I was listening to a radio station playing Christmas music today. I heard Clay Aiken’s song, "Don’t Save It All For Christmas Day." This got me thinking.
For most of Americans, Christmas comes around Thanksgiving when all the boxes with all the decorations get brought up from the basement and things get hung on the wall, on the windows, on the tree, and put in the yard. We go through the holiday season until sometime into January when all the decorations come off the wall, off the windows, off the tree and off the yard – back in the boxes, back down to the basement. There, the boxes sit until sometime around Thanksgiving the next year.
How’s your giving? Is it like the decorations? Do you confine giving to the Christmas season, getting it out of the box and then putting it back in the box when the New Year arrives? Or is your giving all year long?
This Christmas, we can see the holiday as one of two metaphors: One is a box. The other is a launch pad. We can see Christmas as the time for giving. Or you can see Christmas as a time to launch our giving all through 2008.
Everyday Giving is not a season. It’s a lifestyle, a journey, a way of life, an attitude. Are you a boxed giver or an everyday giver? Is giving an idea? Or is giving a core value?
Just like the lyrics of Clay’s song say, "How many people are crying, some people are dying…many people are asking for love." So,
"Don’t save it all for Christmas day. Find a way to give a little love everyday. Don’t save it all for Christmas day. Find a way cause holidays have come and gone. But love lives on if you give on."
Have a great holiday season! And make it last all through 2008!
“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
– Charles Dickens (Ebeneezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol”)