This year, Jon and I are really making an effort to take some of the commercialism out of Christmas for the boys. We want them to know who Santa is, and of course, Santa will leave a gift for them. More importantly, we want them to know why we celebrate Christmas. One of the ways we are doing that is with the Jesse tree. If you aren't familiar with it, its basically a countdown to Christmas, but with scriptures. Each night we read a couple Bible verses, talk about them and then Ben gets to color a corresponding ornament and "hang" it on the tree. The scriptures go through the Bible ending with the birth of Jesus on the 25th. So far Ben loves it. We do it before bed time and I think Ben made sure to ask when we are going to hang the ornament at least 20 times between dinner and bed time last night.
I love that he is getting so excited about it. Some of the other ways we are shifting our focus from presents to Jesus are reading the story of Jesus' birth over and over, we are having a family Christmas before the 25th and cutting back on the number of toys the boys get so they don't get confused when the grandparents spoil them (yes grandparents, even when you think you've toned it down, you still end up spoiling them), we are making a Birthday cake for Jesus (that worked out nicely since the letter for this month is 'B'), I haven't talked to Jon yet, but I think Ben will go to The City Mission or somewhere along those lines and make a donation for a needy kid and we just came across www.worldvisiongifts.org. World Vision is a Christian organization that tells you exactly what is needed around the world and lets you put your money to what ever use you decide. You can buy a family a goat so they can have milk, you can buy medicine, clean water, shelter, job training etc etc. I hope that Ben will understand the significance of picking out a small gift that will change someones life. I hope that we have found a happy medium between the magic (toys) of Christmas and the true meaning of Christmas.
In the mean time, we are still having lots of fun in the Purdum house:
Katie is thrilled to have found the one warm spot in the house.
Sam just can't resist the sparkle!
Big cheese.
1 comment:
How sweet that Ben is so excited. When I was cutting out our patterns, Layla insisted on helping. Needless to say, I had to print out a few more pages. :o)
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