Preparing For Christmas

It's 3 days till Christmas! This is my favorite time of the year. I love the cold weather (when we get it ha!), celebrating the birth of Christ, and to give. I've been doing an online study with She Reads Truth blog. It's an Advent study and it has been very humbling. I love looking over the Word and seeing all the things that led up to the birth of Christ.

Here in our home I've been trying to make some of our own traditions for Christmas with our boys, along with my husband. My boys are getting old enough to enjoy and participate too, which makes it more fun! Daniel is almost 5 (will be in a month), Aaron just turned 3 in October, and Johnathan, well, he is still small, only 17 months. So here are some of our traditions:

We started our Jesse Tree at the end of November and will do it until Christmas Day. It's really good to do with the boys and they love it.

 

 

We also like to bake cookies. Who doesn't like to bake cookies anytime of the year, but especially when they have delicious seasonal ones. These are Peppermint Sugar Cookies. It's our chubby Gingerbread man.

 

 

I love to do crafts with the boys. I try to do them throughout the year, not just during the holidays. They decorated their own paper Christmas trees and we hung them on their door.

 

 

We also send out Christmas cards, the traditional ones. I love a card! So we stick with the traditional paper cards.

 

 

The boys have gained my love of Christmas. We decorated their door and they love it!

 

 

They helped a lot with decorating the Christmas tree too. I am usually OCD with that thing! I like it just right, but I put that aside and let them put the ornaments on or tell me where to put them. It's pretty!

 

 

They love the star and call it the Star of Bethlehem. We had a bow first because our original star broke, so we had a bow on there until I bought another start.

 

 

Something new I did this year were making ornaments. I found a foam ornament kit at Target and we did 3 a piece. It was fun and they are cute, aren't they?

 

 

Something I have always had at this time of the year, is a candy dish. It is a must! Mine beloved one broke, but I found this cute Christmas tree dish at Ross. Love it!

 

 

 

We also did shoe boxes with our church. They send them to Mexico with a dear Pastor friend of ours. We took the boys to Dollar Tree and let them pick out a lot with our guidance. They loved doing that. It was our second year to do so. We do a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve and open one gift that night. We want to teach them that Christmas is about giving, not getting, but it is okay to get. I think we are doing a good job. Share some of your traditions or way you prepare your heart for the birth of our Savior.

 

Something to leave you guys with. My oldest came to me earlier and said, Mama, I don't think I deserve any presents. I asked him why not son? He replied, because of all the days I have been bad ( he meant by disobeying us and being mean to his brothers). I was pretty shocked. We have talked to him about all that and how we don't deserve to live, but because of Christ we can. We are very blunt and open with him and the 3 year old, though they are young. I told him he was right, but that I didn't deserve Jesus, but God sent him anyways because He loves us. I told him our love for him is not on his performance and we love him no matter what, but when he does disobey it upsets us. Love isn't based on performance, but love will compel you to perform. By that I mean, when you love the Lord you will obey Him. If Daniel loves us, he will obey us. Pretty deep stuff. I hope you all have a lovely Sunday!