Waiting and Hoping for Meaning this Christmas

Ready or not, the holiday season opens this month – a season of waiting and hoping, but often with little time for being still or anticipating.  Children are more attuned to hopeful waiting than most grown-ups.  Many of us adults do our waiting by madly getting ready.  Our Advent season can go roaring by like a rushing freight train -- and that’s how we want it.  We have too much to prepare.  We resemble the American couple in a New Yorker cartoon who are shown dashing up the steps of The Louvre in Paris, shouting: “Where’s the Mona Lisa?  We’re double-parked!” 

This holiday season can be a holy season for more of us, ironically, if we add to our busy-ness by doing something meaningful for others.  Making Christmas happier for a family in need is a guaranteed way to slow down our holiday rushing and add a hopeful, helpful aspect to our own Christmas waiting.

The sad fact is that many of our neighbors will be waiting through this holiday season with more anxiety than anticipation, with more fear than hope.  Because they are poor, Christmas brings the heartache of not being able to decorate, buy presents, or travel to be with family or friends.  All around—on TV, at the mall, at school, even at church—the children of the poor, like all children in our culture, see images of things they want.  For their parents, the burden of not being able to afford gifts and holiday trimmings weighs heavy.

For Middleton area families, community groups, and businesses,  MOM offers a smorgasbord of suggestions to help neighbors in need so they will have a more joyful holiday season:

•  Help make sure people have the “fixins” to make holiday dinners for their families to gather around by donating $10 to MOM for a Thanksgiving Basket containing turkey and all the trimmings.  Donations of turkeys, hams, or chickens to our Food Pantry will also be welcome throughout the holiday season.  The Food Pantry is located at  8710-2 Montclair Drive. Call MOM at 836-7338 for more information.

• Take the opportunity to visit an elderly neighbor. Bring holiday cookies – or go the extra mile and sit with them over cookies and coffee reminding yourself that the greatest gift we can give is our time.  Listen as they share the story about the Christmas morning they woke up to see that brand-new shiny bicycle.  Through our POP program (the Project for Older People), we can match you with someone who needs your time.

• “Adopt” another family’s Christmas wishes through the MOM Adopt-A-Family program.   Last year 159 groups and individuals bought gifts for 191 families – people who might have felt faceless in this “good neighbor” city but now know that someone cares.  Purchase gifts for the children who haven’t seen many gifts under their trees.  Marvel at the fact that their youngest is the same age as your child (or niece, or Godchild) and you know exactly what’s popular with that age right now.  Buy special gifts for the parents who haven’t been able to purchase anything new for themselves in years.  So many people say that Christmas is only for the kids, but didn’t Jesus come for all?

Acts 20:35 says: “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’.”

Take the opportunity to help someone in your community this Christmas – or get a jump on your New Year’s resolution for 2006 and pledge to give more of yourself to help others throughout the entire year.  

If you are interested in the Adopt-a-Family Program, contact Sarah Mackesey, AAF Coordinator, at 826-3409, or sarah@mompop.org.  To find out about other ways to serve this holiday season and through the entire year you may also call Sarah, Volunteer Coordinator, at 826-3409. Information and sign-up opportunities are also available online at this web site on the Holiday Service Opportunities Page.

© 2005 Middleton Outreach Ministry

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