Important Coupons

Important Coupons

If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. Matthew 7:11

The greatest Christmas gift we can give our children is a pleasant memory. So instead of spending our time on gingerbread villages that crumble or our money on expensive toys that break, what if we concentrated on offering an experience that would cause our families to smile, even years from now? My children are married, but they still remember the long-ago December night we impulsively donned snowsuits over our pajamas and ran outside to make snow angels on the front lawn.

One year, Dale, a member of our Sunday school class, realized he didn’t really know what was going on with his children. He was determined to find out. His gift to them that year was an envelope of carefully thought-out coupons. His fifteen-year-old son redeemed his coupon for ice fishing within the first week. As he and his son dipped a line through a hole in the ice, they spent two hours talking about the day-to-day challenges of high school. Dale’s eight-year-old daughter claimed dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant and let her pizza get cold because she was so busy telling Dad about every classmate.

Dale says he’s never been so exhausted in his life, but he’s convinced the hours he now spends with his children are a solid investment in their futures.

Dale’s gifts reminded me of the coupon books my children made when they were in elementary school. I still have the one Holly gave me when she was seven. In large, wobbly printing, she promised to help me with grocery shopping and dust the low parts of the tables. Maybe I’ll redeem those coupons when I’m ninety.

—SANDRA

Lord, guide me in the memories I build into my children. May they think of you when they think of me. And may they smile.

We make a living by what we get;

We make a life by what we give.

—SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL (1874–1965), BRITISH STATESMAN, AUTHOR, AND HISTORIAN