Merry Christmas!

What a day! Our family had fun celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. It can be difficult for our children to focus on the reason for the Christmas season and even Christmas day at their ages. We had been preparing them by doing our advent wreath readings each night leading up to Christmas day. Each reading had an ornament that went with it to remind us of the promises of God, and each reading pointed to Christ as redeemer of God's people. When we got to the readings from the prophets and the anticipation of waiting for the Savior, this was explained with regards to the anticipation and waiting for Christmas day and presents. We explained to our children that we give each other presents at Christmas because it is a celebration of when God gave us His Son to save us from our sins and that is the greatest gift anyone can give, so we want to give special gifts to each other to help us remember the best gift of all - Jesus. Also, with how much they are asked what they want for Christmas, especially our oldest, we are able to relate that anticipation of exciting gifts to the anticipation we now have in the return of Christ for His redeemed people. It is still difficult for our little ones to understand, but we hope that by starting early they will grow into a better understanding of these truths.

While we waited for the quiche to cook we started by opening the ornaments for the year and the "stockings with a purpose" (yet another way to try to teach our children something about God at this exciting time). Talitha got her "baby's first Christmas" ornament, complete with her birthday, 1/16/09 and weight, 7 lbs 2 oz. Hannah got a ballerina because she's starting to love to dress up and her favorite books are about Katy Duck - who "loves to dance!" Nathanael got a boy dressed as a fire-fighter with a shirt that says Big Brother since he got another baby sister early this year and he is really good at helping take care of his sisters.

Talitha's stocking this year was about Noah and the Ark. It seems to be a popular theme for a first Christmas. She's starting to recognize animals and being able to mimic sounds. She has the cutest lion growl around!

Hannah's stocking taught her the story of Esther. She learned how Esther was dressed in fine clothes and jewelry and was chosen by the king as a new wife. Then as queen she was able to save the Hebrew people from destruction. So her stocking was filled with dress-up princess things.

This year, Nathanael learned about the Armor of God. He read the book, Will, God's Mighty Warrior with Forest. It's about a boy who enjoys being strong and fighting off bad guys and protecting his baby sister. Then the boy's dad tells him about the armor of God from Ephesians 6:10-17 and how that armor protects us from Satan. He got a helmet of Salvation, breastplate of Righteousness, shield of Faith, belt of Truth, shin guards (shoes) as the Gospel of Peace, and the sword of the Spirit of the Word. He enjoys pretending to fight bad guys or pretending to be Christian from the Dangerous Journey (children's illustrated version of Pilgrim's Progress) fighting Apollyon and sometimes ventures into becoming a Jedi Master.

We hope you also enjoyed celebrating the greatest gift ever given, Christ Jesus.