Encouraging a spiritual aspect to the holidays

We pretty much celebrate a secular Christmas these days, as neither Sean nor I consider ourselves Christians anymore. I feel a strong connection to the idea of celebrating Yule or the Winter Solstice - celebrating the change of seasons and the hope of the new year has meaning to me. And I like to celebrate the Christmas traditions of my family.

This year we're starting a new tradition that we hope will also bring more spiritual meaning to the holiday for ourselves and our children. Each of us is donating $20 (we'll provide it to Alex and Kate) to a charity of our choice. Giving to others is pretty traditional for this time of year, however we're hoping this will take some time away from thinking of the stuff of Christmas, and focus it more on what is most important. Over the break we plan to make ornaments representing our gifts to hang on the tree and collect in the years to come.

Kate decided to make her gift to the local Food Bank. Sean took her over there yesterday to make her donation. They were thrilled and showed her around, explaining more about what they do. It's brought up lots of good discussions about what it must be like to not have enough food to eat.

Alex made his donation to PAWS. We had been hoping to donate in person, but the snow storm today canceled the planned field trip from the UU. We've had personal experience with PAWS - they gave us our dog, Bowie.

I contributed to a friend's brother's memorial scholarship, and Sean has yet to decide.

It feels good to be able to give. It really is a privilege.