Don’t Miss This Forgotten Christmas Gift

A few years ago, my husband and I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina and started attending Mecklenburg Community Church. It was there that we first heard about a concept that, frankly, I was a little embarrassed hadn’t occurred to us a long time ago.

The idea is simple enough: Most of us have some sort of Christmas shopping list; we just need to make sure we’re not forgetting the most important gift.

The Typical Christmas List

Humor me for a minute and think about your typical holiday list.

Whether it includes just a few immediate family members or extends to your mail carrier, grocery bagger and favorite dental hygienist, you likely spend some amount of money on gifts each year.

And then there are the charitable organizations, some of which rely almost exclusively on Christmastime and other end-of-year donations. From the local animal shelter to the United Way, everyone and their mother are vying for a piece of the holiday pie.

Starting on Thanksgiving Day (which some have dubbed Black Thursday due to the rise of the post-turkey shopping spree) to Black Friday to Small Business Saturday to Cyber Monday to Giving Tuesday, it’s out of control.

If you aren’t careful, you’ll wake up on Red Wednesday, which is immediately followed by Dig-Out-of-Debt December.

Missing the Most Important Gift

In all the chaos, we can find ourselves overlooking—or at the very least, skimping on—what should be the most important gift of the season: the one we give to Christ.

Now, I realize a Christmas gift for Jesus isn’t something you can put a bow on, place under the tree and expect Him to come pick up while He stops in for a glass of eggnog. But a gift for Jesus doesn’t have to be invisible and abstract, either.

My church simply calls it Giving to Christ at Christmas, and it’s a tangible way to support the causes closest to Jesus’s heart—like helping the poor, taking care of widows and orphans, and advancing His Kingdom through the Church.

The idea is that our first and best Christmas gift should go to Christ, and we strive to give generously—above and beyond our regular tithes—to show God we have our priorities straight. Our best gift goes to Him first, not to Best Buy, Wal-Mart or that nonprofit that does excellent work but not Kingdom work.

More Than an Afterthought

My husband and I have started to budget for Giving to Christ at Christmas each year, and we’re getting better at doing so before we make our annual holiday shopping list.

The amount is between us and God (and the church finance guy, I suppose), and it varies from year to year based on how much we are able to give. There’s no magic formula. We just try to make sure it reflects our priorities and, subsequently, the real heart of the Christmas season.

So this year, go ahead and make your Christmas list, and feel free to include your dental hygienist and that cool nonprofit. But put it all in the right order. Give to Christ first. It is His birthday, after all.