I absolutely love this time of year! I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving to come (football, family, food), and I immediately want to get started on decorating for Christmas! Ok, I confess that I actually try to begin decorating prior to Thanksgiving. I had our "Mis-mas" tree up before, but for the sake of principle, I waited to decorate it until after... :) (That's Anna's name for the tree.)
I love making everything about Christmas celebrations intentional. After all, the reason for this season is the birth of Jesus. No other event has ever brought as much hope or promise into this world full of darkness and sin.
Over the past several years, I've either collected or received nativity scenes to display in our house. I now have one for each room of the house! :) Several of them are toy-type sets, so you can be sure to hear things like:
That's MY baby Jesus!
Don't throw the sheep.
Baby Jesus can't leave Caleb's room. Take him back there right now.
Don't press on the Star of Bethlehem so much.
Those peas are dressed up as sheep. (VeggieTales!) Yes, mama. They're CUUUUTE.
Why isn't baby Jesus in the manger, Mama?
That's not a king, it's Larry. (VeggieTales again)
You can't walk around the house with Baby Jesus. He'll get lost.
I like to be as biblically accurate as possible, so we put the wise men literally to the east of the manger scene! Corny, I know, but actually, they probably didn't arrive until Jesus was a toddler.
We also have a cool Advent house with 25 doors that we use to count down to Christmas day! (Thanks, Mimi!) I searched long and hard that last year we were in Missouri, and managed to find or make enough things from the Bible Story to fill all 25 spaces. Are you curious?
Here's the lineup I have from Matthew 1 and 2 and Luke 1 and 2(don't tell Caleb and spoil the surprise) ;) We read little bits of the story every couple of days...
1 Angel Gabriel
2 Mary
3 Joseph
4 wooden stool (Joseph was a carpenter) Matthew 13:55
5 Caesar's decree (I typed a random decree about a census and tax)
6 play money to symbolize a tax
7 a donkey for the trip
8 a map (made from a computer printout of their journey and crumbled to look weathered)
9 signs from "inns" saying No Room Here, etc., and I used Scott's Hebrew Bible program to "trans-literate" it into Hebrew at the bottom. (Cheesy but Cool)
10 a little wooden birdhouse made to look like a stable using a sharpie, etc.
11 a shepherd
12 a sheep the shepherd was watching
13 an angel
14 a wad of gauze (this is supposed to be swaddling clothes)
15 straw that would line a manger
16 several more angels (theoretically singing)
17 BABY JESUS! I had to be chronological, even though it would seem to work best for Christmas day.
18 A sparkly star of Bethlehem
19 a picture (from the web) of a man (read: wise man) pointing at the star
20 a camel for the wise men's long journey
21 a picture (web again) of a star over a town "Bethlehem"
22 Wise man #1 bringing Gold, which may have been symbolic of being a ruler
23 Wise man #2 bringing frankincense, the only incense permitted on the altar, representing
Jesus' priesthood.
24 Wise man #3 bringing Myrrh, which was a spice/sap used for many things, including for burial, possibly symbolic of Christ's purpose for coming - death to take the penalty for our sin
so we can be reconciled to God
25 In keeping with the other 3 gifts, this is something each of us can give Jesus: The mirror behind the door shows us ourselves!
Most of them are ornaments made for mini-trees that I found in Hobby Lobby!
So, I'm curious too! I want to know how you celebrate with your family! Do you have any special traditions? Please post a comment!
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