Community Christmas: One Church’s Relational Alternative to Christmas Toy Giveaways

“When we ran a toy giveaway program at Christmas, fathers were never the ones coming to pick up gifts for their families,” Heather Fullerton remembers. Dads felt ashamed that strangers were providing presents for their kids. “But now that we’ve started Community Christmas, dad comes to shop.”

Fairview Christian Church in Carthage, MO, runs a relational, dignified, affordable Christmas shop every year for low-income families. All items are priced at about 10% of their original value, and everything in the store sells for less than $4. This way, parents are able to pay for their gifts independently, and children experience the love and joy of receiving gifts from their own parents. 

What really makes the program special for shoppers and volunteers alike, though, is the focus on relationships. Each shopper family, from the time they fill out an application to well into the next calendar year, is paired with a volunteer family, or “partner.” Partners, who participate in a group study of When Helping Hurts as a part of their training, aim to foster real relationships with the shopper families so that they can meet deeper needs over time or welcome them into the church community.

Partners start off by visiting their shopper families’ homes to introduce themselves and explain how the Christmas shop works— they’ll sign up for a time slot on the Saturday the shop is open, they can pick out up to 3 gifts per child, there will be space for children to spend time and make a gift for their parents, etc. Then, on the day of Community Christmas, partners welcome the families and walk with them through the entire experience, from shopping and wrapping to talking in the hospitality area and carrying gifts to the car. 

After Christmas, Fairview Christian Church provides partners with resources for reaching out to their families throughout the year. Partners will send postcards for church events and cards for each of the children’s birthdays. In this way, the church presents a structured way for partners to keep the door of relationship open with their shopper families. Over the years, these relationships have given partners and other church members the opportunity to help with specific material needs, as well as pray for their neighbors in a more personal way. 

Heather loves how people from Fairview with varied skills and passions can each contribute to the program. Her husband happily carries gifts out to cars, a teenager heads up the kids’ craft section, administrators help sort and inventory items, and the entire congregation rallies to buy toys each year. Community Christmas has served as a way to build relationships both inside and outside church walls. 

Fairview Christian Church has joined the recent movement of many churches and organizations in making the switch from traditional toy giveaways to affordable Christmas markets. Each shop is unique, with its own take on advertising, pricing, and community building. True Charity Network Members can check out our Christmas Market Model Action Plan to learn about variations of this program and to see step-by-step instructions for creating a shop that meets your community’s needs. 

What advice does Heather have for people on the fence about making the change this year? “Just do it!” she encourages, reminding us that a Christmas shop isn’t just about paying for gifts, making new friendships, or making fathers feel more respected. It’s about affirming the human dignity inherent in every individual. “These people are too valuable to wait another year.”

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