Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year!

My favorite part about Christmas is the excitement my girls have when we unpack our nativity scene, barn and all so they can play with it. They absolutely love replaying the entire story starting with the Gospel of Luke where the birth of Jesus is foretold and the angel visits Mary and ending with Joseph learning in a dream that he must take Mary and baby Jesus to Egypt to escape King Herod's evil plan to kill all of the baby boys where Jesus was born. I love seeing how this amazing story has really captured my kids hearts and how these little figurines can become such excellent teaching tools. Kami has appointed herself "keeper of the nativity" and has the responsibility to put all of the figurines back on the little table when they are finished playing. She puts the animals in the stable with Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. The rest of the figures (wise men, shepherd, angel) all line up in front of the stable looking at the baby Jesus with their backs to all of us looking at the scene. I smile each time I pass by our nativity scene and see it arranged this way! She says Jesus is important and these wise men, shepherd and angel all want to see him. She is right.

Rian has been playing with a smaller (in size) nativity set we have that is a little less breakable than our bigger set that Kami has been using. After she is tired of playing like her sister she has secretly been shoving the little figures into hiding spots. I will forewarn you all - be cautious when sitting down on our couch as you may get a small poke from the wise man when you sit! Oh and the little shepherd has been upgraded to and MIA status! Maybe the vacuum cleaner will get lucky after we take the decorations down and finish cleaning up the rest of the decorations. Which at this point isn't going to happen for at least another week - I consider this time to be a season of Christmas recovery.

We wish all of you a belated Merry Christmas! And hope that just because December 25 has come and gone you all remember that this is a time we remember the greatest gift ever given to us - Jesus. Kami's Sunday school class has been learning this great verse and I think it is a great way to end this blog entry!

For God loved the world so much He gave His one and only Son - John 3:16