When Gifts are Big and the Gospel is Small .

(The Fauxtography Project, part six)

Not surprisingly, Graeme already equates Christmas with gifts. I love his boyish excitement at just the sight of the Christmas aisle in Target. "It's the Christmas time, mommy!". (I'm loving the random articles in his sentences these days.) I have no desire to squelch his newly found delight in all things Christmas, but I do want to couple it to the beauty of Christ. And that is difficult. For one, he's three. And also? Gifts are just so captivating to a three year old! Actually, to thirty-one-year-olds too.

Christmas is complicated because we make it complicated. Gifts trump the gospel because we let them. But, on the flip side, that child-like wonder of Christmas that we see in our children's faces can easily be crushed, too, if we major on the Joy of Heaven without linking it to the joys of earth. Because, in a sense, we are Christmas to our children. I know, I know. That statement sounds like heresy, but it really isn't. Read this article if you're preparing to mentally 'burn me at the stake'. (smile)

So, for me, it boils down to this: prayerful intentionality. (It usually does with anything in life, doesn't it?) Here are my intentions for coalescing all of these aspects of Christmas. I would love to hear your plans too! 

First off, I am really looking forward to doing a book Advent calendar. (This blog explains it well.) Each night, beginning on December 1st, we'll open a Christmas-themed book. Some of the books will be about the everyday joys of Christmas and where our holiday traditions stem from and others will be about the birth and life of Jesus. But all of them will give opportunities for discussion and learning which, at this age of three, is a wonderful thing. I am already anticipating the "what this is?" and "what these are?" questions.

Before I had children, I kind of scoffed at the idea of a birthday cake for Jesus. I mean, seriously, Jesus does not need cake. And that's true, but our children might. They need to see us celebrate the birth of Jesus and hoop and holler just like we do for their special day. And in the mind of my three year old, a birthday cake is tops. The top of the tops. The organic, chocolate covered cherry on top, wink! I'm sure the 'top of the tops' looks different for many children and I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well.

I want to make sure that I haven't given the impression that just because I want to focus on giving my children the gospel throughout Christmas doesn't mean that I won't also be giving them gifts. In fact, that is one way that I plan to share the gospel with them! These gifts pale in comparison to God's gift to us. Common sense to us, I'm sure, but hopefully a little seed will be planted in their hearts. I'll end this post by sharing our plan for gift-giving. In addition to participating in a few community gift-giving opportunities, (I am thrilled to participate in Operation Christmas Child for the first time!) here is our family plan. And, although the plan is simple, it is very adequate. Last year, we put it into action and, well, there's a reason that we're giving it another go this year! 

I'd love to hear your thoughts and plans for the Christmas season, if you have time to share. Any special ways of celebrating, long-standing traditions, meaningful books-- I'd love to hear it all. Thanks for reading here and happy Monday to you. And, by the way, don't forget to enter the $50 Cranny giveaway. Tomorrow is the last day of the giveaway!

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