Lego Death Star

It’s really hard to believe that it is December already and that Christmas is right around the corner.  My family has a tradition of going to pick out a Christmas tree sometime during the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Well, this year we were in Michigan for Thanksgiving with my wife’s side of the family and we just haven’t been able to decorate the house or get our tree yet.  Someone told me Merry Christmas in a store this week and it caught me completely off guard.

I love this time of year. My kids get all excited to see family, decorate the house, watch Christmas movies and listen to Christmas music, but most of all they get excited about gifts.  To be honest, gifts are one of my favorite parts about Christmas as well. Probably always has been, except now it is the giving of gifts to my kids that I look forward to the most.

This year specifically I was all invested in an idea. Jill told me about the new Lego Death Star. It is the largest Lego Star Wars set, surpassing the Millennium Falcon. It is over 9,000 pieces, about 1,500 more than the Millennium Falcon, but it comes at a price. The most expensive lego set ever, $999.99 to be exact. I love my kids a lot, but that is a lot of money. BUT, I decided I would offer them a deal.

I told Lily and Jonah that I would buy them the Lego Death Star for Christmas BUT, it would be their Christmas gift for the next 5 years. Because Christmas morning would be strange the next 4 years if there were no gifts, I told them we would get them a small gift to open until the 5 years were up. They would still get gifts from their grandparents, aunts and uncles, and we would still get them birthday gifts etc. I thought this was a fun idea.

To try and convince them, I told them that it may not take up a prominent spot on a shelf in their living room for the rest of their life, but it would be a gift that one of them would likely hold on to for most of, if not the rest of their life. Most Christmas gifts we have given the kids over the years are gifts that have already been donated/sold at a yard sale or will one day soon enough. I told them that Lego won’t sell this set forever, so they likely cannot just wait until they were adults to purchase it.

Jonah didn’t need convincing though, he was sold. I was however skeptical that 10 year old Jonah would appreciate the amount of faith I placed in 5 year old Jonah’s hands to make a decision that had a significant impact for 10 year old Jonah.

Lily on the other hand wasn’t so sure. She liked the idea of building the set over several weeks and months together as a family and having this cool thing for years and years to remember it by, but she wasn’t so sure she wanted to “sacrifice” Christmas for the next 5 years.

So we FaceTimed her grandmother, aunts and uncles and Micah to see what they had to say. They were surprisingly split on the decision. Some said, “This could be the coolest, biggest Christmas gift they would ever get.” Some weren’t sold on the Lego set itself.  

Lily ended up deciding to turn down the offer and Jill wouldn’t let me offer the same deal to Jonah for 10 years, so we aren’t getting it.

I’m not so sure Lily and Jill believe me, but the whole time I said I hoped Lily would say yes because of the story. What a great story to tell Lily and Jonah’s kids one day (since I can’t do that now, you all are the next best audience). 

The good news is that as cool and spectacular (and expensive) as the Lego Death Star is, it would not have been the best gift Lily would ever get. That place has always been and always will be reserved for a baby, Jesus, the whole reason gift giving at Christmas time is even a thing to begin with.  

It might be tempting to believe the reason Jesus is the greatest gift ever is simply because He is a gift from God. I understand that thought process, but it ignores the whole point of the gift. Jesus was sent to be our savior, to save us from something we couldn’t save ourselves from, our sin. Because God sent Jesus to us, we have hope for an eternal life with God. Because God sent Jesus, we are invited into a relationship with Him. Because God sent Jesus, we are saved.

That is what Christmas is all about.  It’s about a gift, not the Lego Death Star... Jesus.