Christmas is a wonderful time of year that is filled with joy. As soon as Thanksgiving is over, people start setting up their Christmas trees, decorating their houses, baking cookies, and buying gifts for the ones they love. Over the years many people have created their own Christmas traditions such as cutting down their tree themselves instead of buying a fake one, baking cookies, going caroling, and many other things. “Our family always picks out a tree together,” said Mary Teague. “My mom, sister, and I make cookies together every year,” said Ericka Yoder.

When asked if she had any traditions for opening presents, Ericka said, “We always go to the Christmas Eve service at church and then open presents after we get home. The best gift I have ever gotten would probably be my Ipod. I use it daily.” As for Mary, her family opens them on Christmas morning.  “My favorite gift is the Wii I got one year,” said Mary.  

This year instead of exchanging gifts with her mom’s side of the family, Ericka and her family have decided to use the money they would spend on gifts for each other on things for people in a homeless shelter. “We are going to go spend time with them too. I’m pretty pumped,” she said. “I think that during Christmas everyone gets so caught up in what they want that they don’t think of the people who won’t be getting anything. My family was talking about it at Thanksgiving, and we decided that we were going to try to make Christmas a little better for some people.”

What about you? Do you have anything you could give up this Christmas to help others? We have many people around us who are struggling to put presents under their tree or even food on their table. If we all gave up something as little as one present this year or maybe we could each send someone a Christmas card who normally wouldn’t get one, we could make a difference in many people’s lives. What are you going to do to brighten someone’s Christmas?