Ellen G. White statements related to the observance of Christmas and holiday gifts

Chapter 13—Gift Suggestions

There are many who have not books and publications upon present truth. Here is a large field where money can be safely invested. There are large numbers of little ones who should be supplied with reading. The Sunshine Series, Golden Grains Series, Poem, Sabbath Readings,* etc., are all precious books, and may be introduced safely into every family. The many trifles usually spent in candies and useless toys may be treasured up with which to buy these volumes. EGWSROCHG 8.1

[*Note: Reference is made in this article to current publications and building projects. As the principles set forth in this connection are applicable today these specific references are left in the article as it is duplicated.] EGWSROCHG 8.2

Children need proper reading, which will afford amusement and recreation, and not demoralize the mind or weary the body. If they are taught to love romance and newspaper tales, instructive books and papers will become distasteful to them. Most children and young people will have reading matter; and if it is not selected for them, they will select it for themselves. They can find a ruinous quality of reading anywhere, and they soon learn to love it. But if pure and good reading is furnished them, they will cultivate a taste for that. EGWSROCHG 8.3

Especial efforts should be made to exclude from our homes that class of literature which can have no beneficial influence upon our children. Many times I have been pained to find upon the tables or in the bookcases of Sabbathkeepers, papers and books full of romance, which their children were eagerly perusing. EGWSROCHG 8.4

There are those who profess to be brethren who do not take the Review, Signs, Instructor, or Good Health, but take one or more secular papers. Their children are deeply interested in reading the fictitious tales and love stories which are found in these papers, and which their father can afford to pay for, although claiming that he cannot afford to pay for our periodicals and publications on present truth. Thus parents are educating the taste of their children to greedily devour the sickly, sensational stores found in newspaper columns. All such reading is poisonous; it leaves a stain upon the soul and encourages a love for cheap reading which will debase the morals and ruin the mind. EGWSROCHG 8.5

Parents should guard their children and teach them to cultivate a pure imagination and to shun, as they would a leper, the love-sick pen pictures presented in newspapers. Let publications upon moral and religious subjects be found on your tables and in your libraries, that your children may cultivate a taste for elevated reading. Let those who wish to make valuable presents to their children, grandchildren, nephews, and nieces, procure for them the children’s books mentioned above. For young people, the Life of Joseph Bates is a treasure, also the three volumes of Spirit of Prophecy. These volumes should be placed in every family in the land. God is giving light from heaven, and not a family should be without it. Let the presents you shall make be of that order which will shed beams of light upon the pathway to heaven. EGWSROCHG 8.6