Giving Gifts at Christmas

What fun it is to take exchange gifts to a Christmas party and then play a game of some kind to distribute the gifts between the guests. Perhaps you have played the Left-Right game. Everyone in the circle holds a gift in his hand while a "Left/Right" story is read. (The story can be changed up to fit any group or situation.) Whenever the word “left” or “right” is heard, everyone passes their gift to the person on his left or right accordingly. When the story is over, the participants keep and open the gift they ended up with.
Here is a variation of that which I used with my Dayspring folks (the residents at a Senior Living facility where I go). I brought one gift bag which they passed around as I read this story:

Christmas Shopping for Grandma Wright

One day, with just a few shopping days left before Christmas, the Wright sisters, Wanda, Anna and Gracie, were excited to go shopping. They wanted to find just the right gift for their Grandma Wright. Grandma Wright was very special to them. She seemed to have a special “connection” to God. She prayed for everyone and about everything, She could not even sit down to eat her breakfast egg without praying for those in far-off lands who had little or no food at all.
Now what do you think Grandma Wright would really like for Christmas? They thought about it as Wanda pulled out the driveway, and turned right into the street. Suddenly, the frugal Anna, the middle sister, cried out, “Wait a minute! I cannot find that 50% off coupon! It is not in my purse.” Anna checked her left jeans pocket, and then her right pocket. “Let me run back into the house to find it.” In a few minutes she was back. “It was right where I left it on the counter to the left of the refrigerator,” she explained.
So off they went, dodging the traffic to the left, and then to the right. Then they turned right onto Main Street and made another right into the mall parking lot.
“Oh, look at the fancy Christmas sweaters in the window! I like this colorful one with the snowmen on the front,” Gracie said.
“I think Grandma Wright would prefer this blue one, the one to the left--or this one with a zipper. See, it’s reversible with red on the right side, and green on the inside!” exclaimed Anna.
“No, since we can’t seem to agree on this, I don’t think that a sweater is the right thing at all for Grandma Wright,” said Wanda, the oldest sister. “We’d better get going or our choices will be the leftovers after all these shoppers have picked over the best things!”
“How about perfume?” suggested Gracie, the youngest sister, eying a pretty rose-shaped bottle.
“Oh, yes, I wonder if Grandma Wright has any perfume left from last Christmas. Isn’t that what we gave her last year? We can’t give that to her again. Come on,” Wanda insisted. But just as they turned to go, Gracie was sampling a sniff from the beautiful glass perfume bottle and it slipped from her hands. It fell to the floor with a tinkling crash!
“Oh, no!” The accident left a wonderful smell in the air, but paying for the broken merchandise also left a chunk out of the money they had planned to spend. The girls were so embarrassed and disappointed that they trudged right back to the car to go home. “We’ll come back another time,” they thought.
The disheartened trio arrived at home from their fruitless shopping trip. As Wanda drove into the garage, Anna went to the mailbox to bring in the mail. She came into the house excited and shouting, “I’ve found it—the perfectly right gift for us to buy for Grandma Wright!” She showed her sisters the little catalog she had found in the mailbox. “It says here that we can buy a brood of chicks for a needy family in a third-world country in her honor.”
“Oh yes, wouldn’t she like that!” agreed Gracie. “What would she like more than to see the answer to her prayers for the hungry people on the other side of the world?”
“That’s right, we have found the right gift for Grandma Wright!” declared Wanda. All the sisters agreed, and Grandma Wright was delighted with her special gift that Christmas.

When I had finished the story, I had the person holding the bag to open it. Inside was a card from Samaritan’s Purse informing the group that a gift of a brood of chicks had been given in their honor by the Chicken Lady.

I had another idea which I think would be a lot of fun too. Inform the guests ahead of time that they are to bring a gift bag with a note in it simply telling about one thing they did or gave for someone else this Christmas. No need to write your name on it or the amount of money involved. Then play the left/right game using an appropriate story. After the story ends, the participants take turns reading the notes inside the bags. You'd be surprised what diverse and creative ways people have given. One may have given canned goods to a food pantry, or sent a donation to a missionary, or made a crib quilt for an orphanage, or helped at a soup kitchen, or given a cow to a family in a third-world country through an organization like Samaritan's Purse, or given some homemade cookies to a co-worker, or simply given an encouraging word to the harried cashier at the store. It will inspire everyone to want to give in new and exciting ways at Christmastime.