It's been a long time since I wrote on this blog, wasn't even sure if I would be able to remember where it was located to put anything up at all to be honest. It's Christmas Day 2014. The Most Wonderful Day of the Year! The day we celebrate our Lord and Savior's birth! The most important birth in all of history or all the future that is to come. A birth I wish everyone in the world understood the importance of, no the absolute necessity of! Without the birth of Jesus, we are all doomed to live a life without hope, without love, without true Joy. The birth of Jesus really is what this season is all about. This Christmas I have made greater effort to teach my kids this. Yes, we still "do Santa Claus" every Christmas morning and will do so later this morning when they wake up (more like I wake them up lol!). But this year my girls and I have been on a journey. It's been a journey we have taken through an advent book I heard about from a friend on Facebook called Jotham's Journey. We have had to catch up several nights when I couldn't read to them because talking made me cough my head off, but we have read each night's chapter and thought about the questions asked. You see, in this book, Jotham is a Jewish boy that runs away from his family. They think he has been killed by an animal and go on their journey without him, when he comes back looking for them, they are gone, so Jotham goes on a journey by himself, a young boy, to find his family. Throughout this journey he meets many obstacles and makes several friends. He loses one or two of those friends along the way, but it's the understanding he gains of the Messiah from these friends that makes the story all worth the reading. My girls have loved it. Some nights they have hung on every word we've read together, every night they have reminded me we had to read. Tonight the journey followed Jotham in Bethlehem thousands of years ago helping a friend in a dirty stable. Jotham was asked to clean out the dirty hay and go to the field to get new hay for the visitors that would be sleeping there that night. My girls heard this story they have heard year after year about baby Jesus born in stable in a different way and they were intrigued.
I have to admit, earlier today I was bummed. I was thinking about Christmas Eve's gone by, all the joy and excitement of going to my mamaw's house and eating a huge meal, opening gifts, playing with new toys, watching my mamaw and papaw open their gifts and be tickled to death with everything they got. Them watching us open gifts and the joy they got from giving us things we wanted. I remembered decorating my mamaw with Christmas lights to look like a Christmas tree one year and her laughing along with us. I remembered my papaw opening every gift carefully, making sure not to rip the paper, cutting the tape open and driving us all crazy because he took forever. Such happy memories, then I began to think of what I wanted my girls to remember growing up for Christmas Eve. It's different each year, one year we go to my mom/dad's, the next we are at home, the next back to my mom/dad's. One thing that we have begun each year though is our Christmas Eve service at our church. Growing up we never attended, we were always at my mamaw and papaw's house and that was time for family. We have now gone the last 3 years in a row with just our immediate family and it's something I don't want my kids to miss out on. One hour set aside on the night of Jesus birth to focus on Him, I can't think of a better way to celebrate!
Tonight we came home and had a grand meal of spaghetti (it had to be a quick fix meal since we weren't starting to cook until after 6:00 lol!). However, this is a special night, so our typical spaghetti supper was served on our good China dishes. We sat around the table and talked about our favorite parts of the Christmas Eve Communion Service. Each person had a favorite part to share, my youngest however said her favorite was taking the juice and the bread and sitting on daddy's lap while he explained to her why we do it and how to do it. I sat beside of them in that service and heard their conversation, my heart was so full! What better opportunity to teach our kids what Christmas is about?!? After supper tonight we decorated our Christmas cookies, then it was time to start getting ready for bed (Santa was in the US after all according to NORAD lol). My girls begged to hear the advent reading for the night, so to the couch we piled and read about Jotham's Journey.
The excitement of Christmas kept my girls from sleep for a while, even after they went to bed, but the eventually fell asleep. Santa has now come and it's time for me to get some sleep, today is a big day after all. However, I sit here in my living room with my Christmas Tree lit and the lights out surrounded by gifts for my girls and wonder, if I want to give so much to my girls, How much more does God want to give me by giving His only Son for the sole purpose of coming to earth as a human to die a horrid death that I can live forever? I just can't begin to wrap my mind around it. We celebrate his birth so that we can have life eternally! There is NO better gift EVER!
My Christmas Wish is that all my friends and family could/would understand this amazing gift and realize it's value. The most valuable gift in all of history or all the future, yet it is free, Thank you God for this gift that NO ONE can ever take away and ANY ONE can freely have!
Happy Birthday Jesus!!!
