Merry Christmas Everyone! I love Christmastime. I love well decorated Christmas trees. I love getting presents. I love giving presents. I love those little chocolate star-shaped Christmas candies. I love seeing my kids rip wrapping paper off of everyone’s gifts. I love the excitement of snow and the fear of the Grinch. I love the smells of cookies baking. And how can one not be happy when you hear Perry Como sing a classic Christmas song. I think it’s a very magical time of the year… especially for little kids.
I also believe that Christmas is more than ‘ribbons and bows’. I believe it is a day set aside from all the other 364 days of the year to remember one person. Christmas is here to remember Christ. Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m all about the decorating, presents and desserts. I also let my kids believe in Santa with their entire wishful little hearts. But, I have made sure that my Elliana and eventually my little Finnley will know the story of Christmas.
Teaching a toddler about Christmas isn’t the easiest task in the world. But I have found that my Elli learns by playing. My husband and I got our kids the Fisher Price Little People Nativity Playset and it has been so fun playing with Elli. Watching her pretend that the angel is telling the shepherds about the “gigantic-fire-star” and to see her interpretation of Jesus being a colicky baby. Maybe he was? Either way she is beginning to learn. At Christmas last year she wanted Jesus to have a cake and I’m sure today we are blowing out candles on Jesus’s cake because to her, being young, that’s what birthday’s are about and if that’s what makes Christ’s birth meaningful to her – we will have a cake for him every year.
Thomas S. Monson, who is president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said, “Often our efforts at Christmastime result in our feeling stressed out, wrung out, and worn out during a time we should feel the simple joys of commemorating the birth of our Savior.”
Who among us isn’t guilty of just that. Really, I was starting to be stressed out about Christmas in early November. Moving across the country again, not having what I perceived as a perfect Christmas for my kids, gift giving for countless people, Nathan starting school again, obligations… I was overwhelmed.
Take a step back today and remember Christ. That little baby laying there in your nativity’s manger scene saved us all. That’s amazing. So go be with those you love and have a piece of cake for little baby Jesus. He did more for you than anyone ever can or will.
Merry Christmas.
Jacqueline
From Bugs to Bows 