What Christmas Break Taught Me About My Kids

Christmas Break. It's kind of like summer break, but a lot shorter and a lot more hectic. Generally, kids look forward to it and parents can't wait for it to be over. Not me! I wish it'd last another week. For my family, today is the last day of Christmas break. Tomorrow, our daughter heads back to school. Our oldest son should start back too, but being homeschooled allows his schedule to be a bit more flexible. Looking back, here are some things Christmas break taught me about my kids.

• My kids need me. That may go without saying, but I need to be reminded of that sometimes. The week before Christmas and the week after Christmas, we closed the church office a couple of hours early each day, which allowed me to spend a bit more time with my kids. They ate that up! For quite a while now, I've really made a conscious effort to leave work at work and completely devote my time at home to my family. It's just with a busy schedule, sometimes that time at home isn't as plentiful as I'd like. It's been good to hit the pause button over the last couple of weeks and spend some more time at home.
• It's the little things. Often, kids desire the biggest, best, most expensive presents money can buy for Christmas. Sometime in the last couple of months, I had the idea of making my two youngest boys a set of building blocks out of two-by-fours for Christmas. The idea came as I was sorting through an entire tub of toys they have in the playroom that they never play with and thought, they're really creative, they don't need all these toys, they like to play with blocks but don't have any, how hard can this be? It wasn't! It was super easy! It probably took less than two hours for me to buy the wood, cut the wood, and sand the wood, it cost less than $20, and they now have something to play with for years to come! It's been one of their favorite presents. I have all really enjoyed building with my boys - not just structures taller than they are, with blocks that are inevitably knocked over, but relationships that will last a lifetime.
• Future planning. Each year, I develop a master plan outlining where I believe God is directing me to go with youth ministry for the following year. It's not detailed. It's just high level stuff: what topics will be covered, what teaching series will be taught, how long each of those series will be, etc. Each month, we have a Leader Team Meeting with department heads to discuss where we're at, what we're doing and where we're going. Each week, we have a Staff Meeting to discuss the same. There's a lot of planning and discussion that goes into what our purpose is, what our vision is and what we're doing to accomplish those things. This model of planning is not uncommon in business, but how many families put a similar effort into planning for their future? How many families have a one-year plan? How many families have a semi-formal monthly meeting to discuss what's going on with the family? How many couples have a weekly "staff meeting" to discuss what's happening with the family that week? We don't! But, that's something we're going to work on. If we don't have a plan for where we're going, how will we ever get there? Last summer, my oldest son begged incessantly for me to take him to the skate park in town. It never happened. For Christmas, he got a BB gun and begged incessantly for me to take him someplace to shoot. It could have been the same, never quite happening, but we took an evening and went and shot up a bunch of pop cans at some friend's farm. For months, my kids have begged to go swim at the YMCA. It didn't happen until Christmas break because it wasn't part of the plan. In fact, there wasn't a plan at all. But, when we fail to plan, we plan to fail. During Christmas break, my kids taught me that I need to plan better deliberate quality time with them.

What did Christmas break teach you about your kids?