The Best Gifts for Your Kids and Grands (episode 43)

0:00 Today, you can learn what I think are the best gifts for your children or your grandchildren. If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. But you will also find help and hope for your own life journey. I am sure that last week's conversation with Dina Yoie was so encouraging, filled with ideas to make it through the holidays with your prodigal. Both Dina and I believe one of your most important efforts with a prodigal is to maintain relationship.

0:44 Today we're not going to focus on prodigals so much, but rather keeping connection with any child or loved one. Be assured, giving gifts, especially the right kinds of gifts, is a great way to win their hearts and gather the connection to make it last. As we look at the very best gifts, I want again to ask you to jot down ideas that spark your imagination. When I talk about one kind, say, oh, that would be great for this child or this grandchild. And I'd love to hear which ones you really like or what you think will work best.

1:25 So we are now in a several-part series on Christmas-related things. This one is about gifts. I love December. I like the decorations, the family together. Well, not last year, but food, giving and receiving gifts, celebrating the redemptive birth of Jesus. Hopefully we'll get to do all that again this year after missing so much last year. Of course, we can still celebrate the incarnation and worship our Savior no matter what. And just as God gave us the best of all gifts, we can still give gifts.

2:09 Giving gifts is one of the favorite activities of my life. I got to give to friends. I like to give to the people that I work with. I give to charities, to neighbors, and certainly to my family, and especially to my children and grandchildren. I like to give special, desired presents to my now-grown children. But what I'm going to talk about today is focusing on the kids. The first words my grandkids, especially the younger ones, say to me when I visit them or they visit me, do you have a surprise for us, Jidu?

2:50 Jidu is my grandmother name. And of course I do. You won't, however, always find me giving the latest toy or must-have item, but sometimes I do that. I want my grandchildren, and that's who I'm giving to now mostly, to enjoy and appreciate the gifts they receive from me. But I also want them to have real value for their lives. So my presents to them usually fall in one of these six categories, starting with books. My first gifts to babies at showers, to every birthday and every Christmas is always books.

3:34 I love books, and I think they're important for the development of every single person. I will offer old favorites or a classic or a new book, lots of different variety. I give board books, picture books, beginning readers, adventure series. My older kids love fantasy and adventure kinds of books now. The topics change, trucks and tractors, Star Wars, princesses, unicorns, horses, that might be because I like horses, and fantasy. I love reading to my grandkids, then letting them read to me, and finally just watching them reading on their own or watching the older kids read to the younger kids.

4:22 Just provide amazing adventures, take them to exotic places, introduce them to real heroes, reveal life in another time, let them see faith in action. They get to step into someone else's story. I also give gifts that will spark their imagination. This is a broad category, but let me name a few things. Some of them love building and constructing, so recent gifts have included Star Wars Legos and magnetic tiles, they're the end thing, and science experiments. Jewelry kits and cooking pretend or real, please some.

5:06 A cookbook for one of my granddaughters has been a real hit. Music of every kind is a hit, and I give art supplies galore, appropriate for every age, and every medium. The younger ones have loved little dragons that they can paint and then play with, and cars as well, and dinosaurs they can play with. I'm often the recipient of their art efforts. I just got, when my daughters came, one of them brought a picture that a granddaughter had painted just for me. Hand puppets play a key role in our frequent storytelling. Lions and kangaroos and mice and koalas, I probably had about a dozen different hand puppets and we would use them in stories.

5:55 Their all-time favorite was a very realistic looking alligator. Costumes allow them to be superheroes, or knights, or ninjas, or cowboys, or sports stars, or as they get older, the latest preteen idol. A sand and water table has given the younger ones hours of wet fun on hot days. I also want to help keep them moving. So one of my best gifts a while ago was a backyard play set, swings, glider, a slide, a climbing wall, a fort, and my backyard.

6:35 So that my kids who lived here then, the kids would say, can we go to Jidu's playground? Of course, they would say, oh, now we're not going to bother you, you just keep doing your work, we'll just go in the backyard. I'm like, you're not bothering me, I'll go with you. We even had a bounce house, they loved it. A slip and slide, we've had bikes, a spring horse, a pogo stick, sports equipment, so many balls of every kind, shoes and shorts for practice for soccer, goals, a punching bag for a boy who was having trouble with anger. My older boys loved their surfing lessons.

7:17 They burn up some energy, that incessant energy with all of these kinds of activities. So keeping them moving, strengthen their bodies and grow skills that they may use later. Memorable experiences, and this is really one of my favorites. I love to take them on fun outings, bookstores and pet stores are quick and easy. I love the pet stores that let you hold the pets, the kids love it, and their parents like it, that's where they're holding them. The zoo is amazing, except the one we'd go to, I couldn't keep up with the kids. Any place with a train or a carousel was delightful for the younger ones.

8:01 Children's museum, children's museum, even Chuck E. Cheese, we've done it all together, and the beach. They love the beach, digging, splashing, running, surfing. I used to teach horseback riding, so when we've had a chance, I've been able to teach most of them some basics of riding. I love sharing my love of horses with them. One time I took them to Disney's Animal Kingdom, and they were just a little young, and the little young children's area didn't have a whole lot, but it had a dinosaur dig. I'm thinking what we spent for mom and I and two kids to get into Disney and pay for parking and pay for food, and all they ended up doing was digging in the sand.

8:52 I said, next time we go to the beach. That was crazy, but living in Orlando has provided many attractions. Gatorland was a hit, also not as expensive. We have pictures of each of the boys on an alligator and another draped in a python, which I didn't like. One year's Christmas gift was an annual pass to SeaWorld for all the local family members, and recently the kids and their parents got passes to a climbing gym in the town they live in now, which the boys love doing. Last March, my three young teen grand boys were supposed to spend a week with us.

9:32 We had many adventures planned, but COVID canceled that. We rescheduled it for October. Well, that didn't happen, so maybe someday we'll get to it. Time is essential. All the activities are good and fun, but time really matters, and any of these gifts can fall under the time topic if I do the activities with them. Sometimes time just means a quick trip to Chick-fil-A, or watching a movie together, or playing games on my iPad. I love to just be with them. The past year meant no time face-to-face. I didn't get to see any of them, but we had a lot of face time.

10:17 Not face-to-face, but good old face time. We would call and talk, and one granddaughter just played my favorite song because she's taking piano now. Just really wonderful to be with them. Then there's the time they know nothing about, and that is the time I spend praying for them, which is quite a bit. Then I would say the final one I want to mention is more intangible, is I did this with my children and I'm trying to do it with my grandkids, and that's a generous spirit to give. I would help them choose toys or clothes to give to someone else who could use them.

11:00 I also give and have for many years now to Angel Tree, which is part of prison fellowship, and it provides Christmas gifts for children whose parents are incarcerated. I do one gift to Angel Tree for every grandchild and tell them about it. We've supported children through compassion, and they've gotten to be a part of that. I would love to see more happen because I love to be able to do it. Now, do I ever give a gift just because it's something they want? Yes, I do. I try to give them at least one thing they really want, and I buy some little trinkets and snacks when I visit them, but most of the time I seek to give life-expanding presents that will keep on giving.

11:51 So far, they all still love me, so I must not be making too many mistakes in the gift-giving area. What about you? Did you get any ideas? Do you see the relationship between giving gifts and keeping connection? If you give something, an activity or something they can make or anything that they could do, they will remember that's from you, and there's a connection that happens because you did that. But there's just when they open a gift and it's something that delights them, then that, again, makes a connection. I personally want to keep having connection and having a chance to encourage and influence not only through my prayers, but in through ill relationship.

12:40 And so I just encourage you, again, write down some things. What do you see as the best gifts that you have given or could give this year over the holidays? Let me know. I would love for you to write me. Just go click on that, write to Judy, and tell me what's happening with you in the gifts as you plan for Christmas this year. God bless you.