Christmas is my favorite time of year! Twinkling lights, jolly music, gift giving and eating way too much sugar are all part of the fun of the holiday season. What makes this year even more special for me is that my son is old enough to appreciate family traditions. I want so badly for him to experience the magic of Christmas, but most importantly I want him to know WHO we are celebrating!
With my goal to evoke childhood awe and wonder while at the same time keep “the reason for the season,” we have started some family traditions that teach our son about how Jesus came as a tiny baby and that HE is the most special gift my son can receive this Christmas. One of the traditions involves reading Christmas stories before bed each night.
A Star for Me: Counting Your Blessings at Christmas by Jean Fischer is one of our favorite Christmas stories this year. Included is a sweet little ornament (a star that “leads” children to Christ).
A Star for Me is a count-your-blessings story that will soon become a beloved bedtime tradition during the holidays. At the beginning of the Christmas season, your children will look forward to reading the book and hanging the ornament on a bottom branch of the Christmas tree. Then your family can enjoy the entire story at once or read a few pages at a time as an Advent countdown.
Each night, children can read a bit more about Oliver, an adorable little camel who is part of the caravan traveling toward Bethlehem. As Oliver learns about God’s blessings on each new page, young readers are prompted to talk about their own blessings and then move the star ornament a bit higher on the tree each night. On Christmas Day, children can move the star all the way to the top of the tree and remember the greatest blessing of all—Jesus!
We have added A Star for Me into the basket of books under our Christmas tree and each night we choose a story to read that will bring the TRUE meaning of Christmas to life for our son’s little eyes!
A SIMPLE GIVEAWAY!
One lucky SIMPLE reader is going to win A Star for Me from Tommy Nelson. Here’s how to enter:
We draw pictures of what we’re thankful for.
We thank the Lord every night for our blessings.
I help my kids count their blessings by having them redo their day at bedtime and tell me all the good things that happened and good things they did!
We discuss our blessings in daily conversation.
donate clothes and toys and doing something nice for someone at least once a month.
We are struggling with this right now because dd is going through a stage of mememe and she thinks everything should be about her I sure hope she outgrows it soon! I try to point out all she has to be thankful for but most of the time she doesn’t even show any thankfulness!
We say our daily prayers and include what we are thankful for that day in them.
by making gratitude lists
I make sure he donates his old toys and explain some kids don’t have toys
We say our daily prayers which include what we are thankful for 🙂
by working it into everyday convo
I like them to go over what they are thankful for everyday!
every night at the dinner table, everyone says what their “high” was for the day and what we are grateful for!
I like to ask my son what he is thankful for daily.