Below is a story that one of my Sacred Circle Coaching members shared with me. I thought it was beautiful and she kindly gave me permission to share it with you.

I wanted to tell you about how my family has been celebrating Hanukkah this year because it is a major departure from what we have done in the past.

We celebrate both holidays in our home and it has always felt excessive. The kids get sort of greedy and Hanukkah feels obligatory. Any special meaning is lost in the weeknight rush of homework, sports, dinner and work.

Each year I struggle to find gifts that are small and meaningful and that won’t break the bank as we still do an all out Christmas celebration as well. Each year at the end of the Hanukkah holiday I vow that something should change, that it’s too much “getting” for the kids and not enough giving.

This year I finally made a change. I knew I wanted to move the focus away from my kids getting and the ‘gimme, gimme’ frenzy that we’ve seen in the past.

I presented a few different ideas to my husband and the kids and the idea we settled upon was this: instead of exchanging gifts among ourselves, we are giving gifts to other families.

There are 8 nights of Hanukkah so we chose 8 families (my two boys each chose 4 friends) who are important in our lives. My husband always has his camera with him so we have hundreds of photos and we searched through them for a great shot of each person they chose.

We enlarged, framed and gift wrapped the photos and have spent the week giving them to our friends. At first the kids were a little uncomfortable with the idea, but as the week has gone on and they see the looks on the faces of their friends and their friends’ parents and hear the voicemail messages on our machine gushing with gratitude, they have felt so good about our choice. I do too!!

We’ve had a message saying that one dad was moved to tears over the photo of their son that we chose to frame and over the words we chose in our card explaining our Hanukkah gifts to them. We’ve gotten texts and emails thanking us and it’s been amazing to see the kids stand taller and smile as they read what others have written.

This year, Hanukkah feels GOOD; there has been no talk of missing out on gifts and the candle lighting each night is done with no ulterior motive.  We light the menorah, say the prayer, have a quiet moment and then decide who is the next family we’ll give a photo to.  We are all looking forward to Christmas morning and opening gifts because we have not been opening them everyday for a week leading up to Christmas.

Thank you for sharing your story and inspiring us all! Peace love and blessings to you and your family during the holidays! — Jeanie Callen Barat, www.TheFitnessJeanie.com

Want to use the article in your blog or ezine? Life improvement teacher Jeanie Callen Barat helps you remove blocks, overcome obstacles, heal obsessive thoughts and release weight, so you can enjoy your life. To learn more and get instant access to a guided meditation visit  www.TheFitnessJeanie.com.