2009 Christmas Letter

All about Him!

As we approached this Christmas season I am reminded once again of the worldliness of our world!! We are so focused on the 'gifts' and not the Giver. We wanted to find ways to keep our hearts and our minds focused on the One gift that will last for all eternity! So I searched for some God-glorifying traditions to add to our current ones. I found on a couple of blogs, an idea for decoration the tree! The bulk of the ideas I found here.

Decorating the tree
We are decorating over a few evenings so that we can take our time and dig into God's word point our family toward the One alone who is worthy of our worship.

Here are some of the parallels (in no particular order) we will use as we try to focus our tree decorating around Christ our Savior!

Evergreen tree- (though ours is fake) Everlasting life,
-Adam lead the human race into sin by eating the fruit of the tree that God forbade.
-Jesus died for us on a tree paying the penalty, for our sin, required by God.
Lights- Jesus is the Light of the world, Mt 5:14 John 1:9
Glass/Reflective ornaments- We are to reflect His light, Phil 2:14-16 John 8:12 John 12:46
Gold and silver- Jesus is our treasure, Mt 6:21
Red- Jesus is our Savior...etc. Is 43:11
Purple-(I don't have any purple ornaments yet so I may have to hit the sales after Christmas to gather a few for next year) Jesus is the king
Pink- He loved us we are to love others Jn 13:34
Blue- (I don't have any blue either) Jesus is the living water Jn 4:14

Shapes:
Wreath (circular)- Jesus is was and is to come, Rev 1:8 Is 9:6
Bells- Jesus is the good news, Lk 2:10
Angels- announce "Jesus is born", Lk 2:8-10
Wood- Jesus was a carpenter, Mk 6:3
Clay- We are the clay, God is the potter Rom 9
Star- Jesus is the bright morning star. Rev 22:16
Fish (yes we have a fish ornament) Jesus' miracles- Feeding of the 5,000- Casting the net-
Candy Cane- Jesus is our shepherd Jn 10:11

So you can use what you have or buy some new ornaments with the thought "how can this point us to Christ?" "How would this remind us to show honor to the one who gave His life for us?"

The kids are already coming up with their own reminders of who Christ is and how we can celebrate Him!! It's prompting wonderful conversations throughout the day!! Which is my desire, for all to be centered on Him!! A true joy!!

Adorenaments
Another thing we've done each year is Adorenaments! These are 12 ornaments that highlight the different names for Christ. It comes with a book that has a verse and devotional for each name. We start 12 days before Christmas and do one each evening! It's too bad they've discontinued this set! But you can still find them on Ebay and Amazon used. We've had them for about seven years now and we enjoy them more every year! We do these in the evenings and add them to our Advent readings.

Advent Readings
We've been following this scripture reading schedule that I came across on a blog I follow, Girltalk. It's a few verses at a time and we can easily add it in to our book we're reading each night. We're really enjoying the book The Experience of Christmas (Family Devotions & Activities to Prepare the Heart).

It covers seven topics:

1. Fulfilled Prophecies,
2. Family Service,
3. Christmas Symbols and Traditions,
4. Christmas Worship,
5. Sharing the Christmas Experience,
6. The Names of the Messiah,
7. Christmas Prayers

There is one for each day of December and includes family activites, discussion questions and a hymn or carol that we sing/learn together!! We've had a great time with this even though we haven't been able to keep up everyday!!

We're also going to act out Mary and Josephs' trip to Bethlehem with our nativity set. We start them far away(the kitchen) and every few days we move Mary and Joseph closer(cabinet-shelf-table-nativity) to the stable and on Christmas eve they'll arrive. After the kids go to bed we'll put baby Jesus in the bed of hay. Once they awake we'll read in the bible the story of Jesus' birth.

We're striving to make the birth of Jesus real to the kids, to help them understand God's story of redemption through His Son. This season has become so commercialized and I know it's God's desire(Ps 78:5-7) for us to tell our children of His works in and through His Son Jesus. So that is our desire as well. We don't want them growing up thinking the Bible is just a bunch a stories. IT IS God-breathed. IT IS living and active even today. We want them to fear and love God with all their hearts and to take seriously the gift of salvation God has given in His Son. So Christmas for us is in some ways just another day in the year in which we want them to see clearly that God is real, sin is real, judgment is real, and God really did send a substitute for the penalty that must be paid for our sin. The most wonderful gift of all....JESUS!!!

May God bless your family this year as you celebrate the birth of our Savior!!!

2 Cents

This is how Jake is putting in his "2 cents" in these days!! Daddy changed his diaper last night and slid it over for me to look into it. Needless to say I was not expecting to see two pennies in his diaper! We're not exactly sure how they got there, was he saving his money for a future purchase, was he stashing it there because he knows that his siblings like to find and keep for themselves any money they find, we may never know! But it will make quite a memory!!! Our little Jakey always wanting to put his 2 cents in!!!