All done Christmas shopping...

I am finally all done. Yesterday, I went to go Christmas shopping for my brother, Jimmie, after work. I had my Mom left to do as well and Jimmie had told me what she wanted and we were going to go in halfsies for it. Well, I went to look to see how much it was and I couldn't figure out which set it was, so I figured out that I needed my brother. So, I wound up going to Mom's work to schedule my oil change and asked her to call to see if Jimmie was home. I told her she wasn't allowed to ask what I was stealing him for. She offered to do a kid swap so Jimmie and I could spend some real time together and she would go get Deidra from daycare when she was done with work. She was excited about seeing her old friends from the summer, so I figured that she'd want to stay and play longer anyway, so I said that was fine. She called Andy for me and Andy said that he was going to go out shopping after work as well then. So, I went and got Jimmie and we headed out...we went to Wal-mart and did some shopping. The thing we were going to get Mom together turned out to not be as expensive as we thought, so he got her that and I said that I'd get her a few other little things that she wanted and then I'd take her after Christmas to our church's gift shop to get her the picture that she told me that she's been wanting. I had a hard time shopping for Andy this year...I hope that he likes what I got for him. Everytime I asked him what he wanted, he'd say "nothing." Now to just do all the wrapping and then I can sit back and relax over the next few days. I really love Christmas. I love the meaning of Christmas and it's really a little more eye opening every year. It's not all about the gifts that you get or buy for one another. Jesus is really the gift of the season...something I was sitting and thinking about in church a couple of weeks ago and it just hit me more than usual. God gives us a gift each and every day and that is His son... I hear people talk about all the gifts they buy and how much they spend on Christmas each year and I think they've got it all wrong sometimes. Yeah, getting all that stuff is nice, but geesh one couple that I was waiting at HD told me they've spent over $5000 on Christmas this year. I guess I just don't get why people think that they need to go all out like that. You can still have a wonderfully nice Christmas and not spend a fortune. I guess I just look at Christmas a lot simpler...my parents never had the money to give us kids a Christmas like that. We always got 3-5 small gifts and 1 big one. Granted, I do buy more for Deidra than that...but we spent about $120 on her and that was our biggest expense. We settled on $30 for each person down here that we were buying for and we gave family that we were shipping too about $20 and friends that we were shipping to we gave about $10. We stick to our Christmas budget and we still have a great Christmas. I just don't understand why people feel the need to dig themselves a hole and go so much into debt over Christmas. I just think that they need to quit materializing Christmas so much and honestly really look at the meaning of Christmas. Thank You God for the beautiful gift that You have given all of us...your beautiful son, Jesus.