From the time I was a little girl, our family would have Christmas gift exchanges like most famiiles do. There are five of us girls plus our mom and dad. Everyone would buy $1 gifts for each other. Lots of fun, getting and giving quite a few presents. It wasn't very much money, but the hunt for the gifts was part of the Christmas tradition.
Fast forward to Christmas 2005! We still get together with our families some time near Christmas Day. We have had added on four brother-in-laws and quite a few children (and grandhchildren and one great-grandchild!) since those days in the 1950s. And guess what? We still spend $1 for each others gifts. We spend all year looking for sales and items that are in the $1 range!
No, not too many are collectibles! But we certainly have fun. The quantity of gifts pile up and we don't worry much about whether we purchased a "gift of anyone's dreams", after all it was just $1. My husband, Jim, used to have fun guessing what in his packages without opening them. "Oh, chore gloves! Nice jar of peanuts!."
And since the items might not hold our attention too long, we would move on to the Christmas wrapping "snowball" fight; wadding up the wrap and tossing it around the room. At least one person would be "wearing" most of the stick on bows before the "war" was over!
As new people have been added to our family, they look forward to the crazy tradition.
God created families for times such as the Zirbel family Christmas! He wants us to have a good time together, loving, caring and sharing. Creating memories!! I think as zany as our holidays have been and will be in 2005; God likes to be in the midst of a good time. I like to think of God as the creator and inventor of joy, peace, patience, and the rest of the list found in Galatians 5:22 and 23.
And He has the ability to keep on giving us these many things, no matter what might happen in 2006!!