World Hunger, Christmas and a Funny Story

This year's Christmas will look different than years past.  We were not sure how, but we knew we didn't want the focus to be set on ourselves, but on Jesus' birthday.  We thought perhaps a gift-less Christmas, but the idea of having no gifts under the tree made me sad.  We thought to volunteer on Christmas day, but I know God wants our volunteerism everyday, not just as something we can cross off as our "good deed for the year" CHECK-list.

It all began with the statistic a pastor friend gave us.  The average American spend $749 at Christmas. Source fact here, and there are 313 Million people in America.  I am no mathematician, but I do know that is an exorbitant amount of money.  Our pastor friend said that if the US used just 5% of what we spent in just the Christmas season it could end world hunger for that year, another 5% the water crisis.  This was an exhausting realization.  Jeremy and I could not change this on a large scale, or for our block for that matter.  We could, however, change it for this family.

We decided to not spend much on Christmas.  "Much" such a relative term, no?  Well, each child will receive one gift and stocking-stuffers. This is a start of us as a family.  Who knows, next year maybe we wont use slave labor from India or China (another post for another day) and buy all our gifts hand-made in the US, or make them ourselves!

Now enough of all the boring rhetoric, I promised a funny story, and here goes it:  Jeremy has taken it upon himself to share this tidbit of knowledge with anyone that will listen.  The other night while shopping for the stocking-stuffers we were in JCPenny, and Jeremy thought it'd be appropriate to share this with our check-out gal.  He begins with, "What percentage do you think - ms.JCPenny sales lady - of what Americans spend on Christmas to end world hunger?" Being the intelligent Ms. JCPenny sales lady she is, she responded with, "by the tone of your voice I imagine it is a low percentage."  To which Jeremy replied, "why yes it is.  Say a number."  Ms.JCP says, "I don't know, 1%?" Jeremy responds, "good job going low!  You are probably the first to say a really low percentage.  It is actually 5%." She responds with, "I believe it.  Your purchase today comes to 54.60.  Would you like to round your purchase up to $55.00 and donate to the Salvation Army?" Jeremy matter of factly replies, "no."  To which I burst into laughter.  Oh the irony of that whole exchange! Jeremy is a sharer of all things knowledge of world hunger, but wont donate!  HAHAHA!! Talk is cheap!

We all walk away with a good laugh, even ms. JCP herself, and she also has a fact she may - or may not- do anything about.

Merry Christmas All!!

And because I hate posting without pictures, here are some festive shots: