The "I Don't Know" of Christmas

I'm starting to measure the productivity of my days by the number of dishes that I wash in our apartment. Oh, dear. 

It's that time of year again.

You know the drill: lights, cameras, and... well, action. Just not the movie-star kind of action. More like the I-can't-stand-my-family-and-need-an-excuse-to-leave kind of action. Surely you know what I'm talking about.

Now don't get me wrong. I love the holidays. I enjoy my family. Heck, I even like my in-laws. And I love any excuse to get out of school.

There's one thing, though, that always baffles me around this time of year. And no, it's not the fact that Jesus probably wasn't born on December 25th.

It's the inevitable "I don't know" of Christmas.

You've been there - I know it. You go to family reunions around Thanksgiving, and without fail, a particular relative or two asks you what you want for Christmas. You know it's coming every year, and yet, you inevitably mumble your answer:

"I don't know."

Now if you're reading this, you most likely don't need anything for Christmas (unless you have one too many "hole-y" socks - my wife claims this is the case for me). However, we all want something or other, right? I mean, you can never have enough stuff.

Or can you?

I think that "I don't know" moment at those family reunions with those pesky, persistent relatives reveals something about us.

Now, before you jump ship, let me just say that I'm not advocating the abandonment of Christmas gifts. In fact, I have a wish list for myself (which you can see here!). That isn't where I'm going with this (today, anyway).

What I am advocating, though, is a little more thought when we respond to others with our "wish list" for Christmas. If you had that "I don't know" moment this year, even for half a second, then I'm talking to you.

If you, for even a millisecond, weren't sure what you wanted for Christmas this year, consider wishing for something that someone else needs this year. There are a million and one ways that you can do this. One of my favorites, though, comes from the World Vision Gift Catalog.

This thing is so cool. You can buy a GOAT for crying out loud! I'm guessing you'll be the only person in your neighborhood wishing for that for Christmas.

And if goats aren't your thing, there are a bunch of other cool things you can wish for...

• A chicken. Not to eat, though, so don't get any ideas.
• A DUCK! Sorry, I just get really excited about this stuff.
• A sheep, if you don't want your gift to try and fly away.

Not to mention a few other cool things that would truly change this world...

• Emergency food for someone that's literally starving to death.
• Life-saving medicines for someone that's dying of a curable disease.
• Help for a girl who is being sexually exploited.

Wow.

Even as I type, I can't imagine wishing for anything else. 

... ... ...

Question: What are you wishing for this Christmas? Would you consider wishing for something out of the World Vision Gift Catalog?

Note: I am in no way affiliated with World Vision. I could disappear and they would never know. I just really like their gift catalog and think you would like it, too.

Compassion

As of today, our college town finally has a real donut shop. Finally.

One of the lamest ways to begin any speech, sermon, or blog post is with a definition from a dictionary.

Please allow me to be momentarily lame. And thanks for your forgiveness in advance.

There's a word I want to define for you, something that I think is very important to understand. Something that very few of us remember on a consistent basis:

Compassion.

According to my very official source of Dictionary.com, here's the definition of compassion: 

1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

What's interesting to me is the way that this definition seems to fall into two pieces. The first piece sounds an awful lot like empathy, but includes the word sympathy, so I suppose it's different. The first piece of compassion includes a feeling.

Personally, I don't place much stock in feelings. Feelings can happen for any number of reasons, including (but not limited to!) a change in weather, hormones, or a bad pasta bowl from Olive Garden. Feelings are just that: something you feel. Nothing more. Not much else to them.

Now, granted, there's probably a little more to them than I am letting on, but I'm biased. But in my heart of hearts, I believe that any feelings not accompanied by action are hogwash. They're nonsense. They mean nothing.

And that's why I like the second part of this definition. True compassion is not only a feeling, but a desire. And while many would classify desires as feelings, I believe there's something more to desire.

Desire is craving. If you desire something, it means you want and sometimes even need something. Your heart and mind are telling you that you are lacking something, even if you really aren't. And more often than not, desire leads to my favorite result: action.