December 29 – “Creative gifts”

Now back to what I was thinking and writing about before I was so delightfully interrupted yesterday … Our children and their spouses decided last year to draw names among them instead of trying to buy gifts for everyone.  At Thanksgiving this year they came up with the idea to put an interesting restriction on the gifts.  They had to be home made.  That proved to be quite interesting.  I understand they made a few trips to some place called Pinterest to get ideas.  Hope they didn’t have to drive too far to get there.  Wherever it is, they came up with some good ideas.  In fact two of them came up with the same idea.  Nathan made a secret book safe for Josh.  Now Nathan had some experience with that sort of thing.  He actually made one for himself back when he was in high school so he could hide his own “treasures” from Mom and Dad.  He found a Spanish dictionary at some antique store and cut out a hole in the middle.  Josh was on the same wavelength.  He got an old discard book from their church library and did the same thing for Kel.  April took a bottle of some kind, painted and decorated it, and added some of that paint that dries into a chalkboard.  Now Christina has a vase (I guess) that she can make a shopping list on.  And she had a similar idea for April.  She took one of those combination frames they sell with places for seven or eight pictures.  She somehow fit a tiny whiteboard, one for each day of the week, into each frame.  Kel drew Christi’s name, so he made a trip to Hobby Lobby.  He got a frame and tied a letter “V” so that it hung down from the top.  Finally, Christi had Nathan’s name.  She dried out an old used ear of corn and shaped it into a corn cob pipe.

All in all I would say the home made restriction proved completely successful.  Christi said her boys were so inspired that they made something for each other.  Hey, before you know it we’ll be opening up the Vaughan Family Creative Gifts Factory. 

Psalms 50:14-15 says, “Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”

Father, thank you for the spark of your creativity you have placed within us.  It’s fun.  Amen.