Last Sunday in sacrament meeting a couple in our ward gave talks about their most memorable Christmases. The husband shared a sweet story that brought tears to my eyes. He was 9 years old, living in Tennessee, and his parents had six children and were both back in school. They had no extra money for gifts. His parents went to bed on Christmas Eve dismally thinking there would be no presents in the morning. At 11 AM, a knock sounded at the door. The mom opened it to find two big sacks of presents for the whole family. Someone was watching out for them! That’s why I believe in Santa. If you tune into the laws of the universe, that is, obey, and “be good” then God will send blessings your way, many times anonymously. That’s the spirit of Santa.

(My husband with some of his sibs and in-laws at our day after Thanksgiving Day dinner.)

So then this brother in sacrament meeting shared of how he and his siblings have passed this kindness forward. Every year one of the siblings takes turns collecting money from the other siblings. Then that person finds some family to do Sub for Santa. They use the money they would normally spend on each other in a gift exchange. I LOVE this idea! $20 or $30 is about how much we spend on our sibling gifts each year, per side, as we rotate through the names. While I enjoy getting the gifts, there are so many people who are worse off than I am who I would like to help. We have too much stuff.  $20 to $30 doesn’t go far but multiplied by our number of siblings (four on my side, eight on my husband’s) we could get a bunch of presents for a family, provide a Christmas, and restore someone’s hope in a kind universe. I am going to propose this for next year. Hopefully we can make this a tradition!

My son with some of his cousins.