A Neighborhood Revolution

The Gift Revolution. This is a campaign that our church has had the opportunity to be involved in this Christmas season. Simply put, The Gift Revolution is about giving to those around you and challenging them to pass it on. Case and point: Tom and I took the kids with us to get gas so they could catch the excitement of this gift revolution thing. We paid for a woman to fill up her tank and gave her a Gift Revolution card with a website on it (http://www.thegiftrevolution.com/ ). The hope is that they will go to this website, see all the stories of people giving, post their own, and then be inspired to come up with their own unique way to pass it on. All involved with this brilliant attempt to start a revolution have found themselves just as blessed (probably more so) than those on the receiving end thus proving "tis better to give than to receive" Amen? Amen!!

Now to the video. We decided to combine the Revolution with one of our Christmas traditions. We don't play up Santa at Christmas time. Not because we think it is unChristian. We are not stringent about it. We just chose at the beginning not to say that Santa was who brought them presents. We do however stress the real story of St. Nicholas and how he gave anonymous gifts to boys and girls and how he did so because of his love for Jesus. In the spirit of this, we have the kiddos pick someone whom they want to give a secret Santa gift to. We let them play Santa and give an anonymous gift to someone. This year it was our neighbor. He loves to come to our house and play ball with Wil. And Mags has a capital time with him too. Our Secret Santa adventure took place last night as we delivered the gift with a Gift Revolution card attached. It was all caught on tape. I realize once they [Tom, Wil, and Maggie] start running to the house, you only see blackness but my hope was that I would have enough battery on my camera for them to take it and come back. My hope was lost. The battery took out because Tom and the kids couldn't find a good spot to leave the gift. I was just praying that they weren't shot at being mistaken as a burglar. So if you attempt something like this, use extreme caution no doubt.
Tom just came home and said when he pulled in from work, the neighborhood boy waved real big. I wonder if he knows? If you wonder what happened after the tape quit rolling, let's just say Tommy tripped on a stick and a full moon lit up the sky. On that note have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!