Jason F. Wright’s family sat at the kitchen table on Christmas Eve in 2004, around a jar filled with about $88 in change. They had been steadily filling the jar since October, adding extra change to the jar and taking a moment to pause and think about someone else each day. And now, the family was going to give the jar away.
Sitting around their table, Wright, his wife, Kodi, and his children picked out a family from their church and then left the change-filled jar on their doorstep, ringing the doorbell and running away through the yard before the family could spot them.
It was the first time that Wright’s family had given away a jar in this way — but it certainly wasn’t the last.
“It just woke something up, I think, in all of us,” Wright told the Deseret News, reflecting on the experience over 20 years later. “Like, this could be something.”
The very next day, Wright and his family started a brand-new jar — once again, they filled it with change, but this time for a full year before giving it away. And then they did it again. And again, and again.
Now, over the course of the past two decades, the Wright family’s experience has become a series of novels, a film, a podcast — and a movement.
As Wright’s bestselling novel “Christmas Jars” turns 20 — and with a new “Christmas Jars Cookbook” out to commemorate the occasion — he talked to the Deseret News about what the anniversary means to him, his favorite recipe from the new cookbook, and how the tradition of giving away a “Christmas jar” has spread from his family to around the world.
20 years of ‘Christmas Jars’
When asked how it feels to know that “Christmas Jars” is now 20 years old, Wright — who lives in Virginia, where he is currently writer-in-residence at Southern Virginia University, and is a Deseret News contributor — has a succinct answer: “It’s wild.”
The novel is older than two of his four children, and his two oldest were young children at the time it was published. Now, his oldest child is 29, and she has young children of her own with whom she’s carrying on the Christmas jar tradition.
“We’re now at like another generation of people that are doing the jars,” Wright said. “So I hear from people a lot that say similar things, like their kids are now in college, and their kids have no memories that do not center around a Christmas jar during December, which is kind of cool.”
But, if you had told Wright 20 years ago that the idea would have such staying power, he wouldn’t have believed it. The idea of a “Christmas jar” came to him and his wife in October 2004, when, in his words, he was having a particularly “blue” holiday season. They decided to try to focus less on their own problems and instead think of others. So, they put an empty jar on their kitchen counter and, over the next two months, filled it with change.
Once the Wright family had given away that first jar and started filling their second, Wright wondered if there was a way to dramatize and fictionalize their experience. He began to turn the story into a novel.
“I just thought if one family has the same kind of experience my family has had, then this would be worth doing,” Wright said. “And maybe it will spread a few families a year. Like, that was the goal.”
It spread much more quickly than that, though. “Christmas Jars,” published in 2005 by Shadow Mountain Publishing, soon became a New York Times bestseller. And, what’s more, many of those readers quickly began giving away Christmas jars of their own.
“I did not expect that 20 years later we’d have, you know, books around the world and millions of dollars given away in jars as a result,” Wright said. “So that was crazy.”
Watching the Christmas jar movement grow
It’s been especially satisfying for Wright to watch the Christmas jar movement grow over the years — and to hear the stories of people that have been impacted by it.
“It’s grown because so many people, bless them, they buy the book, they read the book, and then instead of putting it on the shelf, they go, ‘We’re going to do this,’” Wright said. “Church groups, schools, nonprofits, families, say, ‘Let’s try this experiment from the book and see what happens.’”
But Wright has seen the movement grow in other ways, too. In his experience, when people receive a Christmas jar during a difficult time of their lives, they’re more likely to turn around and give away a jar of their own when they’re able.
“I get lots of stories from people who say, ‘I gave a jar away this year because last year, my family lost our home, our job, our child, went through a divorce. We were in need, a jar showed up, so now it’s our turn to fill and give it away.’”
Wright estimates that his own family has given away around 50 jars over the years — they keep an eye out for families in need throughout the year, sometimes giving the jar away midyear and starting a new jar to give away at Christmastime. The jar that they give away each year on Christmas Eve, though, is the “most special,” he said.
His family makes the decision together of who they will give away the jar to, and most of the time they leave it anonymously. But one of their favorite experiences, which Wright said they still “talk about as a family all the time,” was one of the few occasions when they decided to give a jar to someone in person.
They were driving into a parking lot on Christmas Eve and noticed a man there working, driving a street sweeper to clean the lot. The family decided together, then and there, “this guy needs our change,” Wright said. So they flagged the man down and gave him the jar.
“He got out, and he got emotional,” Wright said. “And it really wasn’t about the money, right?”
That’s something that Wright is quick to emphasize about the Christmas jars — the amount of money, though it can make a huge difference in the lives of some families, is sometimes less meaningful than the gesture behind it.
“The money is just sort of an added blessing,” he said. “It’s more the fact that we saw you. We feel what you’re going through. And so this is a little demonstration of some of God’s love in the form of a jar.”
How the ‘Christmas Jars Cookbook’ became a family affair
After 20 years of hearing stories of the generosity of “Christmas Jars” readers, Wright felt like he wanted to give something back to them — which is how the new “Christmas Jars Cookbook,” which was published in September, was born.
But this isn’t just Wright’s project — it was a family affair, with his wife and each of his children directly involved.
All of the recipes in the cookbook are holiday favorites of the Wright family, and the images of the recipes were photographed by his wife Kodi, who’s a professional photographer and is credited as a co-author on the cookbook. Each of their children also wrote short chapters that are interspersed throughout the book, sharing their favorite giving experiences.
“We wanted to include more than just our recipes and include a bit of ourselves,” Wright said.
The cookbook also includes stories from 12 people around the world who share their experiences either giving or receiving a jar, as well as other holiday-related crafts and activities.
“The whole point of the book is, in the spirit of ‘Christmas Jars,’ it’s buy the book, make the things, the treats, the crafts, but don’t keep them — give them away,” Wright said. “In fact, we sort of had this tongue-in-cheek little disclaimer that said, ‘If you buy this book, you are legally prohibited from consuming or keeping anything in the book.’”
When it comes to the recipes in the book, Wright finds it difficult to choose a favorite, but he’s particularly drawn to one of the simpler treats — Jadi’s Happy Roller Pretzels, named after his daughter, who made them when she was young. It’s made with pretzels, Rolos, and M&Ms — “and it’s so good,” Wright said, adding that it’s easy enough that anyone can make it. “A kid can do that.”
But there are more “challenging” recipes in the book, too (“my wife banned me from participating in the testing of those,” Wright joked), though he said that they kept the instructions for each of the recipes light-hearted.
“There’s a lot of family humor and dad jokes,” he said. “It really is a piece of our family.”
‘Don’t overcomplicate it’
Plenty of things have changed over the past 20 years — not least of which is that, as digital payments become more common, fewer people have spare change lying around.
Wright said that for a long time now, he’s had to “supplement” his family’s Christmas jars with change that he draws from the bank. But there are other options, too. He said he knows a family that calculates the difference on their debit card or Venmo or Apple Pay purchases — so, for example, if they pay $1.50 for something on their debit card, they’ll add 50 cents to their donation.
“There’s no right or wrong way to do it,” Wright emphasized. “Just find a way that works for your family.”
At the end of the day, though, Wright says it’s less about the money and more about making a connection with others — and helping them to feel loved.
“I think the world is most desperate right now to feel loved,” he said. “So find a tradition, find a way to make someone feel loved. Don’t overcomplicate it, right?”
And that’s especially important during the holiday season.
“You want people to get to Christmas night, at the end of all this, they don’t care what they got, they don’t care, you know, what they gave, even, necessarily. ... They’re gonna either feel like they were seen and loved and belonged. Or they’re gonna feel alone and invisible. So you can make that difference in somebody’s life by ensuring that on their Christmas night, when the day is done, they felt loved.”