Redeeming the Season, Part 2: Advent and Christmas

This post is going to be somewhat repetitive of recent posts, so I apologize for that. I have been mentioning a few of the things that we do around here to try to prepare ourselves during the Advent season. (For anyone who might not be familiar with it, advent means "coming" and the Advent season is the time prior to Christmas when we remember and celebrate the coming of Christ.) So, although I've already posted some of these ideas elsewhere, I'm just going to try to summarize them here so that they're all in one place. (Part 1 was: Rethinking Santa.) It may seem like overkill at first glance, but keep in mind a few things: 1) We have been adding and changing things each year, figuring out what we like and what we don't. We didn't just start doing it all at once. 2) We homeschool, and this is pretty much our entire December curriculum! 3) Once you have a few things in place, they are not time consuming or overwhelming to do - just a few minutes here and there throughout the day.

For us, all these little things are worth it. They help us to focus on the anticipation and excitement of Jesus' birthday and God's incredible gift to us.

Jesse Tree - My sister gives a great description of what a Jesse Tree represents in her post here. So, if you're not sure what a Jesse Tree is or what purpose it serves, go there. For the Jesse Tree symbols which go on the tree, I didn't do anything costly or fancy. I simply printed out pictures of the symbols from the computer, glued them to card stock, cut them out, and tied a string in them so that they can be hung from the tree. We also use the same book that my sister mentioned, very appropriately titled, The Jesse Tree, but there are many free sources online as well. I know that Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience has a free Jesse Tree book to download that I've heard great things about.

Advent Calendar - This is not the regular kind of Advent calendar where you open a door and count down the days, but a homemade flannel board advent calendar. (Are you starting to see that we do lots of homemade things around here?) It's not pretty or fancy, but it gets the job done without spending a bunch of money. Basically, my husband made me a flannel graph board by stretching a big piece of felt over some wood and stapling it there. I printed from the computer all kinds of pictures related to the Nativity. Then, I glued the pictures to some card stock to make them a little sturdier, cut them out, and stuck velcro to the back of them so that they would stick to the felt board.

Each day in December, we add another piece to the board and another part to the story. I got the idea from Noel Piper in her book, Treasuring God in our Traditions. So, December 1 we start the story with, "One time, a long time ago, in the city of Bethlehem, there was a place called a stable," and we put the stable up on the board. The next day, we start from the beginning of the story again and add to it. We'll say, "One time, a long time ago, in the city of Bethlehem, there was a place called a stable. In the stable there was a manger filled with hay" and we add a manger to our board. Each day, the story starts again at the beginning and goes a little further, and another piece is added to the board. It's a great way for the kids to really know the story of Jesus' birth, because they are repeating it each day. If you are at all interested in the simple story that we add to each day, I'm more than happy to e-mail it to you. Here is a picture of our Nativity flannel graph. As you can see, we only have the stable on there so far.

Advent Candle-Holder Wreath: My husband just made me this and I love it. The idea came from Ann at A Holy Experience. She writes much more beautifully than I do, so you can read about it there. Each night, we will add an additional candle to the wreath as we get closer to Christmas, making it brighter and brighter as we get closer to the coming of the Light of the World. Another variation would be to just use one candle and move it along one space each night.

Sitting next to the advent wreath in the picture above are our World Vision catalogs which go along with our rice and beans for advent. I already have a previous post about that, so I'll just sum it up. We eat rice and beans for dinner each night from the day after Thanksgiving, up until Christmas Eve. Each night after the kids eat their rice and beans, they put the money that we normally would have spent on an average meal into the stocking for Jesus. They will then get to choose how to spend that money for people in need. Last year, the money went to help build a well through http://www.charitywater.org/. This year, they are busy going through the World Vision catalog each night trying to decide if they should buy animals and, if so, which ones, or if they should send kids to school, stock a fish pond, etc. It will be entirely up to them how to spend the money, and they are having a great time deciding. It is our dinner conversation each night as we eat.

Attributes of Jesus Ornaments - This is a new addition this year and is super easy. I bought some plain silver ornaments from the dollar section of Target. They are just cheap, plastic ones that were four for a dollar. I used a red marker and wrote one attribute of Jesus (i.e. faithful, holy, righteous, etc.) on 24 different ornaments. Then, on the other side of the ornament, I wrote the reference to a Bible verse that talks about that attribute of God. Each day, either Jake or Addi get to pick one of the ornaments to add to the tree. We look up the Bible verse and read it and talk briefly about that attribute.

Christmas Morning Treasure Hunt - The first thing the kids do when they wake up on Christmas morning is a treasure hunt to look for baby Jesus. I make star shaped clues so that they can be like the wise men following the star to find Jesus (one of Addi's baby dolls, wrapped up in a swaddling blanket). When they find him, we place him in our manger and then we give our presents to Jesus. This will vary from year to year. Last year, we were helping to raise money for a well that our friends daughter had been raising money for. So, in order to give our present to Jesus, we got in the car and drove to their place to drop off the money. This year, since the kids are choosing items from the World Vision catalog, we will probably wrap up pictures of whatever they end up choosing and we can open those on Christmas morning.

The kids typically get one present each from us that they get to open next (as well as a couple little things in their stockings). Again, we really try to take the focus off of what they're getting and instead focus on what we're giving to others. And, so, we choose to keep gift-giving to them to a minimum. I personally think that it also helps them to be more grateful for the gift that they are getting, rather than expecting or wanting more, more, more. That is just a personal preference in our family. I have heard of others who do no gifts except those that are the gifts to Jesus, and others who choose to do three gifts like what the wise men gave- they choose one costly gift, representing the gold that the wise men gave; one gift for the body (such as clothes or bubble bath, etc.), representing the myrrh, which is a spice used to annoint the body; and one gift used for worship (such as a Bible, music cd, devotional, etc.), representing the Frankincense which was used in the temple for the worship of God. I'm not 100% certain that I got that right, and we have never done it that way, but it's one more idea.

So, there you have it. Those are some of the things that we do in an attempt to keep our hearts focused on Christ. We never ask our kids the question, "What do you want for Christmas?" but only, "What do you want to give to Jesus for Christmas?" Am I claiming that because of this our kids only care about Jesus at Christmastime, and not about themselves? No. They are human. I wish that I only cared about Jesus and not about myself. But, I am human. I really do believe though that it is helping them (and Jay and me) to strip away the selfishness and consumerism that usually accompanies this Season, and instead understand and focus on what Christmas truly is about.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We are on a "rotation schedule" for the holidays, spending every other Thanksgiving and every other Christmas with my in-laws and the other years with my parents and sisters and their families. This year, we spent Thanksgiving with my parents and sisters (minus the one who moved to TN). The day before Thanksgiving is always the food prep day. My sisters and I get together with my mom and distract her and get in the way while she does the majority of the work. :) Actually, she gives us instructions and we really do try to follow them, but she still seems to end up doing the majority of the work! Funny how some things never change. We spend the entire day getting things prepared for the Thanksgiving feast while the kids run wild.

Then, Thanksgiving Day, everybody gets together and the girls get everything cooked and ready while the boys entertain the kids. Every year we complain to my mom that there's no reason to bring out the good china because it just adds more work, and every year we bring out the good china. We did manage to convince her, however, that the kids definitely did NOT need the china.

Jake and Addi later got into the spirit of Thanksgiving by attempting to dress up like Indians and shoot bows and arrows. This was what they came up with...

The day after Thanksgiving in the Herron household is the day that I pull out the Christmas stuff and Jay puts up the Christmas lights on the house. Jake was really excited to be able to help with the lights this year and the boys spent the entire day at it. If you know Jay at all, you know that he is a perfectionist. So, of course, the lights are perfect without one single little light out of place or going in a different direction. If putting up lights was my job, that would be a different story entirely. Addi and I worked on doing the inside decorations. Correction: Addi played with the decorations as I worked on setting them up.

Here she is playing with our homemade nativity set. That was a project I took on a couple of years ago, and my plan was to make several of them to give away as gifts. Yeah...that didn't happen.

Jay and Jake were still working on lights when it was dark outside, so Jake needed his trusty headlamp!

A future perfectionist in the making!

The day after we put up lights and get the Christmas decorations out is tree-putting-up-and-decorating day. And, just like my mom used to do, I always lay out a spread of various snacks on the couch and give the kids directions as they put up the ornaments.

For whatever reason, the kids were convinced that we should be putting a star on top of the tree instead of an angel. Apparently, they have seen it that way more often. I kept telling them, "We do an angel at the top." Of course, they responded with, "But why?" to which I informed them, "Because that is the way I have ALWAYS done it. It was ALWAYS an angel when I was growing up and it will ALWAYS be an angel while you are growing up. So there!"

 



Those beautiful stockings in the background were handmade by my mom and are treasured possessions...in fact, the greatest stockings EVER, if you really want to know. The second one hanging there is the same one that I have had ever since I was little. She just took out the stitching that said, "Kinzi" and changed it to say, "Mom." Unfortunately, she did not pass along her sewing skills to any of her daughters. The stocking in the middle that doesn't match the rest is just one that I picked up and painted "Happy Birthday, Jesus" at the top. I'm sure that my mom would want to make it very clear that that one is NOT her work! The kids will put money in it each night after they eat their rice and beans for dinner.

And, the first night of rice and beans...

And lastly. just because it's funny, another picture of Jake sleeping. Apparently, he is still having a difficult time getting comfortable in his bed at night!

One Reason I Love My Husband

There are many, many reasons why I love my husband. Of the many, one is simply that he is amazing. That may sound vague, but he really is just all-around amazing. It blows me away how incredibly talented he is in such a huge variety of areas. It's not just that he's skilled at his particular profession - though he can do taxes like nobody's business! - but he can also fix anything, build anything, learn anything, and pretty much do anything! He's just incredibly smart, athletic, handy, etc. all rolled into one...in a word - amazing.

Often at Christmastime, I come up with or hear about some idea that I want to add to our Christmas traditions. Last year it was this...

I decided that I wanted to add a manger to our Christmas decorations. So, Jay built me one. We kept the manger empty until Christmas. Then, when the kids woke up on Christmas morning, the first thing they did was to go on a treasure hunt by "following the star" (star-shaped clues) to find Baby Jesus. We placed Him in the manger when they found Him and then we presented our gifts to Him (more on that another time).

This year, I was inspired by my friend's wooden candle-holder wreath to mark the days until Christmas, which she had gotten from Ann at A Holy Experience. I loved the idea of lighting an additional candle each night, making it brighter and brighter as it got closer to the coming of the Light of the World. (Or, you could just move one candle along to the next spot each night.) Our budget, however, requires us to do homemade sorts of decorations. So, I showed the picture to my husband, and a day later, here's what I got out of it...

My job is to stain it, which I obviously have not yet done.

Are you beginning to understand why I think my husband is amazing?

On a side note, Jay's right-hand man was, of course, by his side as he worked. He was working on trying to make himself a bow and arrow from tree branches and a rubber band. I commented that the razor blade was probably a bit too sharp for a 6 year old to be using. But Jay's response was, "The boy's got to learn how to use tools at some point." I have a feeling that Jake is going to be amazing just like his daddy!

Redeeming the Season, Part 1: Rethinking Santa

I'm going to try to post a couple of blogs with ideas for ways to point this Christmas season to Christ. (I already posted about Rice and Beans for Advent a few days ago.) Before I begin though, in case I come across as someone "holier than thou" because we don't do Santa around here, don't be fooled. We're just trying to be intentional about putting our focus where it should be and doing the holidays a little bit different than the norm. I wish I could say that my focus is where it should be all the time, but that would be far from the truth. That's why I need to put these little things in place...to help me to try to remember that Christ should be at the center of all that we do. I wish it just came naturally to me all the time, but, unfortunately, it doesn't. So, if anybody else needs some help with that too...

Rethinking Santa

Santa Claus doesn't visit the Herron household. (Gasp!) I'll give you a minute to reread that, let it sink in, and feel sorry for our poor, deprived children. Okay, now I'll explain why he doesn't and why we don't feel like our children are missing out because of it. First, I don't think that Santa is bad. Afterall, the idea of Santa comes from the real Saint Nicholas who is famous because of his amazing generosity to the poor and his love for God. Our kids know all about him and that he was a real person, and they also know that Santa is not a real person. They know that God is the only one who "sees them when they're sleeping and knows when they're awake," and that the gift of God's son is not for those who are good enough, but because none of us are good enough. God actually does "know if we've been bad or good," (bad!) but His gift is for us anyway. And that is what we want to focus on at Christmas - God's amazing gift to us, not Santa's.

Because we are bombarded with Santa at Christmastime though, we have chosen to use the opportunity to teach the kids about who Saint Nicholas really was and what he did for Christ. Our hope is that that will spur them on to want to be like him and to also want to give generously for Christ. When they see someone dressed up as Santa, they assume that it's because that person wants to emulate someone who was such a generous and caring person. Each year on or around December 6th (which is actually St. Nicholas Day), we have our own little St. Nicholas party with a few friends, and the kids get to pretend to be him. We usually do some sort of craft related to him and read some of the true stories about him, and then the kids get to deliver goodies in secret to people in the neighborhood. We choose a few random houses to leave something at the door, and then they ring the doorbell and run away. And they love it. In doing it this way, they get to focus on the joy of giving like St. Nick, rather than the joy of receiving from St. Nick.


I know that there are people who think that we are somehow stealing an important part of our kids' childhood from them because Santa doesn't come down the chimney and deliver presents to them on Christmas Eve. I completely disagree. We just choose to make different memories that include leaving presents for Jesus rather than cookies for Santa Claus. I know that we should be focusing on what we can do for Jesus all year long, but shouldn't Christmas, when we celebrate His birth, be a time to ESPECIALLY focus on Him and what He did for us? That is the main reason that Santa doesn't visit our house. There are some others, but it is mainly because we don't want Jesus to just be the side story to Santa and reindeer and presents. I want the kids to be excited that Jesus is in the manger, not because Santa came down the chimney and left them lots of goodies. I want Jesus to be THE story and THE reason that we celebrate.

In a future post, I will give some ideas of how we try to get the kids excited about Jesus in the manger. (For those of you who couldn't care less and just want a few pictures of the kids, I'll try to get those up first!)

Rice and Beans - Our Advent Conspiracy

A large focus in our family over the past year and a half has been on learning to live more sacrificially and give more generously. I say LEARNING because we are certainly not there yet and have such a LONG way to go. This does not just involve our finances, but that is obviously a big part of it. When it comes to money, I have never been a very generous person, so it has been a long road for me. Although we have always given "our 10%," for me, in the past it has always been because that's what I feel we should do and I did it out of obligation- not because I was doing so cheerfully and because it brought me joy to serve God in that way. I would never have dreamed of going above and beyond what I felt was necessary just for the joy of giving. Jay is far more generous with money than I am though, and I have slowly learned to be more so. I have started to learn that it really does bring joy to give money away. Really. That is especially true when we can see the direct impact of giving on a personal level, outside of just the monthly check to our church.

Another reason for the gradual shift in my attitude is because I have become increasingly aware of how much excess we live with. Yes, there are MANY times when I love our excess, and when I am so selfish and want so many things that I absolutely don't need. But, becoming more aware of what the majority of the world lives without, and seeing it firsthand, makes it far more difficult to justify gratifying my selfish desires when so many others are living without basic necessities. I am learning that we have been blessed in order to bless others, not so that we can hoard the blessings for ourselves.

So, in keeping with our family theme of learning to give sacrificially, last year during the advent season, we wanted to make an effort to try to reject the typical consumeristic mentality of the Christmas season, and to actually make the focus of Christmas be Christ and His birth and how He gave so sacrificially for us. We, along with other friends, decided that one way that we would attempt to do this would be to eat rice and beans for dinner every night from the day after Thanksgiving up until Christmas Eve. We would then take the money that we had saved by eating only rice and beans and give it away. It was a way for us to sacrifice something in order to have the ability to give more than what we would ordinarily give. It was also a great way to allow Jake and Addi to be directly involved in the giving...and the sacrificing. They were as much a part of it as we were, and some great things and wonderful lessons came out of it. It really helped us to be able to teach them to take the focus off of themselves and what they wanted to get for Christmas, and instead put the focus on Christ and what we could give Him. One verse that we really tried to focus on was Matthew 25:40, "The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for Me."

So...we are gearing up to do it again this season - another advent season of rice and beans. Now the question is...Does anybody want to join us??!!

Swim Lessons and Soccer Trophies

It was a big week in the Herron household. Jake received his first trophy ever (more on that shortly), and Addi started swim lessons. It's a huge blessing for us that Addi is able to take swim lessons and we are so grateful. Jay had decided that we would have to take the sink or swim approach with her in order for her to learn. I was afraid that she would sink for sure though and really wanted her to have lessons. Fortunately for us, somebody that we know from church owns a swim school near us, and very generously offered to give Addi lessons there for practically nothing. She was so excited to start and was literally counting down the days until her first lesson. I think that a part of the reason for her excitement was because she was going to be doing something that was just for her. It feels like we have gotten to do various things over the years for Jake that have been just for him, but she has never really had that. I loved that she was so excited about it. Here she is at her first lesson...

And, Jake had his last soccer game and his end of the season party last week where he received his long-awaited trophy. He could not wait to get that trophy, and he now often carries it with him around the house, making sure to place it where he can continue to admire it wherever he is. When his coach was passing out the trophies to each player, he would say something about that player and then everyone else had to try to guess who he was talking about. Before handing out Jake's, he said something along the lines of..."This player has really improved a lot this season. When he wasn't smiling and waving to his parents or grandparents or neighbors on the sidelines, or talking to the other players on the field, he played some great soccer." With ZERO hesitation, all of the other players started saying, "Jake, Jake, Jake!" We were always laughing at the fact that he would be out there on the field talking and laughing with anybody who happened to be in his general vicinity - it didn't matter who it was or what team he was on. As I think I've mentioned before, Jake does not know a stranger, and really does not have a competitive bone in his body. He is all about making friends and having fun, and because of that, he loved every second of his soccer games. I'm actually pretty sad that the season is over. I loved watching him out there each week.

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Safe Families For Children

Our church is partnering up with an organization that Jay and I have been involved with called Safe Families for Children. Actually, the organization is Olive Crest and the program through Olive Crest is Safe Families. It is separate from the foster care program through Olive Crest. Basically, they have started partnering up with churches and volunteers to care for at-risk children who are not a part of the foster care system. According to their website, "Safe Families for Children is a movement of compassion designed to reduce child abuse and return the church to the forefront of caring for children, as it had been throughout history."

Our pastor has asked us if we would be willing to briefly share a bit of our experience at an upcoming service in order to encourage others to get involved, and I am finding it tricky to try to figure out what to say. Yes, we need others to get involved and it is a great organization to get involved with. At the same time, the experience has been a very difficult one for us and has really tested and tried us and our faith. That is a good thing, but not necessarily what will encourage others to come running for the same experience! I want to be honest about the reality that it might be difficult, but let people know that THEY SHOULD DO IT ANYWAY.

The child that we were caring for is no longer with us and I have not written about that here for a couple of reasons. One, I don't really know how to put into words my feelings about it all; and two, I want to respect the privacy of her situation. This online world is a crazy place and I don't know who will come across this blog. I ended up removing another post that I had written while she was with us, just because I don't know that it is appropriate for me to be sharing in this place things about her or her family or her time with us. I want to be careful with that.

So, without going into too many specifics, here is what I think I would like people to know about our experience and why I think it is important to get involved...

There's no nice, neat ending to our story, and it has actually been really difficult all the way through. I would love to say that the experience has been rewarding and amazing, but the more honest reality is that it has stretched our family and tested us like nothing else. That is a good thing too - so please don't let that thought be what keeps you from getting involved. Caring for a child who is not your own and who also has some very special needs is really hard, and our family faced some of our darkest times over the past few months as we dealt with this.

THAT SAID...we also began to see an amazing transformation of a little girl, and we saw our own kids loving her like a sister and learning to care for others. We were given the opportunity to love a child that desperately needed to be loved, and watch her learn to love and trust us in return. That was the amazing and rewarding part and why I would encourage others to get involved and do the same thing. Or, even if you can't take a child in, you can support others who are doing so. That's actually the current role that we are taking on - supporting another woman who is in the same spot we were in. Jay and I felt very alone in what we were doing and that's why we eventually reached out to Safe Families for their support. (Our involvement was a little bit backwards. We first took the child in, and then later found out about Safe Families as we were struggling through things. At that point, they came alongside us in what we were already doing.)

Ultimately, the reason that we chose to do what we did was because it was a real, tangible, sacrificial way for us to love "the least of these" with the love of Christ. The little girl in our care absolutely needed (and needs) to be loved and to know that she is loved. And, for two and a half months, we were able to do that, and are now able to do it indirectly by supporting someone else. Like I said, there's no nice, neat ending to our story, and it was messy and it didn't go the way I envisioned. I am the ever-optimist and dreamer, and I envisioned our story ending with this child becoming a permanent part of our family. That's obviously not the way it went. But, again, we provided something that she so desperately needs even though it was temporary, and we were stretched and we grew and we learned more about ourselves in the process. And, we learned more clearly than ever that we are not in control (an ever-present theme for us!), but God is. We cannot force things to go the way we think they should go. All we can do is be obedient to Him and trust Him in the process.