Crafts and Christmas

 I've been doing some small projects here and there.  Some, like the above little creature, for a birthday party gift, and others for Christmas gifts or other Christmas related things (like the advent calendar tree below).  I enjoy this kind of thing and might post a few more things I've made recently in the next couple weeks.

As you can see I made this tree from toilet paper rolls.  It took a long time to collect them.  I just glued tissue paper (green) over the end of each roll and then hot glue-gunned them all together in a triangle shape.  The trunk is a tea box, and because it wasn't very stable has already been removed.  I filled each roll with a verse from the Bible telling the birth of Jesus, and then I also stuck in little figurines that came with this beautiful advent calendar in the picture below (thanks Kristin!).  And then I also stuck in a few notes like:  star gazing night, hot chocolate with bedtime stories, cookie decorating day, playing the "name game"--a game that will tell the meaning of our kids' names as well as Emmanuel and other names for God.  Some notes are just for fun and others go with the meaning of the the Christmas story.

So in the evenings (mornings are too hard for us) Malachi and Sonora take turns tearing open the number for the day, we read the verse, and they put the figurine on the lovely advent calendar (above).  Why do we do this?  Why the effort in the nifty advent tree?  Because  Christmas has meaning, and it isn't Santa or presents or the other number of things that have gotten mixed up with the name. It is celebrating the birth of Jesus.    Aaron and I have been thinking a lot about our Christmas traditions.  For our kids and for friends here that might not understand the meaning of Christmas, we'd like to highlight the traditions that have meaning,  find the real meanings for the ones that we've done mindlessly, and maybe even let others with no real meaning fade into the backdrop.  I put a bit of effort into this little project that isn't even salvageable after this year (except the figurines and calendar they go on) and all the while I thought I was doing it for the kids,  but really it is for me too.  It's good to remember every day the gift of Jesus, love come down, "God with us", my Savior and Redeemer . . . true tidings of comfort and joy.