Christmas can become stressful and complicated for all of us. We often get so caught up in all that we have to do that we forget what is really important. Sadly, we all too easily forget the true meaning and reason that we celebrate this season of giving.

For this series, we want to look at un-cluttering Christmas and maybe find at least one thing that each of us can do this year to make our season a little more peaceful. Let me encourage you also, if you are a part of the Legacy FB Group, I would love for you to share something you have chosen to do to help your Christmas season be more focused on the truth and to help keep your joy in the midst of it all.

You can’t give what you don’t have.

This is the first point I want to make. You can’t give away what you don’t have. You can’t give something to someone if you don’t own it. And I’m just going to go ahead and say that going into debt to buy gifts for someone does good for no one.

This could be one choice you make for this year. You could decide to not give beyond your means or go into debt to try and keep up with the way others do Christmas. There is a perfect story in the Bible to help us with this.

This story confirms something that truly we should all know by now but seem to forget. The best things you can give someone often cannot be bought in stores. True gifts that come from the heart mean so much more to people and can leave a long-lasting impact. In fact, it may just change someone's life forever!

Often the best things to give someone cannot be bought.

Peter and John could have had a few coins to give this guy, but they didn’t. Instead, they gave him what they had–healing! They gave him a new life. They gave him something money couldn’t buy. They gave him something that could not be found in a store. The value of what they gave far outweighed silver and gold.

You often have it within your power to give gifts that will mean so much more to people than something bought in a store that will soon be forgotten. Time spent with someone, a card with a handwritten note telling them how much they mean to you, something you create with your own hands can touch someone's heart in ways that other gifts cannot. Anything that releases life to them will last so much longer in their memory than any store-bought gift.

Let’s try an experiment. I want you to recall right now a gift you were given last Christmas. Can you? I suppose some of the women can, possibly a few men can, and even fewer kids can. I’m simply saying, that often we obsess over getting the right gift that is so quickly forgotten.

I can assure you that the lame man at the gate never forgot the gift that Peter and John gave him. It changed his life forever. Many people had given him what he asked for, but Peter and John gave him what he truly needed.

Do you pray about what you should give people?

You know God cares about what concerns you and will gladly help you if you but ask Him. He loves you and knows what you have need of but He may not fulfill your every wish as He is not the great genie in heaven but He is your loving Heavenly Father.

So what is something you can do this year to make gift-giving easier? Do you really have to buy as many gifts as you think you do? Do you really need to go into debt to buy gifts?

Here’s an idea for kids: Want, Need, Wear, Read
Buy them one thing they want, one thing they need, one thing they can wear, and one thing they can read.

This is a super simple way to scale things back for kids. They will still have plenty of gifts and this focuses on things that are most important and needed rather than frivolous things that kids think they need.

How will you incorporate Christ into the celebration of His birthday?

This seems like a silly question. I see people post things about fighting to keep Christ in Christmas but how many of those posting these things will worship Jesus Christ this Christmas? How many will include the story of Christ's birth in their celebrations? How many will attend Christmas Eve Communion or any church services during the holidays to worship Christ?

The way you celebrate Christmas shows the world what you think about Christ.

What can you do to un-clutter Christmas this year?