We have approached the holiday season with such speed, I have yet to pack away our summer clothes. Already, I am feeling the onset of the seasonal tension caused by an over-filled calendar and under-funded budget. It seems as though, this year, it is beginning earlier than usual, but I am attributing that to the jolt I got when I saw Burnsville Center Santa waving merrily from his big green chair the week following Halloween. Really.

Last year, I had a conversation with an acquaintance who was feeling the same annual tension. Together we bemoaned the chaos and the commercialism and the crowds. As part of this conversation, we also talked about how hard it was when every organization was looking for some kind of donation or support. How we felt like we were sending some donation in to school with the kids every day for "some cause or the other." How workplaces relentlessly campaign their pet causes, and how the church events, alone, could claim all of your time and drain your pocketbook. I was an equal part of this conversation, complaining about the seasonal onslaught of various organizations looking to...what? Provide local families with warm and sufficient meals for the chilly holiday season? Ensure that young children in economically struggling families still got to experience the joy of seeing a wrapped package under the tree? Help the millions of children around the world have gifts - minor compared to those I will put under my tree - to open on Christmas Day? Clothe the homeless who face the freezing weather of the season without the respite of a warm home, a blanketed bed, a full meal? The realization along with the realities of the broken world we live in is too humbling for words.

Of course these groups should be doing everything they can to lift up the plight of those in need. And of course they should vigorously promote the various ways that any of us who have the resources to share can become involved. It is now clear to me that I would and should be disappointed if anyone charged with the mission of running these helping organizations did anything less than that. And with this revelation, as a family, we decided that the many opportunities that will come to our attention over the next couple of months will not become hassles or even annoyances, but resources for our research as a family...to decide which of these many options we want to focus on collectively intentionally.

Instead of responding to requests for donations haphazardly and thoughtlessly, we are going to focus our resources so they go deeper instead of wider, and to focus our conversations as a family so the go deeper instead of...nothing at all, but me shoving a bag of Toys for Tots into my children's arms as they go out the door, yelling after them to make sure and get it to where it is supposed to go at school.

Some things we have put in place were greatly influenced by Liz and Chad and their children, who recently decided, after a family meeting and via election by ballot, how they wanted to apply a chunk of money they had designated for charitable spending. We were so excited by their excitement, and by even their 3-year old's mature understanding of why he voted to support the organization he did.

• Collect and consider information on various organization and causes before randomly responding.
• Have family conversation around the information and use the Internet to supplement research
• Establish and communicate a budget for seasonal giving to the family.
• Decide as a family if you are looking for an opportunity to donate money, or want to be involved in purchasing items to be donated.
• Decide as a family if and how you want to donate time and energy to volunteering with an organization, and sign up sooner than later so you have more choices on your preferred time slots
• Decide as a family if you want to identify a single organization to support, or 2 or 3 or more.
• Consider making one intentional shopping trip to support the smaller requests that come up from organizations who look for donations of food and toys (i.e., buy enough non-perishable food items to fill a brown bag at the beginning of the season and pull one or 2 items from there as various holiday food-collection events come up.)
• Create tradition around these conversations and decisions to make them fun and memorable for kids (i.e., voting by ballot, each child has to present their favorite cause or organization, etc.)

Have fun, and let us know if you come up with any other ideas or traditions to add to the list above. We are excited because, already, we have experienced more joy in our giving than we ever have before. This is how I want to experience the season of giving.