How to Enjoy Christmas All Year Round

It was an autumn evening three years ago. We were discussing in home evening the fact that our year’s supply wasn’t being refilled as steadily as we knew was necessary. Keeping a family of seven fed and clothed makes budgeted allowances hop nimbly from item to item as this or that need takes priority.

Our oldest daughter spoke up: “Why not do double duty with our Christmas money this year? Let’s give each other items for the year’s supply as Christmas gifts.”

At first consideration a sack of dry beans or a can of yeast seemed to be an impersonal way to say “I love you and Merry Christmas.” But after discussion it seemed to offer real possibilities for following more closely the admonitions we have received to be adequately prepared in the home, and also for using ingenuity and fun in our Christmas gift giving.

Lists were made of supplies needed, and each family member did his own shopping. What a thrill for a ten-year-old to wheel her grocery cart around the store and select items that had been carefully priced in advance, then budgeted to fit the existing funds: rice for daddy, hand soap for brother, gelatin dessert for sisters, even some medicinal items for mother.

Our next older daughter was ingenious. She thought of pins, needles, thread, and writing paper—items that might be in short supply and great demand under emergency conditions.

Everything was gift-wrapped and gaily decorated. The stack of presents under the tree that Christmas seemed enormous. Cans of juice and packages of bathroom tissue made impressive items in their Christmas wrappings and ribbons. It was just as exciting and fun to open a package containing five pounds of oatmeal as it had been previously to discover a new game under colorful wrapping paper. When all the gifts had been opened and exclaimed over, the children put the date on the items and carried two large boxes of supplies to the basement to be added to the things already shelved there.

What a joy for the children to know that many things stored for the future are their own personal contributions to our family welfare—to be placed alongside the canned fruits and vegetables that mother has put there and to stand equal in importance to the beef father raises and puts in the freezer. This is a wonderful part of the family welfare plan. Now Christmas at our house lasts the whole year round, and, most meaningful of all, it is on-the-job training in following the counsel of our leaders!

Merry Christmas this harvest season from our family to yours, and happy planning and shopping to all of you.

Mrs. Howard G. Arrington