamesBrett says:
shaun, thanks for what you’ve written. it’s refreshing to see a story of sacrifice and giving during the christmas season. may God bless you as you raise your children, and may they be a blessing to others. may he continue to give you wisdom in parenting, and may your children remain tender and moldable. above all, may God be glorified.
jen says:
Love the goat . . . and the bee . . . and the chicken! Cool idea!
We have lots of fun Christmas traditions, but one of our favorites is very simple. We always hide the baby Jesus (from the non-breakable kids nativity scene), and Christmas morning the kids have to find Him before we do anything else. From a very young age they “got it” that the whole gig is a reminder to seek Jesus first.
jess says:
is it ok to have ornament envy?
and i was wondering, on a serious parenting note, how do you create in your children a genuine giving spirit? by example?
i appreciated hearing your response to your son’s dilemma as i know mine wouldn’t have been the same or near so gracious. that gave me some meat to chew on…letting them choose to give vs me making them. the grace vs. disappointment or condemnation for their response. thanks for that.
jess says:
i have been thinking on my comment and i wanted to apologize. i realize we don’t know one another so it is impossible for you to know my heart. i hadn’t meant it to seem as if i wasn’t applauding your son for giving- for surely i was impressed with his desire to give and to go back a second time and give more (not that that is of any consequence!). i believe your kids’ are not too much older than mine and i never know how to approach the giving. your kids’ are immersed in it as you work for compassion and stock the local food pantries with them in tow. they know other people are in need. but when do you turn it around? when do you ask them to give and how do you do it?? pose it as a question of joint giving- ‘we were thinking of getting something from the compassion catalog to bless another family and wanted to know if you wanted to add to it?’ how do you include them and have them invest of themselves?
p.s. i don’t know if i would say you are a mommy blogger so much as a family man who can’t help but share his adventures in parenthood. : )
Wild Ghese says:
first…do you have the recipe to share?
we usually try to give to struggling friends in the ministry around the holidays. Some friends of ours have selflessly adopted 5 kids and he is barely established as a Youth Pastor. This year we can’t, which bites.
I like thinking about these selfless traditions. My boys aren’t old enough to understand much about Christmas, but thanks for sharing. I’ll let this stew on the back burner for awhile.
Shaun Groves says:
Recipe for dough ornaments?
2 parts flour
1 part salt
1 part water
Bake ornaments at 325 for 1 hour
Or hold over blowtorch for 30 seconds
Sara @ Happy Brown House says:
Love everything about this post Shaun! And yes, Gresham is right…sometimes giving is hard. Especially in this world where our head and heart have different desires.
And if you were a real mom blogger, you would’ve shared the recipe for your Salt Dough Ornaments π
Shaun Groves says:
I just did.
Crap.
Sara @ Happy Brown House says:
Glad to see you fixed my typo! I realized that I typed the wrong name and came back to fix it.
laura parker@ life overseas says:
No, no, if you were a real mommy blogger, you would have taken a zillion pictures of the process and the end-result . . . let me go check . .
aw, man,
busted, again.
cara says:
π
Sharon O says:
I love this site. It is incredibly funny and I always go away feeling blessed.
ali @ an ordinary mom says:
Spackle made me laugh.
I smiled an nodded at pocket-knife.
But blow torch? Seriously? That one made me cringe a little, ok, a lot.
This coming from the woman whose husband, yes, I refer to him often as Mr. Extraordinary, made a little hydrogen last night out of hydrochloric acid and a bit of aluminum, in my kitchen…
And yeah, sharing the recipe totally solidified mommy blogger status, and probably put your man-card holder status in jeapordy, blow torch or no blow torch. Sorry, but, dude (and I rarely use that word), you just posted the recipe for salt dough… on your blog… π
Thanks, by the way, saved me from having to google it again this year! I’m totally going to have to write it down this time, and maybe blog about it, you know, on my mommy blog… π
After we’re done baking some salt dough creations, I’m going to have to show the kids what we could do with a few of our dollars to change the lives of a child or two their age across the world.
Will probably have to blog about that too, you know, on my mommy blog.
Katie says:
My favorite Christmas tradition is the 24-hour marathon that is our Christmas. Beginning in church on Christmas Eve, a round-robin celebration at every one’s homes with my maternal side of the family, a short night sleep, immediately family (and Santa) Christmas time, Christmas dinner with my paternal family, the eternal present opening (3 hours is our record), and the dance party in the kitchen.
Well-written story, Shaun! Love it!
Katie
cshell says:
I think you “man card” was revoked a LONG time ago…geez….you cry, are transparent, share emotions and feelings, care about discernment…
I read because i want to be just like you π
Jill Foley says:
We do give each other a few gifts in our house, and this year we are opening a final gift – the last box will be the Compassion catalog. As a family, sitting around the tree, we will pick out a gift(s) for Jesus. It’s not a tradition yet, but I’m hoping it will become one.
Tracy @ Hall of Fame Moms says:
I am a real mom-blogger and me and my boys are going to use your recipe and make some dough ornaments!
Thank you!
Great post, by the way. I’ve been seeing some great posts about how others are giving to 3rd world countries lately.
Sarah Markley says:
i love this post Shaun. I really do. =)
Rhonda K says:
We have a couple of traditions that I love – like Jesus’ bithday cake for breakfast and giving Jesus the first gift in the day, which is something different that my kids help decide upon each year. Last year we drove around town with clean socks (filled with some non-perishables), muffins, juice and coffee for the homeless people we could find.
But my favorite tradition is receiving Christmas cards in the mail. We have a little basket that we put them in as they arrive and then all year, every time we sit down together for dinner as a family, we pick a card out of the basket and pray for that person or family.
JessicaB says:
We are lame and don’t really have any consistent traditions. A family prone to moving probably should, huh? Hmm. Maybe Compassion giving can become a new tradition for us.
Btw, this post is the epitome of the Shaun I … don’t know personally, but appreciate the humor of.
AND you inspired me again, dang it!
Now I have a practically copyright infringing post with change counting and everything! Gah.
Erica says:
I love this tradition! Our boys are still babies, so we are just starting to think of some yearly traditions with them.
Tara Schultz says:
i love this post Shaun. I really do. =)