Traditions...

One of my favorite gifts we receive each Christmas from my elderly parents is a special gift selected from the World Vision Gift Catalog

We receive a card, with a photo much like these in this post from the World Vision Website.

My parents choose these gifts to align with whatever interest each recipient has...

Last Christmas, our oldest daughter, so much into her studies, received a card with the information that her grandparents had donated money for two children in Southern India to attend school for that year, including clothing and supplies.

I received a card with a sewing machine, to be given to a widowed woman who would be trained in sewing, so could make a decent living for herself and her children.

Our youngest daughter received a card with a goat, to help a struggling family in the Sudan

by providing fresh milk.

My husband's card had a water well that would provide drinking water for a village in the Niger.
And so on...

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I'd like to encourage anyone who's interested to start some kind of tradition like this in your family.
It is such a wonderful way to make Christmas special for your family, while giving a life changing gift to needy families around the world.
One of the best things I have heard one of my children say before Christmas one year was
"oh, I hope this year I get a Goat!" (she did!)

Music by "BandAid"
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=8jEnTSQStGE