Welcome to the first post in the 3-part series, Simple Christmas. (The other two will include Recipes and Christmas Decor.)

Most of us are aware of the over-commercialism of Christmas. The few stories I heard about Black Friday were sickening…almost makes me ashamed to be an American. Some have lain aside the tradition of gift-giving altogether for different reasons;  others are swept by the current and join the rat race, spending money they don’t have, and leaving little room for any celebration of Christ.

Is there a balance? Can we enjoy giving gifts to each other in moderation, practicing resourcefulness and creativity without the anxiety that comes with the consumer frenzy?

I love homemade gifts for this reason. And one of the many blessings of the Internet is the massive collection of gift ideas, made easy even for the less-than-crafty. I love giving a gift I have put my time, thoughts and/or hands into, with the hopes that the recipient will be blessed by it. We must rethink why we give gifts and let that be our starting place.

The most brilliant website to recently come available is Pinterest. If you are familiar with it, you love it as much as I do. If not, you will Here are a few gift ideas I have found on Pinterest that I plan to try this Christmas (Pinterest includes the original links):

Photo on wood

Photo Tiles

Homemade Cocoa Mix

Pillow case bed

Right after one of our hardest Christmases, I compiled an ebook with pictures and tutorials of all our homemade gifts for that year. Easy Homemade Gifts is still available and customers have told me how thankful they were for the great, easy gift ideas! (That was one of my most fun Christmases as I really had put myself into those gifts.)

There are so many more I’d love to share, but perhaps this will get you thinking about some gift goodies you could try!

And don’t forget the gift wrapping, one of the most important parts of making a gift special. This is an easy place to be creative and save money too. Consider wrapping a gift in fabric, or using fabric scraps as ribbon or cut into shapes, to adorn your package. I love wrapping in brown paper and then decorating with stamps, gems from nature, twine, raffia, or letting the kids draw on it. Maps, newspaper, wallpaper…there are lots of fun ideas!

Another great thought about giving gifts is to simply give gifts that enrich the life of the recipient. My friend, Kathy @ Teaching Good Things, has a passion for producing tools that teach practical skills, certainly a gift that needs to be passed on. She has several homemaking DVDs that are thorough and easy to follow, even for the beginner. If you want to give that kind of gift, you should buy it now, while she is running her biggest sale of the year (as in, 40% off, free shipping and free gift wrapping!).

“Do not underestimate the importance of all the conversations (slow and clear conversations) that a mother has throughout the day with her child.  If Mother speaks clearly and decisively, she is giving the child valuable language lessons.  All the reading aloud she enjoys doing every day–as her children listen attentively–is doing verbal wonders, naturally, to teach English.  I trusted Charlotte and did not teach grammar directly until each young student reached the age of ten.  Each always did well on the language section of the year-end test…most children just need practice in hearing and speaking the English language (not television language) to get accustomed to the basic “right and wrong” of grammar.”

From Charlotte Mason Companion

I can testify to this truth as a former high school English teacher.  When children have a good grasp of the way language “sounds”, simply from partaking in good, consistent conversation, the nuts and bolts of grammar come more easily and can be postponed until children have a better understanding of abstract concepts.

By the way, when I entered my first year teaching high school students, I was prepared to only review grammar and focus on literature.  To my surprise, most of the class–about 85%, didn’t even have a basic grasp of grammatical structure and could not pick out the basic parts of speech.  Which may have been OK if they could construct a good sentence, but alas, they could not.  So don’t worry so much about “being behind the average school child”

Giving attention to our conversations lets us find ways to introduce new words and ideas in a very natural, but “sticky” way (meaning, it is more likely “to stick”). Look for conversation starters. Often, it comes from a child’s question, usually in abundance throughout the day.

A book can easily spark further conversation and I especially encourage you to ask a child to “narrate”, as Charlotte Mason called it, or “tell back”, in their own words, what they remember from the story.

(Don’t forget to utilize your time in the car or waiting for an appointment for rich conversation.)

In our increasingly electronic age where people spend less and less time interacting face to face, let us not neglect this very basic and needful exercise in teaching our children to be effective communicators!

“Too often home educators try to set up a government school at home. How foolish I was with all my records, charts, tests, and clip boards at the start! Students should read well, write well, be numerate, and cultured.”

John Mark Reynolds

I’ll never forget hearing one of the young men (single, strong, able, employed) who once lived with my parents in an assisted living-type ministry upon a return visit: “Man, Obama has to do something…I’ve got bills to pay.” Yes, this is the generation we have raised.

And a recent proposal by the President will work wonders to further state-dependency rates: it mandates that in a school where 40% or more of the students qualify for free breakfasts and lunches, every student will be given free breakfasts and lunches. Why? To eliminate the stigma. Like manna from heaven…free for all. Don’t get me started on “eliminating stigmas”.

“We desperately need to teach our children, by real life experiences, the basic connections between earning and spending money, and trading effort for income or benefits.”

We are witnessing a generation who has essentially transferred what they were taught in their childhood to their adulthood expectations. If I spend my childhood being given everything I want, all my favorite clothes, movies, electronic devices and sports equipment, (because everyone else does and I may be stigmatized if I don’t), if I get a new car when I turn sixteen, insurance paid, and gas money to putter around, if my mother does all the housework and cooks all the meals and my father makes all the money to pay all the bills while I spend most of my time having fun and receiving all that I want with little exchange of effort, I will likely grow up with an entitlement mentality.

Family economy is so misunderstood and underrated in the typical American home. Because we love our children, it *feels* like giving them everything they want is a good thing. And while I love to give my children gifts as much as the next parent, we need to distinguish between gift-giving and a daily practice of proper economy.

We desperately need to teach our children, by real life experiences, the basic connections between earning and spending money, and trading effort for income or benefits. The value of work can only be felt by the opportunity to spend or save its pay. The value of things can only be appreciated if there is some investment made. Likewise, the motivation to work can only be felt by a lack of the desired thing.

Obviously, there is balance in teaching this to children. But here our some ideas we hold about family economy:

• EVERYONE is an important part of the family and that belief needs to play out tangibly. ”Teamwork” is verbalized; each member knows his presence is treasured and needed.

• Little ones learn to help with basic chores; older ones grow into age-appropriate responsibilities (looking different in every home). We need to be deliberate in affirming this idea.

• Think in terms of “multiple-income family”. This is something I’ve been mulling over. When we marry, we are one, and therefore our income is one. We have one account and all expenses/needs/wants are paid out of it with no distinction about who made what. What about our children? Should money they make go into this “family pool”? And if so, how do we teach them the distinctions between a socialist attitude (where money is forcibly taken from one and given to another) and a “family-is-one” economy? Just thinking out loud on this one. Would love your thoughts. I love what Kevin Swanson says: “We’re a seven-income family”. Bottom line is, we all work and we all reap the rewards.

• We all participate in making/saving money or exchanging work for food and shelter. Not to be overly simplistic, but a child needs to understand that while Dad may earn the money to buy food and Mom may cook it, he contributes in some way to the process (taking care of his chore so Dad doesn’t have to). Or though Dad pays the power bill, we are all responsible to use energy wisely. If a child disregards his job of conserving, charging a fee or requiring extra chores can help him see the importance; to learn that “nothing is free”.

• A word about “housework”: I have seen so many families instill awful habits in their children by treating Mom like a maid. My job is to manage my home. That includes work but doesn’t exclude other members from sharing that work. It’s an enterprise. We all work, we all eat, we all glean the benefits from the joint effort of family. We all have clean clothes because we all play a part in the laundry. We enjoy a clean home because we all do our part to keep it that way. Mind you, this requires constant reminding and training, but the outcome is worth it.

• Encouraging productivity…going through our years of being laden with debt and scraping to make ends meet (and many months the ends did NOT meet), was an invaluable time of learning. We were forced into a new level of creativity and my children learned more than ever the value of saving a dollar. Now they all seem to share a love of making gifts, making and selling crafts and pursing business opportunities. From the pencil-sketched portrait business my son keeps busy at to my 9-year-old upcycling enthusiast, they all know that each gift they make and the money they earn builds our family economy and they delight to know that God can use their talents in a variety of ways.

Reading over this post seems a bit like I’m stating the obvious. It seems only natural that parents understand the importance of helping their children make these vital life connections. But I’m afraid our super-busy lives and hyper-stimulated minds often just forget these basic concepts that once ran naturally through the course of life. Let’s allow God’s truth and common sense to guide our parenting instead of the pressure of popular opinion.

Things are coming along nicely with our house! (If you’re new, read about our storm.) Through God’s providence, my husband has been working for my Dad in construction for the last 4 years or so. So this project–his first house–has been challenging, but not too much for him to do. It has been a wonderful learning experience. My oldest son has been able to join him most days and all he is learning is invaluable as well. Another blessing from the storm!

We’ve come this far mostly by the generosity and pure love of volunteers helping Aaron. We are so grateful! Our goal is to celebrate Christmas in our new home. It will likely be a race with time, but we’re going for it! My husband is tired, battling pneumonia but a real trooper. He’s like Superman crossed with the Energizer Bunny and I think he is so awesome!

I asked him to bring home some scrap wood and a few of us are working on some home decor projects. It satisfies my creative urge and my passion for upcycled decor at the same time. AND…I am toying around with a pickled-pine look to do in our bedroom. We have an abundance of trees to mill since nearly every last tree in the whole place was blown down. I think it’s kind of cool to be able to use the trees both for the cost-efficiency and the sentimental value.

I glued together some rough-cut 2 x 4′s.

To get the pickled look, I painted with glaze (you could also use watered-down paint). It’s hard to see the actual color in this picture but I used a light teal/blue shade. I was thrilled to discover that this exact look is what I was trying to achieve for my bedroom walls. When dried, I sanded around the edges and corners for a distressed look.

Then I revealed that my son, indeed, got all of my artistic ability.  I’m probably going to rub a light coat of stain over this to distress it a bit more.

Alexa’s turned out MUCH better. I’m thinking of making her an offer for it She painted her boards with watered-down acrylic paint and used stencils.

Thank you for your continued prayers as we walk in faith and trust Him for all our needs. He is more than sufficient.

Sandpaper/Crayon Art

Always looking for creative craft ideas, this one was a hit with my children. It was easy enough for my nine-year-old to orchestrate (with a little oversight while ironing) and all the kids got to participate.

Here’s how we did it:

1. Buy sandpaper (medium grain is what we used) and cut it into pieces for each child to draw himself (or other picture) with crayons (better quality crayons work best).
2. Place the drawing face-down on fabric (bag, apron, t-shirt, etc.) and iron to transfer crayon drawing.
3. If you use words, remember to write them backwards.

Note: Some of the words didn’t transfer well so we just drew directly onto the bag.

That’s it!

One of the many ways a wife can help her husband or be a burden to him is the way she handles the family finances.  I consider it a privilege and a challenging task to make the most of my husband’s income and it is my constant prayer that “the heart of my husband safely trusts me” in this area.

From spending to saving or even earning extra income, there are so many ways we can benefit our family’s economy!

Since my husband and I married 13 years ago, we have weathered some serious financial storms. About five years ago, through a series of several events, we accrued over $38,000 in credit card debt, besides the mortgage to the mobile home we bought when we married!

A LOT has transpired through that, and when I say, “God used it for our good”, I’m not just being trite…we are a different family because of it.

It was right about that time when the Lord had spoken to us about receiving our children AND about my coming home from work as a school teacher. Boy did our decisions fly in the face of human wisdom!!! And yet, we heard Him clearly keep saying, “Trust Me”.

My husband has worked tremendously hard and we have worked equally hard to stretch the money he makes.  I’m thrilled to report that about three weeks ago, we finished paying off the last of our credit cards and are now debt free!

And though we still pray for our daily bread, we no longer endure the burden of enslavement to debt.

Tomorrow (Tuesday), at 10 a.m. CST, I’ll be sharing LIVE at Morning Motivations, a few things we learned during all those years as well as a few practical money-saving ideas and tricks we implemented (and still do!) I hope you’ll join me for a brief, candid discussion about how we can better help our families in this area!

We all know that more stuff is more complicated. But what of our good stewardship over what we are given? What about being frugal and saving things for a later use?

Ginger mentioned in the last post how many clothes are given to her. We are blessed in the same way. We are given so many wonderful clothes that we rarely need to buy any. But, what if you simply have too many? Honestly, I really struggle to get rid of perfectly good clothing. If you have someone to pass them along to, that may be a good answer.

I have a plan…

As I wait in our temporary home and plan how to keep our lives simple now that we are starting with a fresh slate, I have a plan. Perhaps it will inspire you to do something similar.

I’ve heard suggestions of the large family clothing dilemma go something like: “Save each child a play outfit, a couple of dress outfits and a few things in between, and get rid of the rest”. Sounds good at first, but I can’t do it. What happens when those few things get stained or torn? What happens when they grow out of them? Back to the store to BUY new ones when we just gave away perfectly good clothes.

So…I’m planning the “Crawford Thrift Store”. We have an extra room in our basement. Once our home is rebuilt, I plan to outfit this room with clothing racks, shelves and places for shoes. I will THEN give each child only a few outfits and shoes to keep up with. I will put any surplus in the “store”, keeping it locked and only accessing it as needed. Anticipating the same “disposable mindset” I mentioned in the last post from knowing there is an abundance of clothes behind the door, it has crossed my mind to require a child to buy new shoes or clothing from our “store” if he lost them due to carelessness. To me, this is the best of both worlds. Rooms with lower maintenance, good stewardship of what is given, and the chance to teach our children the value of money.

This concept could be applied to most items that seem to multiply in your home.

Two Important Questions

In other “stuff” areas besides clothing, Tsh Oxenreider, author of Organized Simplicity, says to ask yourself two questions regarding every item in your home:  ”Is it useful?” and “Is it beautiful to some member of our family?” If the answer is “no” to both questions, get rid of it.

She also suggests taking inventory of things like kitchen utensils. Isn’t it better to have one really quality skillet than trying to store six cheap ones? Clean out, have a yard sale, and spend that money on some quality tools.

Getting rid of it or finding a good place for it for later use will free up our time, our energy and even our “emotional clutter”, giving us more room for REAL living.

If you live in America, you make up the top 6% of the wealthiest in the world. The majority of the world’s inhabitants don’t have running water or electricity. The MAJORITY.

Contrast that with us…a people who have such an abundance of things that thrift stores and yard sales are an American icon while many countries can’t fathom such. (I’ll never forget the summer my parents first began keeping foreign students. We had a yard sale and the teen, Russian boys could NOT figure out what we were doing or why.)

We are a culture that idolizes more stuff, more gadgets, more everything. We are “stuff gluttons” (and still claim we can’t afford more than two children, which will forever baffle me).

The phenomenon caused by too much stuff is that we don’t value any of it. I’ve often wondered how “once upon a time” each child in a family only had one pair of shoes.  My children lose shoes constantly. And then I realized that if you only had the one pair they would mean something to you. They would be valued.

Applying this concept to our lives as families really changes the way we should look at our things, our activities and our choices. Everything becomes disposable–devalued–when we have too much of it. Even vacations and recreation lose their luster when we are engorged with them.

So we end up stressing ourselves out with more things that we value less to take care of, more activities eating up our time and money, the physical and financial stress of it all and in the end, we are only more busy, not MORE happy.

Simplifying begins with getting real about our priorities in life and saying “no” to the things that detract from those.

I want to challenge you to take inventory with me. Inventory of our things, our activities and our pursuits. De-cluttering our lives means bringing back value and enjoyment. Less IS more.

Ahhhh….we all want it, or say we do. So much that the word itself has become overused, trite and meaningless.

Do you know what it really means? Do you know how significantly in can change your life?

Even before the storm, I had a strong urge to simplify.  Meaning, at the time, “get rid of stuff”. Because whether or not we realize it, stuff complicates our lives and robs our time. More stuff means we need more places to put it. It means we must clean up our stuff, take care of our stuff, spend money on our stuff or something to put our stuff in.

I’ve half-way joked that “there’s nothing like an F5 to help you pare down”

But when I randomly ordered a book called Organized Simplicity, I had no idea how the author’s words would meet the desires of my heart and cause me to see simplicity in a whole new way–in a life-changing way.

Simplicity isn’t just getting rid of stuff, though that’s a good start. It’s about living intentionally…deliberately.  YES! Without intentional living, we’re not really living, we’re allowing life to sweep us along, taking us places we don’t want to go, robbing us of time well-spent and ultimately robbing us of our deepest need–PEACE.

Organized Simplicity challenged our family to craft a “family purpose statement”. Before you think that sounds cheesy, hear the point:

With a stated, agreed upon purpose, you can begin to evaluate every decision, every activity and opportunity in light of your purpose. Because the reality is, we CAN’T do everything. So, unless we intentionally choose the things that best fulfill our “purpose”, our time will be robbed by the lesser things, ultimately diminishing our very quality of life.

Example: suppose one of the things in your family’s purpose statement is “more time for relationships”. Friday you are invited to a Tupperware Party. You have also been wanting to have the new neighbors over for a while. In light of your statement, you need to decide which of the two will best fulfill your purpose. Maybe the party, maybe having the neighbors over. But with a written purpose, it helps you choose deliberately.

We are a society who has bigger houses than ever, fewer people occupying them than ever, spending less time in them than ever and more in debt from buying more stuff than ever, with the least amount of time to enjoy it than ever. Realistically, the typical American family is trying to keep a pace that is insane.

We have the power to stop the insanity! We CAN live intentionally. We can choose to embrace the important things in life. But first we have to stop, get off the wheel and begin to simplify.

Join me in the upcoming posts for more practical ideas to simplify your life!

“I guarantee you they are on food stamps.  There is NO way to raise that many children without government assistance.”

This was the statement someone made about our family–someone we actually know, though not very well.

Besides the fact that it hurts to be misunderstood, and it hurts to hear false presumptions actually being verbalized to others (I’m used to Internet slander that makes this comment look like a compliment), this one was so off-base it’s almost funny. Our family is not on government assistance nor have we ever been.

I won’t debate government funding in this post.  Our recent tragedy has certainly brought up a lot of discussion about FEMA and when or if it’s ever OK to receive government assistance. I don’t know all the answers.  But we’ve seen the church in action and praise God that we didn’t feel pressured to tap into a grossly depleted government treasury.

But back to the assumption that a large family can’t live without foodstamps…

I’ve written on the subject of family economy quite extensively, and there are many facets that can be discussed.

But the foundational misunderstanding may lie in lifestyle.  Americans are accustomed to believing they have an inalienable right to a certain level of lifestyle.  It’s just expected and so they reach for it no matter the cost.

Children are only as “expensive” as the lifestyle you choose.

Borrowing money for just about everything is considered absolutely necessary now whereas once upon a time it was a blight on one’s character to do so. As a result, many families are laden with heavy debt that enslaves them.

Younger families are starting out in debt and never catching up because the old idea of “working up” to a bigger, nicer home and better things is obsolete.  Now, newlyweds expect to start out with all the comforts their fifty-year-old parents enjoy.

Student loans laden the couple as well, many of whom pay on loans to the tune of 75K for the rest of their married lives.

Family vacations are expected.  Name brand clothing is a must.  Weekly manicures, multiple dinners out, sports and activities for the kids, electronic gadgets for the whole family, new furniture and appliances, bigger houses than we need, costly recreation, the list goes on.

The alternative?  Live more simply, “sacrifice” a few things we think we deserve, save for desired things, and be content with used things (bearing in mind that in our disposable society, used is often “barely used”).

For those wondering specifically how we manage with so many children, we try to follow the above recipe as well as some other things.  We don’t spend money perfectly.  We have made poor financial choices just like everyone else. But consider the following if you are looking to lighten your financial load:

• We don’t buy a car for every child.  We have one, older, used car besides our van and my husband’s truck.

• We go out to eat but not very often.

• We are given so many nice clothes that we hardly ever need to buy them.  We breastfeed our babies and our church gives us “diaper showers”. (Given these two things, our children literally don’t cost anything for the first year of their lives.)

• We stay home a lot which saves gas and the temptation to buy lunch, etc.

• We have one cell phone with a very cheap plan.  (Well, someone did give me a cell phone right after the storm.)

• We don’t own credit cards.

• We don’t watch much T.V. which, believe it or not, greatly reduces the pressure of purchasing due to the bombardment of ads.

• And a biggie:  we avoid Wal-mart as much as possible.

• We use Samaritan’s ministries instead of paying outrageous insurance fees.

To name a few.

We also trust God to provide and this trusting has brought about miraculous provision again and again.

And contrary to what some may assume, we do not feel the least bit deprived.  In fact, we feel especially blessed.

In addition, understanding how a family should really works makes a large family a financial benefit. As I’ve heard Kevin Swanson say, “we are a 7-income family”.  Our 12-year-old son already makes a little money from his website using his gift of art.  Our daughter has done some photography for a wedding or two. We anticipate that as our children get older, we not only have more hands to work in the garden producing food, or cutting firewood, etc., but we have more possibilities of everyone sharing in the family’s economy. Live together, share life together, provide together.

It is my heart’s desire to encourage families to get out of debt, avoid living beyond their means and enjoying the freedom of simplicity and God’s provision.  He has proven Himself so faithful, even in the midst of choices for which we are often persecuted.

I want to pass that hope along to you any way I can.

You can read a bit more about our journey to get out of debt (we are now completely DEBT FREE!), and find practical help in our ebook, Finding Financial Freedom.