Giving with Peace, Not Pressure

by Lori Friedman

It usually arrives in the second week of January. The tree is down, the ornaments are boxed, and the house is quiet again. Then the statements come.

For many people, those envelopes hold more than numbers. They hold a heaviness we carry into the new year: the feeling that we gave more than we had, and that the joy of December is now being paid for, month by month, well into spring.

I remember my parents refinancing our home to pay for Christmas. The interest rate did not matter to them at the time. In their eyes, it was a sound financial decision. No one was on their side, explaining how money worked.

I have sat with good, generous, faithful people who love their children and wanted Christmas to feel special. Not one of them set out to overspend. They simply felt they had no other choice.

Where does the pressure come from? Some of it is the world around us: the ads that start before Halloween, the perfectly wrapped photos online, the quiet comparison with what other families seem to give. Some of it comes from inside us. We want our children to feel loved. We want to show up for the people who showed up for us. Some of us remember Christmases when there was not enough, and we promised ourselves our children would never feel that.

Those are tender, beautiful motives. But pressure dressed up as love is still pressure.

Proverbs 22:7 says, "The borrower is servant to the lender" (KJV). When our giving is borrowed, our January belongs to someone else. Romans 13:8 offers a better way: "Owe no man anything, but to love one another." The only debt God asks us to carry into the new year is love.

I find great comfort in how simple the first Christmas was. Luke 2:7 tells us Mary "brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." The greatest gift the world has ever received arrived in a stable, wrapped in plain cloth.

When the wise men came, they brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Those were costly gifts, and they were gifts these men could give. They gave from what they had, not from what they hoped to have someday.

Years later, Jesus watched a widow place two small coins in the temple treasury. Others gave far more, yet He said she had given the most because she gave all she had (Mark 12:41–44). Heaven has never measured a gift by its price tag.

Second Corinthians 9:7 reminds us, "Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver." Cheerful giving is hard when every gift comes with a payment attached.

Here is what giving with peace can look like in your home this year.

Decide before December decides for you. Sit down as a family before the first gift is bought and choose a number you can give without borrowing. Write it down. A plan made in a calm moment will hold when the sales, mailers, and Christmas feelings arrive.

Leave your cushion alone. The savings you set aside for a broken car or a slow month is not a Christmas fund. Keeping it whole is its own gift to your family.

Start next year's Christmas fund in January. Saving rather than reacting changes everything. Take what you hope to give next Christmas, divide it by twelve, and set that amount aside each month in its own separate account. When the season comes back around, the gifts are already paid for, and you get to give from what you have, the way the wise men did.

Give presence, not only presents. A handwritten letter, a recipe passed down, an afternoon together, a story your children have never heard about their grandparents. These are the gifts people keep for a long time after the toys are forgotten.

Think about it for a moment, sister. Picture a small gift someone once handed you. Now picture a letter written in their own hand, telling you what you mean to them. Which one is still tucked away in your drawer? Which one did you read again on a hard day? Most of us know the answer right away. The people we love are no different.

Talk about it out loud. Tell your extended family you are keeping gifts simple this year. You may be surprised how many of them feel relieved. Someone has to go first, and it may as well be you.

Luke 2:19 says that after the shepherds left, "Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart." She did not hold on to gifts. She held on to moments.

Sister, this Christmas I pray you will do the same. God gave the greatest gift of all freely, with nothing owed in return (John 3:16). We get to give in that same spirit: generously, joyfully, and with nothing hanging over us in January.

May your home be full of peace this season, and may the new year find you lighter, not heavier. That is a gift your family will feel long after the wrapping paper is gone.

Lori Friedman is the founder of Go Beyond Tomorrow, based in Fountain Valley, California. A business owner for twenty-one years who spent nineteen years as a mortgage loan originator, Lori turns financial chaos into clarity for families and business owners. Through the Financial Rescue Plan for families and My Continuity System for business owners, she walks households through their debt, credit, emergency funds, and legacy in plain language and with nothing hidden. Lori speaks to women's groups, faith communities, and business organizations. To begin, take her Financial Clarity Check at www.GoBeyondTomorrow.com.