Friday, December 12, 2008

From the mouths of babes

Winnie is very interested in dying lately. She talks about it every day, several times a day. She says, "I want to die to so that I can go to heaven and be with Grandpa Adkins and Abby" (My parents yellow lab who died a month or so ago). The other day in the car she asked, "Where is heaven?" To which Christopher Robin replied, "In the sky." She's almost 4 and that's the best we could come up with on the spot. Winnie thought about this for a second and then said, "Well, then when I die we'll fly up in an airplane to go to heaven and see Grandpa and Abby, ok?"

We will be flying in an airplane in March to go to Disneyland. I can only imagine the conversations we will be having on the plane!

Santa or no Santa...what do you do?

As Christian parents, we have struggled over the years with how to treat the Santa Claus story in our household. When we had Eeyore (our first daughter), we were very new Christians and were figuring a lot out as we went and decided to do Santa with gusto because, well, that was how it was done in our homes when we were growing up and we were ok, right?

So, we proceeded with stockings, letters to Santa, stories about Santa, setting out gifts under the tree from Santa, going to visit Santa, and then we'd throw in a few nativity scene's and stories about the birth of Jesus for good measure. All of this seemed to work just fine until...

Miss Eeyore started asking questions, and we were not quite ready to let the whole Santa thing go. So, we continued to promote the story of Santa being "real" in our home. At around this same time, I noticed that while Eeyore was asking questions about the validity of Santa, she was also asking some questions about Jesus too. Suddenly, I realized that what we had thought was innocent and fun, was really opening her and us up to a lot of confusion and explaining later on. Christmas became a time of stress, frustration and a lot of questions and dancing around the subject of Santa. Why weren't we just upfront and honest from the start? I have no idea. She was still so young and I think it was more about me not being ready to give up on the childlike joy of Santa, than her not being ready to hear that Santa was make believe.

Jump ahead a couple of years...we survived that experience and now here we are again with a soon to be 4 year old Winnie and 2 1/2 year old Tigger. This time, we have decided to downplay Santa. It's impossible to ignore him in our society, but we are not pretending he is real at all. Instead, we are talking about Jesus and celebrating His birthday. We do talk about Santa, but I always follow up with what Christmas is really about. We don't go into too much detail yet because the girls are young, but Winnie has started asking the more pressing questions this year and I am so thankful that we have not backed ourselves into a corner with the whole Santa thing.

I'm always looking for new and creative ways to navigate this subject with my children and my family. As the years have gone by and we've experimented with different methods, I have noticed that this is the first year that I feel virtually no anxiety. It feels really good to not jump through the Santa hoops. I always felt like such a liar! Like I was doing my child some grave injustice by placing her hopes in something that is not real when the real reason for Christmas is Jesus who is very much alive and real in all of us.

Not everyone feels as conflicted as I did and I certainly don't think that everyone should toss Santa out the window. I'd love to hear how you do it in your household. There are as many different ways to celebrate this time of year as there are families who celebrate it. So, if you feel led, please share your story here in the comments section. We can all learn a little something about each other and get ideas to try for our own families!

Blessings and Merry Christmas!

Kim

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Late night post about a few housekeeping things...

I keep thinking lately, "Oh, I should blog about that!" However, sadly, the pace of every day life has left me with very little energy or time to blog much lately. So, I thought I'd take a quick moment to take care of some loose ends.

First, I wrote not long ago about coming up with a different and more meaningful way for our family to celebrate Christmas this year. Here are a few small things that we have done:

1. We made care packages to keep in the car and give to homeless people that we encounter during the day. A small group that Christopher Robin and I participate in through church came up with t his idea and we all brought items to contribute to the care package and them put them together one night. Some of the items we put in the bags were: Tooth brushes, small packages of tissue, wet wipes, new socks, tuna and cracker kits, water bottles, chapstick, packages of applesauce, and bible tracts.

2. Getting together with friends to make really amazing homemade caramel apples. Thanks Dee! This was a fun, creative, way to bless our neighbors, friends and family.

3. I have been talking to the girls about this time of year being about celebrating Jesus' birth. It also just so happens that Winnie's birthday is January 3rd. So birthday's are a big topic of conversation around the house right now. We sing "Happy Birthday" to everyone in the family every night, and now we sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus too. Something kind of cool has happened as a result. The lense through which my girls view the world around Christmastime has changed. They now see things through the lense of, "This is Jesus' birthday" instead of, "This is about Santa bringing me presents". The other night as we were driving home, Winnie and Ava noticed all of the lights on our neighbors houses. In the midst of Oooo's and Aaaahhh's, I heard one of them say, "It's Jesus' Birthday!" I said, "That's right. Everyone puts lights on their houses and decorates to celebrate Jesus' birthday just like we put candle's on a cake when we celebrate your birthday." To this I received a chorus of, "Oh cool! Happy Birthday Jesus!" Now that was a totally amazing parenting moment. Thank you God!

4. Finally, we are planning to go to the snow on Christmas day instead of sitting around the house opening presents all day. It'll be the first time we've done this with all three girls and we are all looking forward to it. The idea is to make the day less about the presents we receive and more about spending time together as a family and being thankful for the best present we could ever have. The one God gave us when He sent His one and only son Jesus Christ to be born and to die for our sins so that we could be saved and have eternal life. That's the best gift ever. One we didn't deserve, but one that He knew we needed more than anything else.

Thank you God for your most amazing gift!

Love,

Kim