Christmas- A Week of Service

There are times (at least for me, I hope others feel this way) that you are so blessed that you feel it would be a sin to receive even more. At least that’s how I felt this Christmas.

We knew that our family was going to get to go on a big European adventure for Christmas (blog entry coming at a later date), so that was our big gift. Bill and I felt like because we are so blessed that we needed to give back this Christmas…so we came up with a plan.

A week of service. We decided that each day, leading up to Christmas, that our family was going to provide one act of service for someone else. So that is exactly what we did. The funny thing is, though, it ended up being Our best Christmas EVER!!

Day one: Andy and Ethan (along with the other YM) went to a lady’s house in our ward to cut wood. She and her family heat their house all winter with a wood fire place and needed to replenish their wood supply. Andy and Ethan spent 5+ hours that day chopping, splitting (they were pretty enthralled with the electric wood splitter that was rented for the task) and stacking wood. They came home dirty, hungry, covered in wood chips but very happy. A fun day of service.

Day two: We had each boy choose another boy his own age in our ward that they thought could use a “Secret Santa” that year.

The boy Ethan chose is autistic and without a father figure in the house. Ethan got him an art set for a kid who expresses himself through drawing.

The boy Andy chose is having family and financial issues at home right now. Both boys could use some TLC. So, I took Andy and Ethan to the store that day and had them choose a $50 gift for each boy. Andy wasn’t too excited about this service project at first, especially about spending his money on someone else, but as he was trying to choose the perfect gift for this kid, he caught the spirit of giving.

Here is the actual text he sent to Bill (from my phone) as he found the perfect gift…..

“We went to Freddie’s and I am going to get Nathan a Timex watch and a maglight!!! Andy!!! Excited!!!”

This is a pretty emotional response for someone…”with the emotional range of a teaspoon”. (thank you, Hermionie, for this great quote).

The boys and I also made a few treats for Bills home teaching families and my visiting teaching ladies. They were good helpers. Bill did his home teaching that night and delivered the goodies.

Day Three: Bill got to take the rest of the week off work, so we all got in the car and went to Costco. We chose three families in our ward who are either out of a job, or struggling financially this year. We filled up two huge shopping carts full of groceries to give to these families.

Later in the day I needed to get my visiting teaching done. The lady I visit is single and has an older daughter probably getting close to her 30’s, who is severely handicapped. She has to be fed with a tube, diapers changed, etc. Well, my partner was out of town, so I asked Ethan to come with me. He is very good at being kind and helpful and social with people. I knew he’d do a good job coming with me. He did. Sister Centeno was trying to make her “soup”, as she calls it, for Dominique (her daughter), so we jumped in to help. Ethan went out to her garden and picked the last of the kale and hearty vegetables that were left while I scrubbed and chopped potatoes and other veggies. We helped her get the soup together, and visited for a while. Ethan was so kind and helpful. I was glad he was with me.

Day four: This was Thursday. Bill knew I was stressing about a messy house before Christmas, so he cleaned the bathrooms for me! And the boys and I surprised him by washing his filthy dirty car while he was out that day. It was COLD, but a job that needed doing.

That evening was also the day that we planned to deliver the food to our families. We divided everything into three great big boxes, and waited til it got dark. Then we did our first under-cover operation. It was a blast!! The boys and Bill had to do the actual deliveries (those boxes were HEAVY) while I was the get-away driver. It was hilarious watching them hit the doorbell and run! Best entertainment ever! The last house that we went to, we could hear them inside, but they wouldn’t answer the door! We had to ring and run 3 times before they got the delivery. The boys made me do the last ding and ditch. Haven’t done that since I was a kid. It’s amazing how fast your heart gets going, even when you know your not doing any naughty tricks. It was really foggy that night, too, so that helped with our under cover operation.

Day five: Today was a big day. We decided to have a Christmas “open house”. We invited everyone we knew to come over to our house any time from 7-9 that evening to have treats and to visit. We thought it would be fun instead of delivering treats to people. That way we get to actually spend time with our friends.

So, Bill and I started first thing in the morning and we baked treats all day until just before people started showing up!! ALL DAY!! I have never washed so many dishes in my life! Bill made so many amazing German Christmas treats, and I made a few of my favorites, too. I kept wondering why he could get about 6 things done in the time it took me to make one. He is a wonder in the kitchen! (then I realized that I was washing all his dishes). But, nevertheless, his treats were amazing.

 
 

 



We had a FULL HOUSE that night. It was jammed with people. I was surprised how long people stayed and just wanted to chat! We even invited the parents of most of Andy’s school friends who we have gotten to know over the years. Most of them are not LDS, but I was surprised and happy that most of them came and stayed for a long time. It was so much fun! (it’s another one that I’d love to make a tradition, but it was so much work it just about did us in by the end of the day!).

Day six: Christmas Eve. We had lots of treats left over from the big party, so we packaged them up and had the boys deliver them at the doors of all our neighbors who couldn’t make it to our party.

Later, when it got dark, it was time to make the secret Santa deliveries!! Andy and Ethan had so much fun doing another ding and ditch. Andy almost got caught doing his. They saw the back of Andy as he was running away. The next church day he heard Nathan talking about seeing the person who delivered his gift. He was convinced that it was a certain girl at school. (I wrote the gift tags, so the handwriting WAS kind of girly…..tricky, huh? )

Ethan wanted me to go with him for his delivery, so we hit the doorbell and hid behind a big cement neighborhood marker. We got to see them come to the door. That was fun.

That was the last of our service projects for the week We went home and had our traditional Christmas production put on by our resident director-of-all-things-creative. Ethan. Then we opened our annual Christmas eve gift (jammie’s for all) and our annual drive to look at the Christmas lights.

You know, after the wonderful service week we had, all those traditional things we do every year almost seemed unnecessary. The service out-shined all the other Christmas who-ha.

I am convinced, more than ever before, that the doer of the service reaps more reward than the recipient! It was definitely our BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!!