1.99!!!

Just wanted to send a quick shout out!! Hooray, I bought gas for $1.99 a gallon today. Let's face it people, the economy stinks right now. I mean, for the most part, we are all very blessed. Its just tight, hard, whatever you wanna call it right now. One positive thing in the middle of this crunch time for me, is the decreasing gas prices...yipee! Speaking of crunch time financially, Christmas is just around the corner. I have not bought one present, not even one! It's not going to be like the Christmas' of ole', which is ok. I believe we are going to go and help at church on Thanksgiving, and minister to the homeless. Not to have a selfish motive in this, but I think the timing will be perfect, as we try and teach our kids to remember how many things we are blessed with. I was telling my sister yesterday, whenever we were finished opening ALL of our many gifts as a kid, no matter how many we got, there was kind of this dissappointment. Like that's it? So I do know the expectations that kids have. We have set it up that way. I like presents, I like buying my kids presents. We have never put Christmas on a credit card, so it was never a matter of us living above our means. It's not like we go totally crazy, I do like to get that one thing they really want. Last year it was the WII. This year, it's more like phones, and IPods, and I am not thinking I am going that route. When are they going to just be into clothes? The other day when I told my girls that this Christmas they wouldn't be getting as many presents as usual, they said, "less than last year?" I'm thinking "wow, this is going to be more difficult than I thought!" I'm going to have to be more creative with my gift giving than ever. What about y'all? Is everyone having to cut back? Any creative ideas for gifts? Any magic pills to give to my kids so all they care about is Jesus, and not presents? Ha! I'm just being silly.