Why do we give gifts at Christmas? God has given us the greatest gift, and now we get to serve him through giving to others. Today, we are talking about the theology of giving gifts and how God's grace changes the whole Christmas giving paradigm.

Welcome to the Sheproos Faithful Podcast, episode number 63, truth and encouragement to live

gospel-centered lives every day. I'm your host, Lauren Lushak. Well, hello there, and thank you so

much for joining me on the Sheproose Faithful podcast. I'm your host today, Lauren, and it is feeling festive in my house.

Today, we drove to the Colorado Mountains to pick out our Christmas tree. Now, what that looks like

is my husband and I and my little four-year-old and my two-year-old hiking through some woods,

looking at easy trees to cut down and carry

because let's be honest we know we're going to carry the two-year-old and the four-year-old is just

not our most coordinated child we did have a fall she fell into a log hit hit her face, arm, and knee today. So we look for easy targets. So trees,

if you're tiny, we're coming for you. We went for height this year, but still we managed to get

maybe a five and a half footer. No, that's not true.

So maybe it's six foot, but it just still doesn't look very strapping. Last year was like

three and a half feet. Anyway, but we love it. We decorated tonight. All the branches are drooping

to the ground because the ornaments are so heavy. And it just looks fantastic. I love having a piece of

nature in our home. It's so beautiful and our cat loves it too. She's an indoor cat. So she's like,

nature, it has made its way inside. I'm going to find her in the tree tomorrow. I just know it.

While we were out hiking, my daughter, she is so cute. She was like, we're on a nature walk. And she wanted to

gather some items to bring home, including a little mini Christmas tree for the said cat.

And every time I turned around, she'd have like more things in her hand. So I turn around,

she's got like a pine cone. I turn around, she's got like three pine cones and some pine needles.

I turn around, she's got the forest in cones and some pine needles. I turn around.

She's got the forest in her hand. I'm like, where are you picking this up? How are you carrying this?

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