Trudy   |  Thursday, December 15, 2011
Tags: Family

Shop 'til you drop.

In my last post, I shared about the White Family Assembly and how important it has become to my family to share in traditions – especially now that our family is growing by leaps and bounds. Today, I want to share another great tradition that we keep each year in hopes that my experiences might encourage you to spend more meaningful time with your family members.

Each year, all of the girls in our family get together for our Christmas shopping weekend. That might not sound altogether different from what most people are doing this time of the year, but for us it’s about more than buying gifts. It’s about time.

I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said that lost time is never found again, so it is extremely important that we find time to be intentional and purposeful with the people we love. When we gather to go shopping, we do not always take the “divide and conquer” mentality, but rather we find strength in numbers and band together to complete the tasks at hand.

First, we spend time sharing gift ideas for the people on our lists. Without fail, we are always more creative and intentional together than any one of us would be on our own. Then, we spend an entire two days (sun up to sundown) hitting the malls and specialty stores until almost every gift on the list has been marked off.

But here’s the best part! Later that night, we have a wrapping party! We stay up until the wee hours of the morning wrapping our gifts and laughing together. This is one of the highlights of my year – almost as much fun as actually delivering the gifts at Christmas.

God has blessed me with the most insightful, delightful and godly young women to call daughters and daughters-in-law, and perhaps my greatest gift each year is being able to spend this quality time with them.

Finally, to close out our weekend of “hard work” we celebrate together with a Sunday brunch. I cannot tell you how great this tradition is for me and for my family. I think our husbands might even actually admit they enjoy their time alone with all of the children.

It is fun, though, to see the relief on all of their faces when we come to their rescue at the end of the weekend!

This is such a busy, crazy, stressful time of the year for just about everyone, so I urge you to find ways to connect with one another as the holidays approach. I think you will find that the greatest and most lasting gifts you will get (and give) this year is the time you spend building relationships and starting traditions of your own.

Lost time is never found again, but time well spent… is priceless!