The Wheeler Family Adventure: Christmas: a time for "giving" kids a world perspective

I encountered several major obstacles in my commute recently. A basket overflowing with Halloween costumes, a bazillion little Lego blocks, some Barbie and doll accessories, library books, a multitude of shoes, and overturned laundry bins once filled with clean but unfolded clothing were a few of the obstructions I had to detour around on the way to my basement office.

I struggle with keeping the house picked up, partly because there are more parties helping undo the clean, but also because we have so much stuff. As Christmas approaches, we struggle with wanting to give our kids everything they ever dreamed, yet wanting to be disciplined so we don't create greedy monsters who have little appreciation for what they already have. I've seen the photos of people in other countries wearing two-liter bottles and duct tape for shoes, and I think about this as I trip over at least four pairs of shoes left in the living room and kitchen by one daughter.

For this reason, among others, my husband Dan and I like doing the Operation Christmas Child boxes with the girls. An organization called Samaritans Purse, led by Billy Graham's son Franklin, spearheads a program each year which enables people to fill a simple shoebox with small Christmas gifts for a child in another country. A lot of times these children have very little and may never have received a Christmas gift--such a contrast to what our kids receive each year from us, their 14 immediate aunts and uncles, and six sets of grandparents. This project enables us to talk to our kids about the difference between wants and needs.

For the last few years, we've let each of our four daughters choose what age and gender child they wanted to fill a shoebox for. And each year, they choose to shop for a girl their own ages which is great since we have a pretty good idea of what girls their age like!

This year, we planned ahead and bought different items when they were on sale instead of buying all the items at Christmastime. This enabled us to get quality items worth more than $70 for about $15. (When we tallied the retail price of our items and compared that to what we actually paid, I was really impressed with how well we'd done with our bargain shopping and staying within budget.) When we would go shopping, I would find the product, such as Colgate toothbrushes for $1, and the girls would get to choose which color and style they wanted to put in their shoebox.

This year, we were able to get long-sleeve shirts for $1.79, 10 percent of the original purchase price. We keep our eye on the end-of-season sales, and ShopKo often puts their clearance items as low as 90 percent off. We also got gloves last season and paid 69 cents for two pairs, originally $6.99.

Stuffed animals after holidays also are great buys. My girls love these wide-eyed Beanie stuffed animals. A few weeks after Valentine's Day, ShopKo had these same Beanies with hearts in their hands on clearance for $1.29, down from $12.99. We snatched up four of them. In addition, we bought coloring books or notebooks, color crayons or markers, tennis shoes (on clearance for $2-$7), toothpaste and a ZhuZhu pet toy for each box.

Of course, once October comes and we actually fill our boxes, we do have to do some negotiating among the girls because they can't remember exactly which color toy or style toothbrush they chose, but in the end it works out.

Sometimes my kids will still ask that horrifying question Christmas morning, "Is this all there is?" as mountainous piles of ripped Christmas paper lay about, but I pray Dan and I are making a difference as we talk to our kids about being good stewards and helping them look beyond themselves to see how they can help others.

If you'd like more information about Operation Christmas Child, you can go to www.SamaritansPurse.org.

Erin Bankson helping Meg fill out a sheet about Meg to include in an Operation Christmas Child box at our church's annual OCC box-packing party last year.