A New Advent Tradition

December is here and this year, we started a new Advent tradition.  Each night when we read a Bible verse from our Advent calendar, the kids go to their room and find one item to put in the donation box, placed next to the Advent calendar.  At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus...God sent his only son to die for us.  Any material item we can give up is NOTHING in comparison to the sacrifice God made for us. 

One thing we told the kids was this...Don't just put junk in the box.  What if we took all the items in that box and wrapped them and Christmas morning, those were your gifts. Would you be excited? 

So far, this is going well.  We should have done this years ago.  On Christmas Eve, we will take the box to our community outreach organization and donate the items.  The little bit we give up this Christmas is really so miniscule but I hope it teaches our family a little more about giving to others